I want to clarify something before I start – I don’t watch Big Brother. I don’t care to watch Big Brother and personally don’t think it should be classed as entertainment, nevermind be put on TV, but it does seem to serve its purpose well in dumbing down the audience whilst convincing them that it’s actually an ‘intellectual’ show in ‘social study’… load of crap. But that’s just my opinion.

However, whatever my opinions of the ‘show’ may be does not detract from the fact that this whole racism row that’s been flaring away in the tabloids and even made the BBC Website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6277301.stm) is a load of bollocks, and it frustrates me.

It frustrates me because it’s a typical PC response at trying to make a non-issue an issue. Trying to prove a point when all it really achieves is making yourselves look dumb.

The fact is that Big Brother makes its millions on the fact that it’s a ‘reality’ TV show, and a show in which you take x number of people, put them together and isolate them from the outside world (at least, that’s how it was meant to be, of course now people go on knowing that they’re being watched by millions of equally dumb people and play up to the fact). If something happens inside then it is not up to the producers, the presenters, or anybody to get involved, presumably the only exceptions being where the law is clearly broken, which in this case, as I understand it, it isn’t.
Personally, I’d prefer it if there was no external involvement at all until the people leave the house, at which case they can receive whatever punishment, legal or otherwise, that they are due. If the contestants started to actually kick the shit out of each other then I might start to watch.. what can be more entertaining than watching morons beat each other in a controlled environment and then hear their reasons for doing so afterwards.
In fact, fuck it, put swords in there and let’s see them make a proper job of it.

Who really cares if they call each other names? At the end of the day they’re not exactly inciting violence and if one person gets upset they can always choose to leave – who do you think will get the most positive response at the end of the show, the victim or the attacker? Hmmm, I just can’t work it out…
But calling pressures on the show or, even worse, getting politicians involved (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6269953.stm) is not just daft, it’s beyond the pale STUPID. Surely Gordon Brown should have some more important questions to be asked of his time in India than about a pissing TV Show!? How about, for starters, “Mr. Brown, are any talks ongoing to try and step down the buildup of nuclear deterrants..”.
Personally, and granted I’m biased seeing as I have a deep-rooted dislike of the show anyway, I find it humiliating and embarrassing that the goings-of a reality TV show as fundamentally dumb as this apparently affects a perception of the British in foreign countries.

Equally comical was the fact that the Carphone Warehouse is withdrawing it’s sponsorship of the programme on the basis of the recent rows. Clearly, sponsoring a show that encourages people to disgrace themselves and play dumb is fine until it even lightly brushes the racism boundary.
When are people going to learn that people from different backgrounds are allowed to take the piss, call each other names, and *shock, horror!* not like each other without being racist or elitist or whatever term you would like to use? It’s part of life.
By the same vein, maybe this is the prayer I’ve been holding out on and will spell the end
of this Big Brother phenomenon. Although, presumably, if that were to happen it wouldn’t be long until something equally dumb came up to take its place. Oh wait, there already are a bunch of clones out there already… sorry.

To my mind, the biggest irony of all this is that of all the housemates Shilpa Shetty probably has the most legitimate claim to being a celebrity. Not that I’m claiming to have heard of, or seen, any of her work before, but in terms of a fan base I would imagine she is probably more well known than the other ‘celebrities’ who are in the house, one of which (her opponent) is famous for… well, Jade’s famous for being on the show before and being a dumb, gobby bitch whilst she was there.
Harsh? Probably, but I don’t see what else she’s famous for.