Subject: [CivilSoc] "The Naked Truth"--Infotainment Reaches New Heights in Moscow
From: Center for Civil Society International (ccsi@u.washington.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 02 2000 - 13:24:38 EDT
This item Xposted from Johnson's Russia List
<davidjohnson@erols.com>, #4552 2 October 2000
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
2 October 2000
It's the truth: Nude news heat up Moscow TV
GEOFFREY YORK
MOSCOW -- Something strange is happening on Pravda Street.
Down the block from the stodgy Communist newspaper, an irreverent
gang of television mavericks has found a cheeky way of revealing the
news--and a lot more besides.
Consider their unorthodox coverage (or uncoverage) of the Sydney
Olympics this week. The anchorwoman, a 25-year-old blonde named
Svetlana Pesotskaya, solemnly recited the news of Russia's gold-medal
results, while topless water-polo players and striptease gymnasts
cavorted around her.
The late-night newscast is known as Golaya Pravda, or The Naked
Truth.
Pravda's most famous subscriber, Vladimir Lenin, would be appalled,
especially since the brazen show is broadcast from what was once the
health and recreation building of the propaganda daily's printers.
But the site is now the headquarters of Moscow's fastest-growing
television channel, M1, and The Naked Truth is its flagship show. The
newscast has been nominated for a television award for humour.
They say it is an elaborate metaphor for the "news pornography" of
mainstream Russian newscasts, which are notorious for
scandal-mongering and dirty-tricks campaigns.
"The idea of The Naked Truth was born during the last parliamentary
elections, which were a real circus, a real striptease show," Ms.
Pesotskaya explained. "Our program was just the right thing at the
right time."
Usually it is Ms. Pesotskaya herself, a professionally trained
actress, who becomes topless by the end of the newscast. Always
maintaining an air of dignity, she earnestly reads the latest mundane
Russian news bulletins from a Teleprompter while her clothes
mysteriously fall off, item by item, until she is exposed in her full
buxom glory.
Often she is assisted by props or assistants, depending on the theme
of the day. Once she read the news while being slowly stripped by a
Latin tango dancer. Another show created the mood of a Moscow kitchen
with a leaking roof, a saucepan on the anchor desk to catch the
dripping water, and a succession of young women stripping and hanging
their blouses on a clothesline behind her.
The 10-minute newscast is followed by a topless weather forecast,
featuring a rotating cast of amateur volunteers.
The show does not contain any "banal vulgarity," Ms. Pesotskaya
insisted proudly this week as she taped the first edition of her
second full season.
"Our show is popular because it's original. Almost every other
Russian newscast was just copied from Western television. We were the
first to introduce a non-standard approach to the news. In the other
shows, the news readers are too serious."
As its popularity grows, The Naked Truth is becoming more ambitious.
Now it dispatches its topless correspondents to the State Duma, the
lower house of parliament, where they politely interview Communists
and Agrarians on the political issues of the day.
The Duma members, pleased to have anyone listening to them, are
unperturbed by the semi-naked journalists. The Communists sternly
repeat their antigovernment rhetoric, ignoring the nudity of the
interviewers. Other politicians are so anxious to appear on the
newscast that they eagerly volunteer to do their own striptease
routine.
North American concepts of political correctness do not exist in
Russia, and Ms. Pesotskaya is glad of it. "One member of parliament
even joined my striptease and took off his jacket, tie and shirt,"
she recalled.
"In my opinion, the taboos in the West are absurd. They want people
to be robots, not human beings. In our country, politicians are more
popular after they appear on our show."
The channel's director, Sergei Moskvin, has his own theory about why
his newscast has such a cult following among lawmakers. "The
parliament is like an army barracks. Each guy wants to boast how cool
he is. So everyone there likes The Naked Truth, and when one of them
appeared on the show, everyone else wanted to appear too."
The Naked Truth, he adds, is neither an erotic show nor a newscast,
nor straight satire. "It's like crossing a motorcycle with a
crocodile. Of course we are joking, but if you can understand a joke
at once, it's not a good joke. We're mocking everything, including
erotic shows. I think our show is one of the funniest in the world."
Mr. Moskvin dreamed up the topless newscast last year to poke fun at
a friend who was a famous news anchorman for a competing channel. "I
was so tired of him, I decided to mock him. I invented it as a
one-time show. But my phone rang off the hook; everyone was asking me
for videotapes of the show. I decided to rerun it, so that everyone
could make their own copies, but the ratings were very high. So we
decided to make it a weekly show."
The owners of M1 have never been officially identified, but there are
unconfirmed reports the channel was recently purchased by Lukoil, the
giant Russian oil company. Clearly the channel has a lot of money:
This summer it moved its 150 employees into the newly renovated
five-storey building on Pravda Street.
M1 portrays itself as the channel of irony, satire and quirky
unpredictability. In the process, it is tapping a rich vein of
Russian humour.
"For almost 80 years, people in Russia have lived under constant
stress," Mr. Moskvin said. "Humour was the only way out. It was the
only way to support their optimism."
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