In Praise of Big Brother
Honestly, that’s a sentence I never thought I would write. I have long loathed BB above all reality shows both for its appeal to the lowest common denominators in the human psyche and even more so for its interminable dullness. These views have left me on the wrong side of the water cooler for six long years, and I have been patiently waiting for the tide to turn…
And now it has. But not in the way I expected. For the first time in years (in my view EVER) Big Brother is offering (a) gripping television (b) international news and (c) relevant and useful socio-culutral debate.
Recent events have so permeated the news that unless you have actually been IN the Big Brother house, there seems little reason for me to recap; but here is a neat summary and here is a photo of some naked models protesting the racism against Shilpa Shetty.
My two cents about it all:
- I support Andy Duncan, CEO of C4’s position that this type of “uncomfortable viewing” is useful in the context of exposing attitudes that any of us with brown skin who actually live in the real England, know are common place.
- But I simultaneously agree, from what I’ve seen, the actual “racism” has been of the fairly mild, garden variety, confusion and discomfort about difference, and reaching for the easiest weapon, rather than anything really cruel or evil.
- So I find it interesting that public opinion against racism seems to be so wide spread and voracious that it now has economic force: see how commercial brands ran a mile from Big Brother and the perpetrators of the alledged racism, forcing them to recant (but how did they know their careers were crumbling - that seems to imply that their agents had communicated with them -which is in breach of BB rules… hmmm)
- And I’m concerned that this is less about an attempt to get systemic about an understanding that Britain is a multi-cultural society, that needs to engage in a systemastic debate on race and culture, and more knee-jerk polictical correctness.
Still, score one for the power of popular culture to shape the agenda of the day…
January 19th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Hi Arvind
oddly enough I was similarly reality tv phobic. As a writer and therefore concerned with made-up stuff I sort of viewed it as ‘the enemy’, eating up airtime that could have been filled with something better, like Spongebob or Columbo repeats.
That said, I’ve been sucked into CBB this time round.
While I think there has been a tabloid knee-jerk reaction (it’s easy to imagine the racist headlines in ‘The Sun’ if there hadn’t been this level of complaints ‘SHILPA SHIPS OUT’ etc) it does say a lot about the nature of bullying, irrespective of whether there is racism involved (the nervous laughter of her cronies; everyone else anxious to appear ‘neutral’).
Personally, I believe Jade’s agression is just as motivated by jealousy and insecurity. Shilpa is beautiful, intelligent, articulate, composed; Jade is…well, Jade.
In just a few days Jade has moved from the national equivalent of a village idiot (stupid but harmless) to something a lot more unpleasant. Let’s just hope she slides back into harmless obscurity and maybe, just maybe we move towards a culture that celebrates genuine achievment over self promotion and no longer holds up ‘celebrity’ as a end in itself.