The Apprentice

Joy Stefanicki: fired, 13th October 2010

I spend half of each episode of The Apprentice constantly on the point of switching over. I find the abrasive stupidity of the contestants almost unbearable. These are not the sort of people I want to spend any time with - even if they are on the other side of the screen. Here we have the normalized 'narcissistic personality disorder' of the Big Brother generation fused with the normative ideology of business: 'I say exactly what I think, I get exactly what I want, I will win at all costs...'. The beauty of Big Brother, though, is that the format itself - especially the extreme length of the time most contestants must spend in the house - means that this ego-shell is peeled away bit by bit until it's patently obvious that the proclamations of the contestants is all bluster.

A similar argument is often used about the moral punishment dealt out on The Apprentice. The beauty of this show, the argument goes, is that we can rejoice in seeing the most obnoxious people flayed by Sir Alan, scourge of the vain and stupid, in the boardroom at the end. Last night's episode, for example, revealed Joanna as mouthy and unnecessarily combative in the tasks and then forced to acknowledge her 'aggressive' nature by Sir Alan. Strangely, though, neither she nor her inept team-leader, Laura (who boasted at the start she could deal with any kind of personality only to demonstrate she could deal successfully with no-one) was fired. No, it was their fellow team-member Joy - ironically-named yet essentially well-meaning. Why? Because she was deemed to have shown Sir Alan 'nothing' in two weeks. And this, ultimately, is why I hate The Apprentice: the narcissistic aggressivity of the candidates is validated by Sugar's own business ethic. The lesson of each episode is: you have to show yourself as mouthy, aggressive, contemptuous towards others, determined to win at all costs... but you just have to do it in the right way.