Category: raves

I once admitted to a group of fellow school governors at a conference that I watched Big Brother – compulsively. The reaction was a mixture of amusement and surprise, perhaps that I’d dared admit to something so venial. Or perhaps in sympathy.

Hey, I’m not proud of it.

Two other people have slapped my wrist for the same. The first was a Jewish girlfriend of mine, who admitted surprise that I, as a Catholic, should watch such a show. The other was my literary agent, who thought it a transgression in what he’d taken for my intelligence.

YIKES!

See now, this just makes me want to watch it all the more. For the love of God, take the show off the air, Channel 4!

The smartest thing I’ve seen anyone write about Celebrity Big Brother so far:

Howard Jacobson: ‘Big Brother’ encourages us to embrace a condition far more worrying than racism

If society doesn’t value knowledge and wisdom then this is what you get. People with attitudes like Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd, Jo O’Meara and Jack Tweedy have always existed, but they didn’t get airtime in the days where only the talented, educated and connected had access to the media.

Big Brother claims very strongly to be about democracy. And in a modern democracy – as opposed to an ancient Greek one – maybe there is a requirement to give the uneducated and untalented a chance to reach a platform they couldn’t have aspired to years ago.

Is meritocracy morally defensible? It might be more desirable in utilitarian terms, but is it moral to lock out the uneducated and untalented from the glittering prizes offered by modern celebrity?

(I don’t know the answer – but if any moral philosophers are reading, please feel free to clue me in.)

Very few people can survive the scrutiny of Big Brother and emerge with no stain on their characters. As Germaine Greer learnt when she went into the Big House, the very situation is designed to create moments of human tension and drama. The BB producers rapidly came to understand the buttons they need to press to provoke the required responses. It is designed to bring out the very worst in people, and therefore also (rather less frequently), the very best.

Amazing, riveting drama. Unfolding like a Greek tragedy. Ah, only now do they see the error of their ways, Jade and Danielle. The remorse, the enlightenment. Danielle confessing in bedroom whispers to Shilpa that she’s been led astray by Jade because she (Danielle) is young, naive and intimidated by Jade’s personality. Jade performing what looks like a scripted apology to Shilpa as a bemused Jack looks on and says ‘I’m disappointed in Jade. I wouldn’t make up with someone if they’d said that to me…’

Maybe the Big Brother producers have coached their performers, Jade, Danielle, maybe even Shilpa. Either way it makes for spellbinding drama, which for being real has a quality that you simply can’t get with acting.

Jade has begun to realise that her entire career is at stake because she will have been portrayed as a ‘racist b***h’ (her words). The other housemates are in shock as they realise they’re witnessing one or more of their numbers torpedo their careers. Shilpa is too nice and forgiving to be capable of schadenfreude, instead expressing fears over the consequences for Jade.

Jo (ex of S Club 7) murmurs ‘Why’s it so quiet?’ after Davina makes her weekly call to the housemates in stony silence, amid none of the customary ballyhoo.

Jade’s damp eyes and rueful smile as she nods and says ‘I know why.’

It’s only a game show, eh?