Channel 4 - Celebrity Big Brother

It must be the easiest thing in the world to make television programs these days. Gone are the times when the public demanded plays, literary dramas, current affairs or factual documentaries, mores the pity. Now all you have to do is put the word makeover, celebrity or reality in the title and you have an instant success. Low brow, low budget entertainment for a dumbed-down modern age. In this voyeuristic age, people seem content to watch a room ...
...that have so far managed to avoid the phenomena of Big Brother, and I guess that there can't be many of you, and then the premise is this. A group of people are selected to live in the same closed environment for a short period of time and as the show progresses one by one the viewers vote them out until only one is left to pick up the prize money. Along the way they are given challenges and games to play to win extra supplies or luxuries, but the ... more

It must be the easiest thing in the world to make television programs these days. Gone are the times when the public demanded plays, literary dramas, current affairs or factual documentaries, mores the pity. Now all you have to do is put the word makeover, celebrity or reality in the title and you have an instant success. Low brow, low budget entertainment for a dumbed-down modern age. In this voyeuristic age, people seem content to watch a room full of people doing, well very little really. For those that have so far managed to avoid the phenomena of Big Brother, and I guess that there can't be many of you, and then the premise is this. A group of people are selected to live in the same closed environment for a short period of time and as the show progresses one by one the viewers vote them out until only one is left to pick up the prize money. Along the way they are given challenges and games to play to win extra supplies or luxuries, but the idea of the show is that the main form of entertainment comes from the personalities and interesting make-up of the housemates. As the name implies Celebrity Big Brother takes the same format, but uses "celebrities" in place of the regular unknown faces. This should be money for old rope; celebrities sitting around making the entertainment and all the production company has to do is film the show, easy.

Celebrity is a word that seems to have undergone a meaning change over the years. When I think of celebrities, people of a certain stature spring to mind, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn, and the like. Celebrity after all comes from the word celebrate, these are celebrated people. So what blinding personalities and dazzling wits has the show managed to recruit to fill the house.

The best-known face is obviously Michael Barrymore, rumoured to have been paid £150, 000 to appear on the show, which may help to pay off his £1.4 million tax bill. Out of all of the housemates he is the possibly the only one that comes close to the term celebrity, albeit D list. Some may say he's only doing it for the money, I wouldn't say such a thing.

Pete Burns, pop-star (if you remember his hit in the eighties) cross dresser, friend to plastic surgeons and never afraid to speak his mind. Pete was obviously chosen for his outrageous dress sense and his uncompromising attitude. The man most likely to piss everyone else off as he swans about in his real furs and his spandex ski pants. Famous once but that's a long time ago.

Traci Bingham apparently is a one time star of Baywatch, which means she's well known by single twenty something males and almost totally unknown to the rest of the world. Talking of unknown, hailing from Newport, Maggot is a member of tongue-in-cheek rappers Goldie Looking Chain, though just how easy it is to rap with your tongue in your cheek is not known. By his own admission he claims to be "only on the show to make the numbers up" No shit Sherlock.

Rula Lenska is the star of 80s T.V. and was probably last seen as a bit part actress in Minder or something similar. Although she is descended from Polish aristocracy she is still not what you would call a celebrity.

Jodi Marsh is a so-called pin up, and her exclusive skills range from taking her shirt off to bending over so that newspaper photographers can take "candid" pictures of her showing her knickers. Now that's real talent. As if in contrast Dennis Rodman is someone with something to be proud of. Although not so well known in this country he is a big name US basketball star, famed for his uncompromising lifestyle as much as for his skills on the court. Faria Alam is famous for being the "other woman" in Sven Goran Eriksson sordid life. It would seem that merely being a serial adulteress is enough to be able to claim celebrity status these days.

Although I do have a lot of time for new band The Ordinary Boys, I still find it hard to see their contribution to the house, Preston, as being anything other than a normal guy. I'm sure there are people who live in his street that have never heard of him, so why he should able to claim the term celebrity is beyond me, although the competition isn't exactly taxing. Lastly George Galloway ex Labour Party M.P., but now an Independent, he is obviously trying to launch a new career as his political days disappear round the U-bend.

So over to the action. With these well known and entertaining stars cast into this laboratory experiment what do we get for our enjoyment. Well quite frankly very little. As the shows drive is made by the interaction between the housemates, the evidence so far is that we are in for some pretty lean entertainment. We have been subjected to Faria Alam sounding off about how she hates the English, though not enough to turn down the chance to appear on a mainstream British T.V. show and Jodie Marsh crying over all of the bullying she has to put up with. The highlight of the blinding personalities that have been thrown together in this morass of anonymity is an argument about Pete Burns fur coat. Riveting stuff.

But if celebrity is a miss-chosen term lets look at the word reality. People will argue that as humans we are natural interested in watching those around us, and that's probably true. But putting a load of unknowns and falling stars in a house for them to play up to the cameras is as far from reality as watching baboons in a zoo. After many years of this slowly failing format, I'm amazed that there is any mileage in this show any more, but the fact that there is says more about the viewing audience than the program controllers. How easy it is to please the modern audience. Religion isn't the opium of the masses, reality T.V. is.

So upon analysis we find that this reality show is not about reality and the celebrity element is also going against trades descriptions. Realy this show is about lazy program makers perpetuating the false celebrity status of a bunch of nobodies. Not only that its an insult to our intelligence. I'm just glad I don't pay my T.V. license or I'd be asking for my money back.

 

...less