20 years later, "20 Minutes" plunges back into his memories of the "Star Ac"

• This Saturday, TF1 celebrates the anniversary of its first telecrochet and broadcasts 

  Star Academy: We said we would meet in 20 years

  .

• Outstanding performances, unforgettable candidates, timeless TV moments… The show offered incredible sequences on the small screen.

• The

  20 Minutes

  “Culture” promo 

   opens its memory box.

Saturday 20 October 2001, 8:53 p.m. As 

arrives on the small screen, millions of French women and men are wondering: what is hidden behind this program which promises "love, hatred, friendship, rivalry, joy and sorrow"? Funny enumeration for a telecrochet whose goal is to bring out an artist at the end of 84 days of competition. Over the weeks, but also over the years, the TF1 show ends up finding its place and becomes a real social phenomenon.

At the time, the current

journalists were 

 starting their adulthood or were in the midst of a critical period of adolescence (or even childhood).

It is therefore with the eyes of television viewers that we discover the victory of Jenifer, the abandonment of Pierre or the services of Grégory Lemarchal.

20 years later, the

department

back to its memories to evoke its most outstanding moments of its

.

The "Star Ac" according to Clément: the moment when everything goes out

star Academy

, it's all my childhood. When the show arrived on TF1, I was only 5 years old, not a lot of teeth, and therefore very few memories of the first season. What I do remember, however, is this event that traumatized me two years later. The eighth bounty starts normally, I thought I could watch Elodie Frégé sing, her eyes filled with love like every week, until a group of people dressed in black unfurled a banner on which it was written "turn off your TVs" . When I see this, I then turn to my parents, panicked, and ask them to press the button on the remote control to obey orders from the people behind the screen. At the time, I did not understand who are the intermittents of the show.I do not know either that they do not wish me personally harm even if it seems to me to have had nightmares about it that same night… The following week, the feeling of dread comes back to me when I open the

placed on the living room table and the photo of the tray displayed on a full page.

Scared but not traumatized, the interruption of this live bonus will not prevent me from attending the concert of the third promotion of

, the very first of my life.

Enough to forge me an excellent musical culture for the rest of my life.

The "Star Ac" according to Laure: the moment when "I want and I demand"

Let's be honest, I don't have a lot of

memories

.

It's not because I was young, because I was 17 well typed, but because I preferred

and

, highly more intellectual as a show (not at all).

The only memory I have left of this castle of apprentice casseroles, besides the love story between Jenifer and Jean-Pascal, are the articulations lessons of Armande Altaï, the mythical singing teacher of the first three seasons.

For several weeks, I trained in front of my small screen to articulate his "I want and I demand" (with the pronunciation of the connections which would give: I want Zé I demand), much more difficult than it seems. .

And I have to say I wouldn't have finished first in the class.

It took me an infinite amount of time to get a perfect score.

I didn't come out of those viewing sessions smarter, but more adept at pronunciation.

It's not so bad.

The "Star Ac" according to Benjamin: the moment when you have to play a chair

The

was not just young people in sportswear singing and dancing badly. It was also young people in sports clothes who played badly. Long before the scripted rants of the

and the

, there were the rants of Jean-Pascal and the crocodile tears of Emma… And to make matters worse, the candidates, trained to become “complete” artists », Had acting lessons. Out of decency, we will not recall the name of the theater teacher from the first seasons (Oscar Sisto), but I do remember it. At the time (circa 2002-2003), I "frequented" the theatrical circle of the Bordeaux Regional Conservatory. And the

theater sessions

where you had to mimic a chair or act out emotions in the chain Actor's Studio way of the poor had the knack of putting the nerves in ball of my "associates": "How can you watch this shit?

Will people think that's our job?

What is it, learning the game and the stage?

This show is doing so much harm to the theater!

»Don't panic, a lot of people thought that the show also hurt the music…

The "Star Ac" according to Fabien: the moment when the closet opens

I was not yet 18 when the

 arrived on TF1. At the time, I had only come out to my friends. Openly gay personalities or characters were extremely rare on French television. It was difficult, even impossible, to find on the screens models that I could identify with, figures through which I felt represented. In Telecrochet season 1, the apprentice singers were all straight by default - if some of them were from the LGBT community, that aspect was silent. Ordinary homophobia was not invisible. I remember Jean-Pascal pricking his fits, yelling in the courtyard of the castle that "dancing is for PD" and insisting "I'm not a PD of the ass, me! »- the sequence, shown in a daily, was rebroadcast during a prime,under the laughter of the public, in terms of symbolic violence, it arises there. A few episodes later, Mario was worried, mike open, whether his shirt "does not [know] too PD". The following seasons, the gay and lesbian candidates ended up gaining (a little) in visibility. I remember the coming-out of Anne-Laure in season 2 implied by her interpretation of

- curious choice of song, when you think about it.

In season 3, Michal was not yet "out", but I understood that my points in common with this sensitive boy were not limited to the adoration of Mylène Farmer.

I followed the following seasons a little less, but I'm not sure the rainbow colors shone well.

This look in the retro shows how well things have turned out in twenty years.

The LGBT talents of telecrochets are no longer condemned to remain in the closet and easily evoke this part of their identity.

The only one who has not changed is Nikos Aliagas, still an excellent master of ceremonies of the television variety.

The “Star Ac” according to Clio: the moment when I learn to live intensely

I was 13 and I was in 4th B (or C maybe). My lot of acne pimples and blackheads, rough dress taste and oily hair. A notable annoyance too. From the depths of my countryside and my little college lost between two fields, only rare Happy Meal and an annual dance show in the village hall decorated with crepe paper, spiced up my daily life as a teenager. And then I discovered the

. A universe where everything was going faster, stronger, further. This world in which we went from laughter to tears in a quarter of a second and without narcotics (I think). Where true love was born in the morning to be consumed in the evening with a crash. This castle in which you exploded your anger and rage by exploding plywood doors. Without forgetting this famous sequence during season 3 which made me feel alive: that of the departure of Pierre after his cover of

in period costume. "I'm not waiting for my freedom to be returned to me, I am taking it", he declared in front of a haggard audience and a stunned Nikos. Maybe it was that night that I made one of the first real decisions of my life: I will go to 1st L. "YOLO".

The “Star Ac” according to Anne: the moment when I hear the “orange thing”

When

was launched in 2001, I was a PhD student, living in Paris for two years, in an 18m2 studio without television. On my turntable that year, 

Radiohead's

,

Air's

or

Björk's

. I hang out where there is “good sound”, at Rex, Pulp, Batofar, Scream parties or raves organized by Heretik or Spiral Tribe. My only memory of

is one evening back in my home province, as the Christmas holidays approach. The car radio sings at the top of its lungs in a duet with my mother the

"orange thing"

. I learned that this is a cover of a title by Gilbert Bécaud,

came out in 1964. This is how I (almost) missed the TF1 telecrochet.

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