In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Big Brother 8 in Britain is out to stereotype women…or is it?

Aulelia

Channel 4 is at it again this time with the 8th annual installment of Big Brother in the UK. This time there is a twist: it is a predominately female house with one sole male housemate. After this year Celebrity Big Brother Fiasco in the UK where contemporary Britain’s underbelly for prejudice and racism was carved open, I can only approach this new helping of Big Brother with scepticism.

Girls are constantly made to feel like they must compete against each other whether it is for the attention of that buff guy that everyone wants or whether it is for the adoration from other girls with “oh she is so pretty”. This TV channel truly believes that the claws will come out and is it a complete generalisation to say that they probably will? Bitchiness is not a female or a male thing. Yet, it is attributed to us because this sexist global society needs women to be at each others throats as opposed to saving each other – the divide and conquer theory is still live and kicing. Female solidarity frightens people and it definitely does not make “good TV” because snark, malice and rumour make people feel secure: as long as other people are tearing themselves apart like hungry lions, no one cares.

Part of me almost has a drip of pity seeping out of my eyes for the girls…Then again, I can’t find myself to have sympathy tears for them for one simple reason: Big Brother is formulated to create hype and with 7 years of Big Brother imprinted in British TV history, they know the drill: fight or the public evicts you quicker than Carl Lewis could ever sprint. Perhaps these girls in this serving of this sour dish will be strong and defy my opinion. I am counting the days until that happens.

18 thoughts on Big Brother 8 in Britain is out to stereotype women…or is it?

  2. This TV channel truly believes that the claws will come out and is it a complete generalisation to say that they probably will?

    Of course it will, because the people that they cast will play that part and the script that they wrote will demand it.

    What, you thought that what goes on in the house is unscripted? Here in the States, every word of what you see on a “reality” show is scripted, especially on stuff like “The Real World” and “Road Rules.”

  3. Mnemosyne has it right. Ben Elton parodied Big Brother in his novel Dead Famous and I absolutely believe what he wrote in there:

    “Every episode is scripted. We just cut it together when they say what we want them to say, and leave the rest on the cutting room floor.”

    They choose the people who will play the parts they want.

  4. A few years back my friends wanted me to go on Survivor because they figured I could pull it off… be really nice and happy and helpful in the group scenes, but then in the 1-on-1 interviews, narrow my eyes and say stuff like “Jenna doesn’t fool me. She hates me. They’re out to get me, and they’re going to vote me off… but what they don’t know is … I know where they live. And the second I’m booted off the island, I’m gonna go there, and I’m gonna kill their pets.” (Stuff like that).

    …Just so that everyone watching at home gets all wide-eyed and freaked out and stops watching.

    My pastor thought it was funny. Then he left the parish. :p

  5. Yup. It may not be scripted in the sense that the folks on the show are given lines to study and cue cards to help them remember, but they shoot a ton of footage. You can do amazing things in the editing room. Naturally they work to emphasize conflict, romance, emotional disasters. It’s no more real than Marie Antoinette’s Petit Hameau de la Reine was.

  6. How do you deal with women tearing each other down? (If you’re not in an advice-giving mood, skip the following; I’m hoping to draw on the mad wisdom some folks here have, and it’s relevant to the topic at hand.)

    I’m on the verge of not being able to double-date with my best friend any more, because his girlfriend and mine don’t get along. It’s not that they don’t like each other; it’s that his girlfriend does this “I’m helping you, does it hurt enough?” thing, and I don’t even know if she knows she’s doing it.

    For example, I went out with them and some other friends by myself this past weekend (my girlfriend was working), and some folks went swimming. My friend’s girlfriend said that my girlfriend and I were welcome to come over and use the pool there any time, and I said that my girlfriend might not want to swim around her. She launched into an explanation of various architectures of swimsuits designed to squish one’s belly and so forth, which says to me, “your girlfriend’s fat, let me help you deal with it”.

    She’s not even being mean, exactly; it’s not anything I can call her out on, but I can’t stand it. Has anyone here had a similar experience?

  8. aiiiiyyiie.

    is there some point where reality shows might ever go out of fashion? because i’m -really- tired of them. isn’t there some other way for us to get our fifteen minutes? something -healthier-, like going up on a bell tower?

  9. Actually, they are marketing it here in the UK in exactly the opposite terms. Like, after the divisiveness of the last one, they are pretending that an all girls group will have some solidarity and community. I am not going to watch, and this will probably all go out of the window when the guys start being introduced. But just to clarify they aren’t marketing as ‘Catfight!!!’…yet.

