(Night)Dreams' Path...

  

The world of show business is ruthless and doesn't mess around. It doesn't care about inner values, it doesn't call the neighbor's newborn, awfully ugly child beautiful, it doesn't make millions of women believe on their first dates that yes, this will be a serious relationship when it clearly won't, but most importantly, it doesn't lie to itself with dreams. It doesn't create or chase illusions; instead, it stands firmly with the clearest possible mind above the cash register and churns out everyone who doesn't bring in the right numbers or doesn't fit into the ideologized worldview that show business simply calls beauty. The entertainment industry doesn't need long-term shoddy products (bikicsunáj) and unsellable productions. Where ideals and global trends meet in a world where everything is pink and even the rainbow is drenched in some syrupy crap, there is certainly no place for the duplicitous, hypocritical, and grim reality of everyday life. This is a clear and unambiguous world, because where everything seems colorful and dazzlingly luxurious, in reality, everything is black and white. If you are pretty and attractive, you can even be a talentless nobody, but for a while, you can still succeed. (Remember Valóvilág, Éden Hotel, Zimány Linda?) If beauty is also coupled with talent, then every door is open to you in every area of life; the entertainment industry and all media platforms will welcome you with open arms. But what if life didn't give you the right external attributes, or you started going downhill and falling apart? In short, it sucks, and longer, it sucks even more, because then they thank you for your participation and you can go back to the gas station to wipe windows.

Showbiz doesn't lie to itself, but it lies to everyone else. It sells dreams and offers non-existent worlds as an alternative to all those who are fed up with all the crap that surrounds them every day. That's why we want to see beautiful women and good cars, follow unattainable lives, watch ideal family fathers instead of obese husbands rotting on the couch, and imagine our own in well-functioning family models, but most importantly, watch the rise of everyday people with whom we can identify the most. We get hope and a crutch that helps us survive this whole life-named shit. To believe that by copying brands, liking brands, following people, we can also be part of that certain showbiz-compatible happy life.

This is why this whole media hype works, and this is precisely why the television is in the central place in 70% of households. People need dreams and role models to survive. Athletes and teams, a happy and successful woman on page 23 of Glamour, who found the successful man in her WORK. Women who succeeded. A woman who lost weight, a happy mother, having cocktails with successful single girlfriends, in some damned poser place full of grasping parvenus or nobodies pretending to be so. The life and standard of living full of illusions they want to belong to, that they feel is their own, but which they could never achieve and have no chance of being a part of. Why not? That doesn't matter. Because of their own limitations, or because external circumstances didn't allow it, the misguided upbringing of petty, small-minded parents, or simply because they never tried to find and push their limits. These desires and feelings are sold to us every day, and we buy them without thinking. Advertisements are based on this, movies are made for this, and lyrics are written for songs for this reason.

The media world doesn't accommodate anything below average, anything petty bourgeois or hopelessly mundane, because although we like to identify with Susan Boyle and are made to believe that one day we too... one day we too will hit the big time, we still know that it's absolutely not going to happen. Because even if millions of people's hearts beat together with Susan Boyle or Paul Potts, when the lights go out and the stop button is pressed on the cameras, we only need the feeling, the effect created; we no longer need Susan Boyle herself.

 

The manipulation of advertisements, the supremacy of objects, the status symbols that make us feel superior, and for which we expect our social position to rise. But it's just a name on your shirt, a logo on your car, numbers on a piece of paper. Everyone knows this well, from agencies to TV companies to large studios. That's why they push better and better women in front of us, and after that, it doesn't matter what the ad is about or what they want to sell. We want to see women, preferably not the one sitting in the other room having her 72nd tantrum of the day, because a man, no matter how much in love, will always sexually desire another woman, even if he would never cheat on his partner. This is what women will never understand. Because you can sell millions of Borsodi with beer bellies and mesh tank tops, but with bad girls, unsmiling children, and men who don't look successful, it's absolutely nothing. Let's remember the huge failure of the Chokito ugly but tasty brand, or here's Dove, which was the first to break with traditions and started to define itself with everyday women instead of models. Now, it's one thing that the concept failed miserably, because who would want to buy a product that confronts them with themselves, and anyway, who wants to be ordinary? That said, even in the most booming weeks of the campaign, they painstakingly made sure that those everyday women were "advertisement-ready" everyday women. Basing a campaign on women's self-esteem crisis, by the way, is one of the most lucrative things on this planet.

Now that women's self-esteem has been brought up, it's worth noting a few things. Because it's one thing where women place themselves and what they think about themselves or their place in the world, because nobody gives a damn. What matters is what men think of them, and what women think of each other, and this works brilliantly both ways. Because I don't run 30 kilometers a week and die in the gym every day because of the guys either. One day I wondered if, without women, the concept of ambition would even exist in men's society. If we didn't have to meet the triangle of perspective, ambition, and career, which women consider most important, would we all really just drift aimlessly? I'd add right away, happily and freely. Yes, women expect us to bring something to that damned table, but in return, we absolutely expect from them outward appearance, meticulousness, and sensual femininity. If we don't get this and don't have the strength to change, then we flee into the fantasy world offered by the media. But there, there is no pardon. No grown-out hair, dark circles under the eyes, cellulite, sagging butt, and 10 kilos of excess weight. BUT neither are obese, tired, beer-bellied, down-and-out men. Or if they are, the all-important 18-49 age group simply switches channels.

This Saturday, the Summer Project kicks off with the first round of casting. I was looking at the applicants and kept thinking that they have no idea what they're getting into. They are blindly entering a 3-month period that I am convinced 90% of the group is completely unprepared for. Neither for what awaits them physically, nor for the mental pressure they will constantly receive during the show, but most of all, not for the kind of dissection that only the media world is capable of. Expectations I've talked about so far, because either the guy performs and transforms, or the show fails and they switch channels, and we can go back to jumping in ballet. I had the privilege of observing this fantastic commercial world from the inside for a while, and I must say, every minute of it was a fantastic experience.

Will it be fun? I think so. Will they be better people by the end of the show? Certainly externally. Will they regret applying for the show? Absolutely. But at least they'll try. Maybe they'll fail, but they'll try to change, to develop, to step out of their everyday routine and show that yes, damn it, you just have to dare and want it. This guy's task will be far from just losing weight and getting muscular; it will be the same as Petra's and Dani's task: to show the way and inspire. To show that yes, there is life below 3000 calories a day, and you can live with 5 workouts a week even while working, so you can look into that damn mirror and not just be happy from eating tons of chocolate. Everyone is driven by different goals, plans, and motivations, but everyone expects something from this show and, looking further, from life, but whether they get it or not will depend solely and exclusively on them. This Saturday, in any case, we will get a little closer to the solution.

Hello!

I would gladly put myself to the test in front of the Summer Project viewers, hoping it would bring some change and structure to my diet, my life, and my self-confidence.
If I were to get in, I feel it would only have positive effects on me!

Hey, 

My big dream in life is to be a rock star: shirtless guitar playing, posing on magazine covers. But that doesn't work without a torso like Iggy Pop or RHCP. 

Be my Uncle Tibi Dévényi and help me lose weight to become a rock star!

 

The media and the closely related entertainment industry are the purest and most honest worlds. If they want to convey to the reader the ruin and decline of a star, they simply publish a before-and-after photo of them. It's daunting and frightening, at least for me, what 20-30 kilos of extra weight can do to a person, and I'm not just talking about the appearance here. We haven't heard much about them lately...