Crunch time

Posted on Mon 22 January, 17:20pm


http://www.radiotimes.com/content/features/tvod/week1/25/1.jpg After years spent working myself up into a right old tiz about "the social impact" of Big Brother, it was disconcerting when the rest of the world joined in the game too. Especially when most of the experts I watched didn't seem to know anything about the show at all.

"Mmmm…well, I haven't really been watching," people in starched shirts flustered on Sky News, Five News, ITN etc. "So I can't really comment…however what I will say is blah, blah, blah…"

And off they'd wiffle for the next five minutes linking daft comments about Oxo cubes with the plight of Martin Luther King and the assent of the Russian far right.

Meanwhile, having learned nothing from the Brass Eye paedophile scandal, MPs from every party rushed to condemn Big Brother before even watching the highlights (sorry, lowlights).

Carphone Warehouse pulled out their sponsorship. Modelling contracts were cancelled. All week long the public phoned Ofcom to complain about the bullying of Shilpa Shetty. And today a committee of bigwigs and people in cufflinks with chauffeurs will converge to discuss the show's future.

The one thing I've never heard any expert say over the last week was that this was bound to happen one day. This sort of media wildfire could've spread last CBB with Pete Burns's tirades, or during BB7 when Grace Adams-Short whipped Britain into a cross-eyed fug by being the perfect girls' school bully.

The plain fact is that the UK version of Big Brother is now a media concept comparable to no other in the world. It's a deeply important, unifying show that millions of everyday people watch and devour.

From what I know of Big Brother, I think it was unfeasible that Endemol could cajole a nation into caring so passionately about the show, saturate the schedule with so many hours of footage, shove in so many hideous contestants, without one day the reaction spilling over into a national incident. An incident that a load of 20-something media graduates in headsets in Elstree were totally ill-equipped to control.

I don't think that any of the MPs and TV execs investigating Big Brother right now have any true sense of the show's power. Or that they really grasp the full effect of putting a show on for 90 consecutive days in the summer (with round-the-clock coverage on digital TV and numerous daily spin-off shows, too).

Additionally, I don't think any of them are aware that antisocial behaviour, bitchiness and Lord of the Flies bullying are now main themes. I don't think they understand how involved the public become as "storylines" touch raw nerves with most people.

There was a time a couple of years ago when Endemol just about contained the public's anger over antisocial contestants by allowing us to vote them out. The sanctity of the voting process and the idea of baddies getting a rough eviction night seemed to sate the nation.

In my opinion, one of the stupidest things Endemol did was faff about with the voting process during BB7 and stick Grace Adams-Short in for more schoolgirl bullying because it was brilliant for ratings.

The moment the viewers started to feel voting was worthless, I think a call to Ofcom and Channel 4 became a much more satisfying phone call instead. Let's face it, we could have voted Jade Goody out by text until our hearts were content, but it wouldn't stop some bright spark putting her back in this Thursday as "a twist".

I think a lot of the 43,000 people who called Ofcom were complaining about the whole picture of Big Brother today, not just Jade Goody. I think they were complaining about Jackiey, Jack, Jo and Danielle, not just Jade. I think people are sick to death of all the antisocial behaviour and thought 50 pence could be spent better with Ofcom than with Endemol. That's just my opinion. If you'd like me to put on a starched shirt and mumble on Sky News about "a clash of cultures" then I'm sorry I can't.

Oh, and incidentally, I'm a little tired of the whole "it's a clash of cultures" argument. Jade Goody might be the same colour as me, but she is not my culture. If we're choosing sides, I'd like to be synonymous with the culture of the Hindu woman from India who has class and self-respect. Not the burping, farting woman calling her "Shilpa F***wallah".


Anyway, as Jade Goody starts stage one of her comeback, ie lots of grovelling and sobbing on every talk show she can, moaning about her secret houses and being "away from her kiddies" eventually leading to a reality-TV show about her "comeback", the scene in the CBB house is still rather unpleasant.

Jack Tweedy - what are you still doing there? If you had any modicum of loyalty you'd have walked out alongside your girlfriend and showed her some support. Bearing in mind it's my guess she probably paid for every shred of clothes on your back and was your shoe-in to this whole experience.

If the Big Brother producers briefed Jade on Friday morning as to the uproar outside, I've no idea why you still remain. I bet the only reason the producers have convinced you to stay is because they hope you'll get off with Danielle.

This is a distinct possibility as the pair of you seem so perilously short of brain cells it can't be long before you forget the real reason you're "celebrities".

Danielle - if you still have a relationship when you get out of this house I'll crowbar myself into a salmon-pink size-six velour tracksuit and dance down Oxford Street singing Reach for the Stars.

