There is a lot of talk about the contestants' experience of Big Brother but little about the viewer’s experience. During its decade on air there was a drop-off of both the red tops' shock-horror coverage and the intellectualised justifications put forward by the quality press, and inevitably this resulted in viewing figures also declining with each passing year. But I confess I remained an avid viewer. It’s not what you watch, it’s how you watch it, I would say to baffled friends to justify my addiction.
But however much I spoke of how BB was an education in not taking people at face value, and how it restored one’s faith in the British viewing public (almost every year the most deserving contestant won), my friends would dip in for 10 minutes, or at best an episode, and then gleefully report back that it had scarred them for life. What they didn’t realise about BB is that watching it has to be an act of faith.
The hardened BB fan knows that entertainment comes to those who wait, and so unless you committed to at least a fortnight of the highlights show every evening (only students, perverts and the brain-dead watch the live feed) you might as well not bother. By then the show-offs will have calmed down, the wallflowers (relatively speaking) will have begun to come out of their shells (excuse the mixed metaphor), and you’ll see people indulging in the kind of subtle psychological mind games and Machiavellian manoeuvrings that you’ll never see sufficiently captured in even the best BBC Four drama or literary novel.
It’s these two-month story arcs of unrequited love, bitter rivalries, or even – dare I say it – insidious schoolgirl racism, that will have you cringing one moment and revelling in your role as omniscient judgmental couch potato the next. “Who leaves: you decide!”
What the BB non-believer fails to grasp is that BB was never some noble social experiment, as its defenders claimed it was when it first aired, and nor was it a shameless exploitative piss-take of the poor defenceless public. Theartsdesk’s Ismene Brown this week described it as the kind of show where “people are lured to behave like animals”. Nothing could be further from the truth, Ismene. In the BB house people sometimes do behave like animals, but the majority of them know that they are in a popularity contest, so being on their best or most interesting behaviour is what’s called for. It’s watching them almost invariably fail in this Sisyphean challenge that is so entertaining.
And so after nearly three months of riveting interaction between an unusually articulate bunch this year, last night was the final. Rather disappointingly, 19-year-old self-proclaimed geek Andrew bit the dust first. He was one of the best reasons for watching this year as he seemed to do 18 months of growing up in just a few short weeks, and the good-humoured way he battled his own shyness was a pleasure to witness. But the problem is that the majority of phone votes in recent years have been from teenage girls, and they tend to put eye candy above myopic maths students.
Then it was JJ out. Nice enough bloke, but moving swiftly on we then lost Mario and Dave, which of course left us with the fairytale ending of cuddly, self-effacing Josie taking the £100,000 (immediately pledging £20,000 of it to a cancer charity, thus once again justifying her victory with a record 77.5 per cent of the votes).
Or rather, that would have been the fairytale ending if it weren’t for the fact that the poor mare had to go straight back into the house to battle it out with a ragbag bunch of previous celebrity and non-celebrity contestants. And as they went in one by one we were presented with further evidence of the BB effect on our culture over the past decade. The lines were now blurred as to who actually was a genuine celebrity: non-celebrity Chantelle married and then divorced celebrity Preston; non-celebrity Brian has become a TV presenter and therefore a celebrity, and non-celebrity Nick Bateman (aka Nasty Nick) seemed to have more charisma than all of them put together, and perhaps even more celebrity status.
And what’s more, it was the non-celebrities who had the most credibility with the baying crowd. The biggest ones (a relative term here), Ulrika Jonsson, Coolio and John McCririck, all got roundly booed as they went up the steps into potentially 18 days of purgatory. So my money’s still on Josie to win the whole darn thing. After all, you’ve got to love someone who comes out with lines like (to be read in a deadpan Bristol accent), “Whenever I feel a bit low I just think about that woman who got her face ripped off by a chimpanzee.” Damn, I’m going to miss Big Brother.
