purple elephants corner: Big Brother

June 28, 2005

Big Brother

I must confess I watched Big Brother last night. I know, I know there is nothing I like less than being forced to watch self obsessed, loudmouth, layabouts bickering about the most mind numbingly boring trivialities. But it was on between Richard and Judy and the Simpsons. I was also writing an essay (or rather I was rearranging the five words I had taken me all day to write) and decided these people really weren’t worth the time and effort in searching for the remote.
Then the following conversation oozed from the speakers.

Voice1‘Question: When did the Second World War start?’
Voice2 ‘I think it was 1966’
Voice3 ‘Nah. Wasn’t that the World Cup or something?’

Now this conversation got me thinking (not about when the war started. Don’t even go there) about these so-called ‘reality TV’ shows.
What I want to know is this. Are these real people? In other words are we on average really this thick or did they search around goddamn hard to find them? There is of course the possibility that Channel Four pay big bucks for them to act like this. Either of the above options disturbs me because presumably Channel Four have done their research and discovered that these are the sort of people that make good TV ie this is what Joe Public wants to watch.
Why does Joe Public want to watch these people? I can only think of two reasons; firstly that he can relate to them in some way, that he actually likes them.. Are these the qualities we have dragged our children up to admire in human beings? This brings us back to question one, maybe Joe Public is just as stupid as the Big Brother contestants
Secondly, and this is the most disturbing thought of all, perhaps Joe Public likes watching Big Brother because he finds these people so distant from himself that he can laugh at them and thank his lucky stars that he was credited with at least one grain of intelligence.
What worries me about this final option is that if this is the case then Big Brother is some sort of 21st Century Freak Show. These days we all cringe at the thought of John Merrick's defomities being held up for entertainment but is this any different? Have we dragged some poor unsuspecting youngsters with some sort of brain deficiency (stop it I'm trying to be serious here)and taken advantage of their desperation to ‘make it’ just so we can sit back on our smug backsides and mock their misfortune?
Either way I don’t think this sort of thing should be on our screens. Well not before the watershed at least.

Posted by purple elephant at June 28, 2005 07:31 PM