Oh Brother!

Celebrity Big Brother::It was bound to end in tears, but I still think there's a silver lining in all this smoke.
A-list Eastern celebrity meets Z-list Western celebrities... among them the kind of super-chavs that are celebrated for being ignorant enough to say things that most people wouldn't dare.

I have long wondered about the Jade Goody phenomenon. She's made so much money from exploiting herself and her family that I've come to accept that there must be something virtuous about all this exposure. She is a role model in a way, because she has never sought to hide her ignorance and is always prepared to ask stupid questions. The kind of questions that everyone else in the room would be too embarrassed to seek answers for. There should always be people like her, people who are willing to subject themselves to laughter or derision ... because every now and then, they act as martyrs for the rest of us. Stimulating debate or getting answers to questions we need, but are too proud (or scared) to ask.

Jade and her kin have quite obviously been victims of abuse in the past and so perhaps they enjoy being on the other side. There are blatant defense mechanisms in play when they ridicule Shilpa's name. The question is, how many people watching the (possibly) racist debacle play out on BB are secretly thinking: "I wish I was ignorant enough to say that", "honest enough to call her that". The beauty of Celebrity BB is that - isolated from society, tabloids and PR machines - celebrities are forced to speak for themselves and then deal with the consequences.

Channel 4 have stated that despite the concern of UK & Indian Government officials and over-excited media reports, what's happening inside the BB house is not racist, it's a class and culture clash. This begs the question: Is it okay to take the piss out of someone because you don't understand their culture? I see it in England all the time, and it is easily justified. Ironically, people are terrified of pronouncing unfamiliar names in case they offend. Instead, they just change people's names to suit their 'lazy' tongues. Most people with unconventional names give in and adopt at best an Anglicised version or some ridiculous nickname. When I chose an old-English name for my son (Lucian), my in-laws immediately poked fun and tried to pronounce it in a Inspector Clouseau-style French accent (a la Lucien). Some people ask what the name means and how they can shorten it, but as soon as I talk of Latin derivatives or suggest Italian nicknames, their eyes glaze over and they quickly become distracted. Accents too have to be changed, I arrived in the UK with a very mild southern African accent which I have since watered down... or should that be cleansed?

Is it okay to take the piss if someone is educationally or culturally poorer than you? I admit, I couldn't stop myself taking the piss out of Jade (queen of chavs) in the early days. Then I think the Heat mags of this world tried to do a Pygmalion thing but Jade still ain't come good! Frankie Boyle compared the attempt to make Jade a celebrity with trying to train a monkey to be a butler: "Oh no, I told my butler-monkey to iron my shirt, but instead he's throwing shit against the wall!"

I wonder how Jade will be treated once she's let out. Will all the crazed teenagers be booing her or cheering her on? What about the tabloids, will they decide to demonise and dump their pet-project? In her defence, I guess Jade has had to put up with massive public abuse and ridicule and came out of it a more succesful (I think) person with better hair. Alas, she obviously hasn't learnt to rise above it though, her continued fame (or infamy) may well rest on you and me folks, we decide. Personally, I think giving public exposure to the Jade Goodys of this world could do with a bit of a rest now.

I just feel sorry for all those people in India where celebrity is still a sacred thing who I'm guessing thought that they'd finally 'made it'... Bollywood was now on a par with the creme of the British superstar elite. Little did they realise that much has changed and warped and mutated and just what was Ms Shetty's agent thinking?

Tens of thousands of complaints.
"Could you imagine Kylie Minogue or Liz Hurley receiving the same treatment in the Indian version of Big Brother?"
-Lee Jasper, C4 news, 17/1/07

Interesting parallel, but not quite the same thing, is it Lee. India never lorded over the UK. Whites haven't been the on the wrong end of a stick for centuries. It's unlikely that we'd be burning effigies in the streets, but then again, I bet certain shorn-haired individuals would almost definitely be burning something!

What this exposes is how out of touch certain UK minorities are with mainstream British phenomena. On the one hand, there's the Goody Crew - blissfully unaware of how politically correct most of their countrymen must be in public. On the other hand are the close-knit ethnic communities, with their own culture fully imported, frozen in whatever year they left their own country behind. There have been at least 10 Big Brother programs (altogether) on Channel 4 before this one and countless other Big Brothers all over the world... incl Big Brother Africa! Certain minorities living in the UK are here in body alone, but are so isolated in their culture - tolerated to the point of being invisible to indigenous Brits - that they are completely oblivious to what goes on in such shows. More worrying is the realisation that many members of such communities are so ill-integrated that they think the kind of people who 'star' in Big Brother programs are representative of Britain. Sure, these kind of people exist, but wanna-be celebs are a mere sub-culture themselves, not the mainstream majority.

I haven't seen any of this series of BB. There's no need. I can imagine exactly what's going on, and I know that I am also unable to tolerate witnessing the behaviour of Jade Goody and her friends. It's too close to the bone as it reminds me of all those unashamed racists I grew up with in Rhodesia and the Old South Africa. I also can't bear to watch because I knew that this series would be watched by some very innocent Indian grannies and starry-eyed, born-again Westerners. Most of whom are, as we speak, manning call-centres in Delhi and trying to hold their smiles and not grit their teeth too much as they listen to Brits whinge about their phone bill or insurance policy or whatever.

I get fed up when phoning my local service provider and being re-routed to Delhi, but that's because of the lunacy of the situation. Some poor bloke who doesn't own a personal computer and for whom English is a (very different) second-language is in the awkward position whereby he must read out a checklist in order to troubleshoot my problem. If I have attempted point 1 through 35 prior to picking up the phone, I don't take kindly to the Indian technician's inability to just skip a few pages and meet me at point 36. In these kinds of situations, it's no surprise that normally polite Brits suddenly reveal their inner-racist.

Is what is happening in Big Brother holding up a mirror on our society?

"If this is a mirror, it is a cracked, warped fairgound mirror designed to make people behave as ugly as possible!" - Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.

"It reflects a reality. In seeing it displayed it can be tackled."
- Jon Snow, C4 News, 17/1/07

When pushed, Mr Jasper seemed obliged to agree.

Big Brother has dumbed-down to the point that we are now scared of who is watching and have no faith in their ability to rationalise what is happening to normal people in an abnormal situation. Calling these people celebrities just adds to the confusion. I'm pretty convinced that in modern-day Britain/America, celebrity has come to mean: "person with issues that is seeking help publicly". The title of 'celebrity' comes with the baggage of having to represent something. Jade and her crew represent a lifestyle free of the constraints of politcal correctness. I guess Shilpa Shetty represents upper class Indians... and when it comes to class-discrimination, they too have a lot to answer for!


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