The fact that they are locked away and observed 24 hours a day by the public is, by and large, a new televisual concept. Here we have a dozen people from all walks of life, of all races, religions, sexual orientations. They are, essentially, a cross-section of society. They are everyday people- they are certainly not superheroes or monsters, and yet their quirks and eccentricities make them appear more extraordinary than most of us. Big Brother’s producers stop at nothing in their selection process. In 2006, the show had a man with Tourettes syndrome in the house, and he went on to win the show that year. He didn’t have anything particularly endearing about him except he would, at random, burst into a tirade of swearwords and jibber-jabber. He was seen as a modern-day freakshow, of sorts, and people were observing him just as they would a Victorian bearded lady, except this wasn’t a funfair- it was television, a literal media circus. His website says:
“When asked why Pete wanted to participate on Big Brother he replied: “to reach the top of my spiral to heaven and shine again. Also, if I was to win the money I would like to pay off my mum’s mortgage so she can finally live her life because she looked after me for so long. And I crave fame and would like to be a famous Touretter” (1)
He achieved what he set out to do, by winning the £100,000 and raising the awareness of Tourettes in the process. For the first time, “Big Brother” was educational as well as entertaining. The main goal for the “Big Brother” producers is to make the show as entertaining as possible and draw the viewers in- they don’t intend to be informative. Indeed, a fair proportion of teenagers know more about Big Brother then they do about politics, science, geography, history etc. Although most contestants only go on to become minor celebrities, there are the exceptions. Indeed, a number of former housemates have gone on to become cultural icons, most notably Jade Goody. Her comments have been cemented in “Big Brother” history, but she is best known for her participation in the Shilpa Shetty racism slur, despite being of mixed ethnicity herself. She is now a successful businesswoman and celebrity, worth between £2m and £8m, and her on-going battle with cancer has been recently well-documented in the media, and she has been voted the 25th most influential person in the world by “Heat” magazine.
The more discerning or well-read viewer will know the name of the show is taken from the book 1984 by Orwell, himself an eminent social critic. In the dystopian backdrop of the novel, society is controlled and monitored by “Big Brother”, an almost omnipresent and omnipotent character who wields power over the people in his totalitarian state of Oceania, and anyone who lives in the state is constantly reminded that “Big Brother is Watching You”. They are, much like the housemates in Big Brother, monitored on small screens called telescreens, except the Big Brother contestants’ movements and actions are edited and then broadcast to the general public via television, or sometimes streamed live with a 15 minute window in case anything libellous is said or anything explicit shown at an inappropriate time. In recent times, Britain has become increasingly paranoid of “A Big Brother state”, where their every move is watched by CCTV cameras. Has Big Brother increased this sense of paranoia? Do we really live in an Orwellian society? There a 4,000,000 cameras in the United Kingdom. Mark Oaten, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said he was concerned:
“We are slipping into a Big Brother society by stealth.” (2)
Up until around 5 years ago, no-one had heard of such a notion. But now, because of the TV programme, people are being made more aware of what a “Big Brother state” is, and of course the media are hyping it up-basically, the media is feeding the media. It is my opinion that Big Brother the TV programme has escalated this paranoia of being watched 24 hours a day by CCTV, as there is a resonance between what happens on Big Brother and what happens to the everyday man, woman and child on the street. Ironically we have became stars of our own TV show. The proposal of ID cards, plus the possible communications data bill, where every e-mail we write, phonecall we make, text message we send, will become available to the Government, will only increase the sense that our every move is being watched.. It has echoes of Franco’s Spain and Eastern Europe, where Governments had huge amounts of data on citizens.
“Big Brother” has even been named on a list of TV programmes that changed the world. The list was compiled by Hugo Davenport, author of “Days That Shook The World”. He writes:
"This multimedia event - pointless, trivial, banal, but obsessive - stoked the appetite for talent-free celebrity." (3)
He has a valid point there, although I don’t agree with it being banal; indeed I see it as a rollercoaster of emotion and often entertainment. But he has summed up the fame-hungry people who go on the show as “talent-free celebrities”. Because they are essentially talent-free, and subsequently do become celebrities- opening supermarkets and sometimes appearing in spin-off shows like Nikki Grahame, whose spin-off “Princess Nikki” aired on Channel 4 for a brief period. But did it change the world? In my opinion, no. It did change the media and the way people are perceived on TV, and it was the first fly-on-the-wall reality TV show which spawned dozens of similar types of shows, but to put it on a list that includes the September 11th news coverage just goes to show the scale of importance that “Big Brother” has had on the world in terms of impact on society and politics. September 11th was a genuinely world-changing event. Scores of people lost their lives, and a TV show pails in comparison when you talk about the cost of human life.
Politically, “Big Brother” has had quite a big impact. In 2006, MP George Galloway, current MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, entered the “Celebrity Big Brother” house, perhaps to raise awareness of politics to people not usually interested in such affairs. However, he embarrassed himself by camply dancing in a red leotard and imitating a cat drinking milk. This is perhaps what he is most famous for to the nation, not his liberal views or stance on the Iraq war. To the politically-inclined he is known for campaigning for the end of the war in Iraq, amongst other things, but to most people in the vast cross-section of the viewers of “Big Brother”, he will be best known for imitating a cat, and the media and political opposition have never let him live it down. Another political debacle on “Celebrity Big Brother” is the racism row that occurred in 2007, involving Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and several female celebrities on the show. This sparked a massive outrage both nationally and internationally and Channel 4 bosses were hugely under-fire because of this. There were wide-spread demonstrations in India, and although Shetty went on to win the win the show that year, her character and integrity was damaged by the acts of a select bunch of individuals. The celebrity version of the show was pulled in 2008. The Australian version of the show caused nationwide controversy when two housemates were seen to allegedly sexually assault a female housemate. Former Australian Prime Minister Michael Howard even called for the show to be discontinued, a notion supported by two members of the opposition party.
Technologically, “Big Brother” doesn’t really have much going new happening- because the concept is so simple. Cameras around the house and garden are something we ourselves have, maybe not on as grand a scale as the Big Brother house but the video camera has been around for almost half a century now. However, “Big Brother” uses special cameras called PanCams, which can stream images to a personal computer and even be manipulated by the user. Also, “Big Brother” was one of the first TV programmes to use voting by text message, whereby a person can send a text at a premium rate to the show’s producers to tell them who they want to evict or who they want to win.
So what lies in store for the future of “Big Brother”? The British version seems to be going strong, despite several criticisms, but whether the producers will continue to think of fresh ideas, coupled with dwindling viewing figures, some experts think the show will finally finish eventually in two years or so. The Australian format has ended after their viewing figures nose-dived and became too controversial, whereas the British format has seemed to weather the storm of controversy thus far. What is for definite that it has became one of the most successful TV programmes of all-time, has been cited as one of the 20 programmes that most changed the world and has made some lucky contestants cultural icons. One thing is for sure, the impact that is has had on the viewing public and the media in the last ten years is unprecedented and it won’t easily be forgotten by us, the viewers, the media, and the people who have been lucky enough to have appeared on the show in the past 10 years or so.
Sources:
http://www.pete-bennett.co.uk/profile.html (1)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article470264.ece (2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3370513.stm (3)