The hardened BB fan knows that entertainment comes to those who wait, and so unless you committed to at least a fortnight of the highlights show every evening (only students, perverts and the brain-dead watch the live feed) you might as well not bother. By then the show-offs will have calmed down, the wallflowers (relatively speaking) will have begun to come out of their shells (excuse the mixed metaphor), and you’ll see people indulging in the kind of subtle psychological mind games and Machiavellian manoeuvrings that you’ll never see sufficiently captured in even the best BBC Four drama or literary novel.
It’s these two-month story arcs of unrequited love, bitter rivalries, or even – dare I say it – insidious schoolgirl racism, that will have you cringing one moment and revelling in your role as omniscient judgmental couch potato the next. “Who leaves: you decide!”
What the BB non-believer fails to grasp is that BB was never some noble social experiment, as its defenders claimed it was when it first aired, and nor was it a shameless exploitative piss-take of the poor defenceless public. Theartsdesk’s Ismene Brown this week described it as the kind of show where “people are lured to behave like animals”. Nothing could be further from the truth, Ismene. In the BB house people sometimes do behave like animals, but the majority of them know that they are in a popularity contest, so being on their best or most interesting behaviour is what’s called for. It’s watching them almost invariably fail in this Sisyphean challenge that is so entertaining.
Further evidence of the BB effect on our culture. The lines are now blurred as to who actually was a genuine celebrity
Almost everything was proved to be right with the world when last Friday the Aussie misogynist John James, the “buzzin” orange Katie Price wannabe Corin, the one-eyed, no-legged ex-serviceman Steve, and the perversely mischievous Sam all got the boot. This left the bookies' favourite, Josie, to find out if her Bristolian banter and endearing vulnerability were enough to beat hunky cardboard cut-out JJ, fiercely competitive Mario, and bonkers God-botherer Dave. Only in the instance of the latter have the public got it wrong this year: this was a man who had spoken of gays and witches in the same sentence because he seemed to perceive each as equally sinful and equally real. It’s also worth noting that, given his war-hero credentials, Steve looked certain to win at the start. But once again this demonstrates how the British public didn’t just vote for someone because it was the "right" thing to do.And so after nearly three months of riveting interaction between an unusually articulate bunch this year, last night was the final. Rather disappointingly, 19-year-old self-proclaimed geek Andrew bit the dust first. He was one of the best reasons for watching this year as he seemed to do 18 months of growing up in just a few short weeks, and the good-humoured way he battled his own shyness was a pleasure to witness. But the problem is that the majority of phone votes in recent years have been from teenage girls, and they tend to put eye candy above myopic maths students.
Then it was JJ out. Nice enough bloke, but moving swiftly on we then lost Mario and Dave, which of course left us with the fairytale ending of cuddly, self-effacing Josie taking the £100,000 (immediately pledging £20,000 of it to a cancer charity, thus once again justifying her victory with a record 77.5 per cent of the votes).
Or rather, that would have been the fairytale ending if it weren’t for the fact that the poor mare had to go straight back into the house to battle it out with a ragbag bunch of previous celebrity and non-celebrity contestants. And as they went in one by one we were presented with further evidence of the BB effect on our culture over the past decade. The lines were now blurred as to who actually was a genuine celebrity: non-celebrity Chantelle married and then divorced celebrity Preston; non-celebrity Brian has become a TV presenter and therefore a celebrity, and non-celebrity Nick Bateman (aka Nasty Nick) seemed to have more charisma than all of them put together, and perhaps even more celebrity status.
And what’s more, it was the non-celebrities who had the most credibility with the baying crowd. The biggest ones (a relative term here), Ulrika Jonsson, Coolio and John McCririck, all got roundly booed as they went up the steps into potentially 18 days of purgatory. So my money’s still on Josie to win the whole darn thing. After all, you’ve got to love someone who comes out with lines like (to be read in a deadpan Bristol accent), “Whenever I feel a bit low I just think about that woman who got her face ripped off by a chimpanzee.” Damn, I’m going to miss Big Brother.
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