Big Brother - Do we even care!?!

Hmm, what’s that I smell?...Ah it’s the faint whiff of desperation.  As hoards of fake (Yes, I am talking to you Mrs Bercow) celebrities gear up for the re-launch of Channel Five’s revamped Big Brother format, I’m left wondering if there’s still a place in our television schedules to accommodate what was once a national institution.

When Big Brother first hit our screens, it was a revolutionary concept, filming the antics of a group of strangers living together in a house over the summer.  Their attempted tasks, bitching and consequent evictions kept us entertained, as we got a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people as they adapted to their new situation.  Fast forward a decade and the house was routinely filled with attention seeking, fame hungry characters who were keen to make the show as debauched and shocking as possible, to keep the ratings sky high while the standards were at an all time low.  The show became more of a platform for a shot at fifteen minutes of fame than a genuine attempt to discover more about themselves and look at how they adapted to life with others, which was the original premise for the show back in the early, more innocent days.

When Big Brother bowed out of our lives last year, many were sad to see it go but the general consensus was that the format had been exhausted and the contestants could not sink any lower than the most recent bunch, so it was a good time for Big Brother to end, if not on a high then at least with the last of it’s dignity intact.  The news then, that Channel Five was to re-launch the infamous show this year, first with a celebrity version, and a Joe public version to follow, was met with a mixed response from the media and public alike.  Many felt it was like grave robbing, dragging out a format that had become old and tired, and should be best left to rest in peace.  There was a feeling that, while Big Brother had launched the careers of some of the housemates, making them household names long after they exited the show, it was the contestants who didn’t achieve fame and fortune, or who lost it, who were ironically the most memorable-for all the wrong reasons.

A prime example of this is the many contestants who were desperate for fame and came out shamed and forgotten in a matter of weeks, who had to go back to a normal life, their dreams shattered and egos broken.  Adapting to life outside the house, after the paparazzi flashbulbs have long subsided and the trashy magazines and newspapers are no longer calling, is notoriously difficult and has caused depression and behavioural disorders among failed housemates.  More famous examples of this troubling ‘Big Brother effect’, are Nikki Grahame and Chantelle Houghton, who have both admitted that the show exacerbated previous eating disorders and lowered their levels of self worth as they struggled to cope once their fifteen minutes were over.

Even within the house, many housemates have appeared on the verge of nervous breakdowns as they struggle to cope with pressure, and many events which took place while the contestants were in the house have jeopardized their career and life outside the house.  From the comical George Galloway’s cat impression, to the indecent wine bottle stunt by Kinga, more seriously the ills of society were projected from the screen as the late Jade Goody and glamour girl Danielle Lloyd were embroiled in the racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty.  The events which took place in this instance led to a media witch hunt of the perpetrators, and neither Jade’s nor Danielle’s career ever fully recovered.  Certainly the media never forgot and this left a stain on not only their characters but on the character of the show, as its name was dragged through the mud as a port for this shameful behaviour to be broadcast.  This echoed the infamous uproar over the so-called ‘Fight Night’ of Big Brother Five, when security was called in to contain the housemates as they descended into drunken violence.  It was said at the time that the show gave a true representation of real life, with its good and bad points, but at what stage do you contain these elements in order to avoid showcasing horrific behaviour to the nation?

Incidents such as this led many viewers to rethink their own standpoint on ridiculing others for entertainment.  What cost were we really paying for what was becoming not much more than voyeurism, as the show descended series by series into a debauched display of drunken antics and desperate fumbles amongst a cast of increasingly fame hungry oddballs.

In a sense, it was this kind of behaviour which the public loved to watch, as the media has undoubtedly created a hunger amongst the public for gossip and scandal.  This window into the most private moments of others was one of the shows main attractions.  However, since the old format was buried last year, other reality shows have appeared to take its place at the top of the ratings pile.  Shows such as The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea, so-called ‘structured reality shows’, allow a glimpse into the life of normal people, making celebrities out of a cast of unknowns in a far more successful way than Big Brother ever managed.  And for those missing their fill of debauched antics from Big Brother, we now have American reality show Jersey Shore, and its Newcastle based British counterpart Geordie Shore to keep us enthralled with drunken revelry and night time shenanigans.  Where does the new Big Brother fit in then?  In television schedules dominated by fresh, new reality shows, does Big Brother hold the same sway as I once did in its heyday when it dominated the ratings?  Will it sink lower than ever to gain ratings and shock value?  Or will it return to the simple format of the first few series, returning to its original premise of being merely a social experiment.

All has been revealed, and no doubt we will be bombarded on a nightly basis with the latest gossip from the house, when only time will tell if the new batch of contestants will live up to the hype of the re-launched show, or if they will be forced to retreat to the ever growing scrapheap of Big Brother cast offs, to nurse their broken ego’s and drink pretend cat’s milk, huh George!?

Natalie Carlin