The Week That Was: Sex Tapes and Confessions

Can we all agree we're bored of the budget, that the hashtag #grannytax was definitely not the reason Twitter was invented, and move onto the real story of the week: Tulisa's sex tape. No, ofyou haven't watched it! You and everyone else in the office, I'll bet. Except, it's not just about the sex tape now (let's face it, Z-listers punting those out onto the interweb are two-a-penny), it's about a lesson in how to turn utter humiliation into iconic triumph.
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Can we all agree we're bored of the budget, that the hashtag #grannytax was definitely not the reason Twitter was invented, and move onto the real story of the week: Tulisa's sex tape.

No, of course you haven't watched it! You and everyone else in the office, I'll bet.

Except, it's not just about the sex tape now (let's face it, Z-listers punting those out onto the interweb are two-a-penny), it's about a lesson in how to turn utter humiliation into iconic triumph as our blogger Gwyneth Holland eloquently explains.

Up until whatever time it was on Thursday when Tulisa posted her YouTube confession video, I was still of the opinion that the singer/X Factor judge was just a slightly more annoying version of every other identikit 'young female judge' Simon Cowell manufactured into his shows. Now I want to hold her up as my new feminist icon.

Because, despite his very best efforts, and some (rumoured) costly dental work, Cowell had been failing in his bid to turn Tulisa into Cheryl Version 2.0, aka the nation's new sweetheart. We just didn't quite buy the 'little muffins', arm-salute routine. Too 'this has been focus-grouped to the Nth degree' for our reality TV-trained eye. Now, thanks to some nifty, X-rated (phone)camera work, Tulisa just might have succeeded where Cowell failed.

Not because she made a sex tape (dear God, why?) but because she didn't apologise for it. And she exposed the rat who distributed it for all to see, too.

True, her lawyers attempted to deny it to begin with, but I like to think it was Tulisa who called BS on that cover-up plan, knotted her hair back, scraped off the ITV war-paint and waltzed off with video camera in hand to sort the situation out herself, pin-striped solicitors wailing in her wake.

Because she's got a point: why should she apologise for making the tape? This wasn't some seedy one-night stand in the alley behind a night-club, she was in a relationship with the man she thought she might marry, and who's to comment what's right and what's wrong behind bedroom doors in that case.

She's young (handily the title of her new single, its release timed to heightened-publicity perfection) and she's not for a second going to let this, let's call it, 'episode' hold her back and make her feel ashamed.

The other reason I've fallen a little more in love with Tulisa this week, is she finally showed our American cousins there is something we can do better than them.

Yes, Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton, I'm talking to you.

Frankly, I'm a little bored of the good ol' US of A trouncing us when it comes to pretty much every form of visual arts. They have Friends; we have Holby City. They have The Godfather; we have Shaun of the Dead. Even when we do find something we're not half-bad at, eg BBC spy dramas, they manage to out-Spook us (Homelands). And when we produce a real-life character worthy of Oscar-winning potential, we have to use an American to play her (Meryl as Maggie).

But while I'm not going to compare lighting or scripts between the Paris and Tulisa tapes, you can bet your bottom dollar, no Hollywood blonde would have taken to YouTube to answer her critics once the flick went viral.

Finally, there's also the fact the whole episode gave the nation's press the opportunity to showcase something else we excel at, or more specifically something the Sun's sub-editors really excel at - fabulous, close-to-the-mark headlines.

'Sex Tape Tulisa Hasn't Blown Her Job'? Classic.

Osbourne, if you want some sympathy next time you're wielding the red box, maybe it's worth taking to YouTube to explain the thinking behind your actions?

But only to explain it, please, that is one sex tape no-one wants to see...