Monday, January 29, 2007

Big Bother

Now whilst I try to avoid getting sucked into the detrius of junk TV, I have to admit to wasting a few hours watching Celebrity Big Brother over the last week. Unsurprisingly this has been prompted by the debate of the day that has exorcised the international media on what must have been a very slow news cycle.

For the uninitiated, this excuse for a social experiment locks half a dozen z-list celebrities in a house, points cameras at them 24-hours a day and sees what happens when the eponymous 'Big Brother' manipulates their environment sowing discord in the name of entertainment. Apart from only recognising the Face (only those of us watching TV in the 1980's truly remember the A-team in all its macho-glory - 'I luv it when a plan comes together' and 'I pity the fool') I didn't know any of the others.

Anyway, one day, two particular characters in this car wreck of a show, Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty have an argument over oxo-cubes and chicken curry. Small thing to argue about you might think, but bear with me. This descends into an uncontrolled rant, a tirade of incomprehensible gibberish from Goody whose apparent claim to fame is that she was on another version of the show. In fact her most marketable characteristic apparently lay in her panache for asking stupid questions, chavette like behaviour and 'down to earth girl in the next council estate’ charm which has garnered her £8m so far! Shilpa Shetty on the other hand hails from Bollywood royalty and apart from being cultured and possessing dignity, knows how to string words together to make a coherent sentence.

So when Goody and her Goons gang up on Shetty and say things like ‘She doesn’t speak English’, ‘She should go back home’, wilfully mispronounce her name, call her ‘Popodom’, and other petty gibes, the question that Shilpa Shetty and the world ponders is ‘Is this what Britain is today?’. To be sure Goody and the Goons are bullies but are they racist? They are no doubt extremely ignorant and represent an unpalatable side of British society. But is it representative, or is it merely a class issue representing the views of the young disenfranchised underclass? These are questions that will no doubt me the subject of future media relations PhDs.

To give the benefit of the doubt to these girls, especially when Shetty herself was magnanimous in her forgiveness is probably the reasonable thing to do. To foist upon them a status as a barometer on British society is a bit harsh. Indians themselves are not immune from a bit of racism and class intolerance themselves – see the caste system for one. There’s just that nagging feeling at the back of my mind which says you don’t have to scratch too far below the surface to bring out people’s innate intolerances and prejudices.

I hope Channel 4 never do another Big Brother. Its an awful concept for a show.