Title: Starsuckers
Starring: N/A
Directed By: Chris Atkins
UK Release Date: 12 April 2010
Running Time: 101 minutes
Certificate: 12
Director Chris Atkins was BAFTA nominated for Taking Liberties. Now he returns with Star Suckers, a fascinating look at the real reality hidden behind the false reality that we see on our TV screens. Investigating our inherent addiction to TV and fame as well as our desire or sometimes ‘need’ to be close to the stars and our ‘heroes’, Star Suckers is a compelling documentary that uncovers the truth behind the lies.
Star Suckers effectively gets under the skin of the corporations – the big media outlets of TV and print media – and tells us what really goes on. The unsubstantiated gossip stories in the newspapers, how members of the public are regularly fooled by the media machine and how TV companies make their money at our expense. All is uncovered.
Granted you may think that a lot of this will not be a problem for some of us – too media savvy to fall for such cheap and dirty tricks – but Star Suckers focuses on the members of the public too gullible to believe that they are being made fools of – the parents that are desperate for their children to appear on TV – regardless of what the subject matter might be – and the ‘successful’ or would be contestants on reality TV such as Big Brother, Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor. Yet even those that think they can rise above this level of fairly blatant trickery may find themselves learning a thing or two about the way journalism and public relations works.
Covertly filmed over a period of two years, Star Suckers is a well packaged combination of undercover reporting, media stunts designed to fool an unwitting public, and interviews with relevant, leading psychology and sociology professors, that reveals the toxic effect that the British, American and World media has upon the public, including even more shockingly, our children – who are so wrapped up in the idea of being ‘famous’ that they’d choose it over being ‘successful’.
The truth it seems has become, in modern day Britain and the rest of the world, no more than a distant memory as ‘reporters’, ‘journalists’ and ‘public relations people’ fill our lives with lies. Star Suckers is a riveting watch for anyone with an interest in the media and for anyone else with an interest in the psychology of fame and addiction.
