Who’s mocking whom?

When absurdities by too many pizellu politicians are happening on a daily basis, a penchant for the ludicrous yet, in their own way, eloquently voiced, scathing expressions by Emy Bezzina, exactly epitomize the frame of mind of our nation, today.

It is easy to see why Dr Bezzina’s show has become so popular… in a sea of bland, repetitive television programming, his acerbic style is a kind of cathartic stress relief, while his use of politically incorrect language is seem by many as a welcome change.
It is easy to see why Dr Bezzina’s show has become so popular… in a sea of bland, repetitive television programming, his acerbic style is a kind of cathartic stress relief, while his use of politically incorrect language is seem by many as a welcome change.

You can pretty much tell what the feeling is in the country during Carnival.

This year, the personality of choice for favourite costume was none other than Emy Bezzina, he of the colourful choice of phrase, who has captured the public’s imagination with his very carefully phrased insults towards viewers who phone in during his talk show Il-Parlament tal-Poplu (The People’s Parliament) on Smash TV with what he decides are moronic questions or observations. 

One woman told him his shirt does not match his tie… so he let rip.

Another suggested he go into politics with an obvious smirk in his voice…and Bezzina flew off the handle.

Should a TV presenter be applauded for calling people fools, idiots, chicken brains, cretins, and worse? One would think that the answer would be, no. In one particularly creative one-liner, he described the caller as someone whose brain is like “an onion marinated in rat’s droppings”. It loses a lot in translation, but trust me, the Maltese version will probably gone down in folklore insult history, if there is such a thing. On this particular occasion, Dr Bezzina was so beside himself with rage at having his time wasted by a crank call that he went too far, and even told the caller to tie an anchor around his neck and take a flying leap from Dingli bastions, even though there is no such place. It was at this point that the Broadcasting Authority stepped and issued a warning to the owners of the TV station, informing them that they needed to adopt “increased vigilance” both on Dr Bezzina’s comments as well as those of callers.

It is clear that many of the calls were being made deliberately to wind him up, knowing that they would trigger this kind of outrageous reaction.

The man is belligerent and cranky and (some suggest) not quite all there, and yet he has become a pop culture phenomenon, and to come back to my original point, no where was this more in evidence than over the weekend, as several people dressed up as the man himself, complete with a bowls of peas (in homage to his habit of calling people “pizellu” – a pea-brain). (And, just as an aside, Dr Bezzina has always been considered eccentric from the days he used to present the TV programme Anima, many years ago, which was considered scandalous at the time because of his outspoken views on sex. With the passage of time, he has simply become even more so).

There have been autotune videos made about his insults, and he has become an Internet meme. But the ultimate “compliment” is that he has been embraced by those who are cheering him on, describing him as the most refreshing thing to appear on TV in a while, because, they point out, he is simply calling a spade a spade.

Emy Bezzina is at the heart of this year’s Carnival in much the same way that Franco Debono was a few years ago back when his outbursts during his television appearances were being quoted by everyone, especially the now famous catchphrase addressed to Lou Bondi., “mela jien il-pappagall tieghek? “what am I, your parrot?”. Colourful, eccentric, outspoken people tend to stick out in a country where most prefer to just go with the flow and blend in with the rest of the crowd.

It is easy to see why Dr Bezzina’s show has become so popular… in a sea of bland, repetitive television programming, his acerbic style is a kind of cathartic stress relief, while his use of politically incorrect language is seem by many as a welcome change. To be fair, when he is not insulting viewers, he has been known to make valid observations about what is wrong in the country, criticizing where criticism is due. Those who are phoning him to take the piss, on the other hand, represent a section of the TV audience which enjoys perpetuating the absurd, even if it means resorting to cruelty. They phone in to mock Bezzina, and he in turn lashes out at them with some choice turn of phrase, which leads to the whole exchange providing a source of entertainment for those who are just watching. It reminds me of the way offbeat characters who declare themselves as election candidates find a “following” among those who have nothing better to do than to create faux political meetings in pretend support of this candidate, making a mockery out of the whole thing. 

So perhaps what we are seeing is that, in the current climate where absurdities by too many pizellu politicians are happening on a daily basis, a penchant for the ludicrous yet, in their own way, eloquently voiced, scathing expressions by Emy Bezzina, exactly epitomize the frame of mind of our nation, today. It is a form of alienation born out of disenchantment and disillusion – and since there is not much of an alternative, one might as well just don a Carnival mask, and laugh.