Paul Thomas: Clarkson, X Factor - toothless penalty for TV bullies

Willy Moon and Natalia Kills. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

They came, they saw, they were mean. And, apparently, they committed career suicide.

According to some, Natalia Kills all right: that lifeless object at her feet is her future. And as he contemplates his equally bleak prospects, Willy must be a very blue Moon.

It's hard to feel sorry for a couple who seem hell-bent on making themselves the most despised husband and wife team since Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. They exhibited dangerous levels of nastiness, self-regard and irony deficiency. It must, for instance, have shocked gigolos to discover Moon has exclusive rights to the lounge lizard look.

They obviously saw themselves following in the bad cop footsteps of Mr X Factor himself, Simon Cowell. According to Wikipedia, Cowell's signature line is "I don't mean to be rude, but" followed by "an unsparingly blunt appraisal of contestants' talent, personality or even physical appearance". Largely on the basis of his smirk and penchant for the preprepared put-down, Cowell has a reported net worth of $400 million.

Biting criticism gets quoted and re-quoted; it gets the critic noticed. Of the millions of words Clive James has written, his most celebrated phrase is the description of Arnold Schwarzenegger as looking like "a condom full of walnuts". The most talked-about recent book review was Tibor Fischer's excoriation of Martin Amis' novel Yellow Dog, which he likened to "your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground masturbating". The runner-up would be Norman Mailer comparing the experience of reading Tom Wolfe's doorstop novel A Man In Full to making love to a 140kg woman: "Once she gets on top, it's all over. Fall in love, or be asphyxiated."

True, the authors are big boys; then again, writing a novel is a more demanding and time-consuming undertaking than singing someone else's song. And televised talent shows are very public contests: you're putting yourself out there to be critically evaluated and subjected to invidious comparison.

We're told bullying is the issue and that Kills' and Moon's shaming represents a significant boost for the anti-bullying cause. I hope so, but I can't help but feel that bullying witnessed by a nationwide TV audience is not really what we should be worrying about.

Meanwhile, the war on bullying isn't going so well on the northern front. Yes, Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson was sacked for punching and screaming abuse (for 20 expletive-laden minutes) at a colleague who didn't realise his job description extended to conjuring up steak and chips at 10pm, but a million people signed a petition demanding that the bully not be sacked.

Now media conglomerates are scrambling for the bully's services and overbearing ways, with reports suggesting the successful bidder will stump up to the tune of $20 million a year.

And let's not forget our own Paul Henry.

In 2010 Henry landed himself in hot water by questioning the "Kiwiness" of then Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand who was born in Auckland to an Indo-Fijian family. Before that he'd generated controversy - and no doubt bumped up his ratings -- by going out of his way to be rude. Like Kills and Moon, he was gratuitously horrid towards a socially awkward X Factor contestant, calling Scottish singer Susan Boyle "a retard". (Boyle suffers from Asperger syndrome.)

Like Clarkson, Henry believed he had a licence to "push boundaries" which is a euphemism for offending as many people as possible without alienating the advertisers. Like Clarkson, he came to believe - and was encouraged in this process by his employer and the media - that his talent to offend was the driver of his success.

Like Clarkson, Henry's setback - he was suspended by and subsequently resigned from TVNZ - was temporary. He switched to the rival organisation and carried on regardless, apparently impervious to ratings disasters and self-inflicted wounds. He starts a new show next month.

Kills and Moon are following the Clarkson/Henry template: they've been "outspoken and opinionated"; they've got people's backs up; they've been given the sack. Now it should just be a matter of sitting back and waiting for the offers to roll in.