The one brilliant thing about a WAG entering the CBB house has been to hold a magnifying glass up to what life at home must be like for poor, hopefully deaf, Teddy Sheringham.

Can any of us imagine what it must be like for a 41-year-old man to be trapped in a house with this stupid little girl day in, day out? She must be dynamite in bed that's all I can hope, because the long winter nights must be bloody scintillating hearing her talk about frocks. Why haven't you married her already, Teddy? Why?!

Jo O'Meara - how, how, how are you flying under everyone's radar in this whole mess? You were a crucial part of this drama. You disliked Shilpa from the offset and have sat sniping about her for two weeks, before dispatching Biffa Bacon Goody to do your dirty work. You're probably more guilty of being bitchy than Jade because you are not in the least bit stupid.

You're simply a miserable scrote who's angry at the world now your child-star career has vanished. Next time you feel so lost in the world, love, get a life coach and some St John's Wort, not an application form for Strictly Come Dancing.

And don't even start me on Cleo…actually, come back on Wednesday and I'll carry on…

My head hurts thinking about Celebrity Big Brother. Clutter it further by mailing - grace.dent@bbc.co.uk (grace.dent@bbc.co.uk?subject=TV OD).

Another cleverly penned piece, but you know Pandora, for someone whose head hurts thinking about Big Brother she sure spends a lot of time writing about it.

She not only writes about it for the Radio Times, but frequently appears on This Morning, I believe.

Id write morning, noon and bloody night about the damn show if I was getting the money she must be raking in....

there is a lot of good stuff in there. the point about the true impact of BB and the fact that the media and politicians having no grasp pf the value is spot on. most folks who speak on tv about it dont watch it and try and use the old tired line "i have a braincell so i don't watch" .

If you don't like BB then i wager that you don't really like people

If you don't like BB then i wager that you don't really like people

But that's like saying if you don't like meat pudding you don't like food.

This time round I haven't been watching, and I think I feel better for it.

When you watch, you get caught up in it, and the problem there is that trivia starts to take on exaggerated importance.

For instance, looking at people discussing the show on message boards like this, you notice how often it takes the form of A said such and such to B in the bedroom but later on she said the opposite to C, and then in the bathroom B told D that ... and so on, hanging on to every word as if it's actually important. But the people being watched don't deserve it. And the result is that D list celebs who are there to have their egos massaged and get exposure get just that, thanks to a viewing public who treat them as something more significant than they really are.

But that's like saying if you don't like meat pudding you don't like food.

This time round I haven't been watching, and I think I feel better for it.

When you watch, you get caught up in it, and the problem there is that trivia starts to take on exaggerated importance.

For instance, looking at people discussing the show on message boards like this, you notice how often it takes the form of A said such and such to B in the bedroom but later on she said the opposite to C, and then in the bathroom B told D that ... and so on, hanging on to every word as if it's actually important. But the people being watched don't deserve it. And the result is that D list celebs who are there to have their egos massaged and get exposure get just that, thanks to a viewing public who treat them as something more significant than they really are.


Your analogy is not sufficient. Big Brother is just watching people and situations, what is not to like? - most people who say they hate it don't watch it, they just dont say they dont watch it. That is the irony and often it is inverted snobbery. The people who profess not to like it are happy to spend hours in pubs and restaurants watching people or discussing people - its what we all do.

In this forum folks rarely discuss conversations, 99% is talking about the people and who they are and how they come across, with a healthy degree of sarcasm. By definition if they are on BB then they are something special, its a hugely popular show watched by millions and millions of people, they may be the same as you and i but they are the ones on the TV not us. The fun is to imagine how we would react. There is no system that says that you must "deserve" to be a celeb or indeed be rich. By the end of BB Danielle will be a bigger celeb for 6 months than most Shakespearian West end actors and TV stars - thats is life in 2007.

The people who profess not to like it are happy to spend hours in pubs and restaurants watching people or discussing people - its what we all do.

There's a difference, talking about real people.

Just to qualify, by real people I meant people we know and who are important to us. The cast of BB is something different. But I can see how, when you watch the show every day for a month the cast start to become a significant part of your life.

Your analogy is not sufficient.

You wouldn't say that if you knew my dad. He thinks that anyone who doesn't like meat pudding has something wrong with them.

You wouldn't say that if you knew my dad. He thinks that anyone who doesn't like meat pudding has something wrong with them.

Meat pudding is the food of the gods :good:

You wouldn't say that if you knew my dad. He thinks that anyone who doesn't like meat pudding has something wrong with them.


what? what does he think is wrong with us?!

yours in concern
Dolores