A dose of reality
I bet you didn’t know that the ‘reality TV’ show Big Brother was created in the Netherlands. Well, maybe you did, but I didn’t, and so I now gather it was the brainchild of media tycoon John de Mol. It had its first airing in Holland also, almost exactly ten years ago, and immediately afterwards burst on to the global broadcasting scene like a bad rash, itchy and ultimately really annoying. I think it has been broadcast in around 40 countries, with each having its own particular content.
Well, confession time: I must admit I have never ever watched a complete episode of any of the national varieties. On once occasion when I was surfing channels on a hotel TV I did come across it, by accident. I watched for about ten minutes, but then switched off. And all I can remember is that I was totally astounded by the sheer banality of the formula and by the fact that millions were watching this mindless drivel.
I guess I am in a small minority here, since millions watch the show. However, I am fast coming to the conclusion that not just Big Brother, but all so-called ‘reality TV’ (which seems to be based principally on the formula to take people and confront them with various unlikely scenarios and then see what happens) is total and brain cell-destroying rubbish. By now Big Brother is only one of (it seems to me) millions of reality TV shows. What exactly is it that made the formula so successful in this decade?
However, it is not just that all right-thinking people must surely be outraged by the sheer stupidity of much of the genre, there are also increasing signs that the participants, contestants or whatever of such shows, once they have found fame, find it hard to deal with the resulting attention that they get. There have been suicides and problems such as alcoholism. Some become caricatures of the persona they displayed in television, and others mistake the fame for a genuine interest in them as people.
Television need to rediscover its capacity to sow the seeds of culture, learning and analysis. Big Brother can play no part in that.
Tags: Big Brother, John de Mol, reality television
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October 3, 2009 at 1:02 am
Oh, you’re really behind the times if you imagine that Big Brother is the nadir of reality TV. Just Google Jon and Kate Plus 8. I don’t watch it, but it’s all over the news and current affairs here. In a nutshell: parents of twins and sextuplets (the result of fertility treatment) have for the past four or so years invited TV cameras into their home to film them and their kids. Adults at least can consent to their own exploitation and humiliation for the sake of prime-time entertainment. These children have had no such opportunity to decide whether they want every aspect of their growing up to be shown on TV – or, more recently, every argument and slanging match of their parents’ marriage breakdown. The parents are using – and, it has to be acknowledged, being used by – every media outlet in the US to fight their divorce and sling mud at each other in the public arena. They’ll never have normal lives again, but at least they chose to run that risk. The children have no choice. Now that show is the real low point of reality TV.
October 3, 2009 at 9:26 am
No, Wendy, thankfully I hadn’t come across that one. In fairness, I wasn’t suggesting that Big Brother was the latest thing! What prompted me was BB’s 10th anniversary.
October 3, 2009 at 3:21 am
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October 3, 2009 at 6:26 am
Just casting some spaghetti at the tiles. But could it have something to do with the lack of any real community.
Call it the pack mentality. When I arise of a morning, my dog goes a bit crazy with delight when first she sees me.
Or it could be something of a salve to loneliness, and that very banality is the comfort for it fits to many lives.
Here is a question for you on something you were on about a while back. If the people of estates north of you went as a matter of course to the Opera do you thing for one instant that the current community, that does, would attend.
I could argue that attending the Opera provides a similar boost to the upper-middle much the as seeing each other on some beach on Barbados or out at The McCreevy Gift at Punchestown. All which I hold has nothing to do with culture, high or otherwise. But to do with the Pack.
October 3, 2009 at 9:23 am
Vincent, that’s a genuinely interesting question. I think I may address it in a separate blog post later today.
October 3, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I too have never watched Big Brother, not even for 10 minutes (smug grin). In fact I have never watched any reality TV except the Osbournes, which is addictive, with Ozzy being a real life Homer Simpson. I was disappointed to find that in the US all the swear words are bleeped out thus rendering the program instantly banal.
As for “Jon & Kate+8″, well try “the Duggars” who I think have 19 kids all names beginning with J [because Jesus...], http://www.duggarfamily.com .
Well its all bread & circuses isn’t it? And if not this, then something else: already talent shows & dance shows have emerged out of the gloom. If all “right thinking people” think these programs are stupid,well maybe they/we are in a minority as opera & other high culture just doesn’t pull in the punters. So I think this is an old argument, but I don’t see the cleavage between high & low culture disappearing any time soon.
October 3, 2009 at 6:05 pm
“A(nother) dose of reality”
http://notolisbontreaty.blogsome.com/2009/10/03/democracy-is-officially-dead-in-eu/
October 3, 2009 at 6:26 pm
It is easy to dismiss Big Brother but the first Dutch series was truly groundbreaking television and none of the participants knew what they were getting into. The subsequent internationalization of the series turned it into something much less authentic.
Actually there two Dutch production houses, Eyeworks and Endemol, that continually come up with new concepts. You would be surprised how many program concepts they sell internationally.
October 4, 2009 at 7:46 pm
http://web.oirarcone.heanet.ie/asx.aspx?Channel=Dail&Date=20081008&Start=05:55:52.000&Duration=00:22:25.000
Michael D. Higgins gives a second stage speech on the Broadcasting Bill 2008.
November 28, 2009 at 7:47 am
I like the cut of your jib, Ferdinand.