  10. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve gotten hooked on VH1’s “Charm School.” I know it’s 100% contrived. The whole “let’s hide the picture thing” was clearly instigated by the producers, not the actors, because they felt there wasn’t enough conflict between the women who were left. And yet I had to see how the storyline played out, partly because it was so transparently a story being acted out by people playing a part, not “ohmigod it’s really real and it really happened!”

  11. Big Brother may be scripted but even the celebrity version in the UK this year was just a horrific car crash full of racial epithets and ignorance to the point where it would make anyone sick. It was so awful but alarmingly portrayed exactly what many Britons think which leads me to think that some of it isn’t scripted.

    Grendelkhan — Lol perhaps dealing with women tearing each other down, it is best just to observe and not get caught in the crossfire. I hardly know what to do myself other than scream and shout;

  12. She’s not even being mean, exactly; it’s not anything I can call her out on, but I can’t stand it. Has anyone here had a similar experience?

    In Bridget Jones’s Diary, they call remarks like this jellyfishers. Comments which sound like advice or compliments but are really insults. (Oooh, new jeans. Isn’t that brand great for hiding how much junk you have in your trunk?)

    I think the best response is just “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  13. Mnem, yeah, I know, I’d probably be hooked on more shows if i still had TV. it’s just sort of…i dunno, we have this really weird relationship with celebrity, and i think the reality show trend is part of it.

  14. Mnemosyne, I saw that episode! I was stunned by the whole picture saga. If Monique really wanted to find out who stole the picture, then why in hell didn’t she go and look at the footage to find out? Nope, nothin’ doin’. So the two women who got invited to share in the shopping spree get kicked out for being the target of someone else’s jealousy. Fabulous. That’s not a lesson they hadn’t learned before, nope.

  15. Ive ALWAYS loathed reality TV with a passion, and Big Brother is no exception. If only there were some way to swap the consciousness of the viewers with that of a chronically depressed lemming – I would sign up for it without a moments hesitation.

    Perhaps thats a little extreme in some peoples eyes. I however, believe extreme measures are needed when the latest reality TV show advertised on Sky is The Apprentice meets Pirates of the Caribbean.

  16. it’s just sort of…i dunno, we have this really weird relationship with celebrity, and i think the reality show trend is part of it.

    I can’t decide what I think about this current trend (on VH1, at least) to put former celebrities on “reality” shows. Stuff like “Celebrity Fit Club” or “The Surreal Life.” Are we exploiting them, or are they exploiting us, or is it an endless Moebius loop of exploitation that has no beginning and no end?

    I’m much, much less fascinated with non-celebrity “reality” shows. Except “Project Runway” and “The Amazing Race,” but those are updated/modernized game shows, not “reality” shows the way that something like “The Real World” is supposed to be.

  17. If Monique really wanted to find out who stole the picture, then why in hell didn’t she go and look at the footage to find out?

    Because they didn’t write that part into the script. 😉 It was funny that they felt they had to have her say those couple of lines to justify her not watching the footage so they could continue the pretense that it was “real.”

    So the two women who got invited to share in the shopping spree get kicked out for being the target of someone else’s jealousy. Fabulous. That’s not a lesson they hadn’t learned before, nope.

    I’m guessing that there’s going to be some kind of restoration in this next episode, or possibly the last one. See, the scheme was only just uncovered at the very end of the episode that just aired, so the next episode will have to deal with the fact that two people got thrown off who didn’t deserve it. That will probably fill out at least one episode, if not two.

    I still think the big reason that they picked Schatar (yes, I had to look up her name) to be the “culprit” was that she wasn’t a very good actress. I was VERY annoyed that Darra got kicked off as well — hmm, what a coinki-dink that the heaviest character gets thrown off!

    I think I like Leilene as the heroine, though. She’s got the whole ex-stripper, single mom, abusive relationships background that makes her the perfect winner for the show.

    (Yes, I know it’s her real background, but that’s what’s weird about the whole reality show thing: you have performers who have built characters out of their real personalities. Again with the Moebius thing.)

  18. grendelkhan, why do you want to double-date with someone who makes your girlfriend (and you, apparently) unhappy? Surely you and your best friend can hang out?

    One of my sweeties is in theatre, and a lot of his friends are supremely self-absorbed people with whom I don’t enjoy hanging around—they talk about themselves pretty exclusively and don’t seem to have a lot of time for anyone who can’t do anything for them. After a couple of social occasions in which I played appendage-girl, I decided that I didn’t need to do the theatre scene (unless some of the people who can talk about things other than themselves are likely to be present). So he goes to theatre things without me, I conduct my social life, and neither of us has to put up with people we don’t like.

    Since our social circles don’t overlap much, we’re working on learning which of each other’s friends are fun to hang out with, and hanging out with those people as a couple, so that we’re not maintaining completely separate social circles.

Comments are currently closed.