Very cool, if true

Single-handedly he's raised the profile and acceptance of TS suffers an *incredible* amount. Shocking that BB has done something worthwhile!

Actually, BB is dead good for that kind of thing. It's been won by gay people and transexuals in the past, after all.

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the-magician.livejournal.com

... (though of course I wouldn't know ... <grin>)

In fact, this is series 7 or 8 (or something) and I can only remember two of the winners (one gay, one transexual), plus two (or maybe three) of the losers who did well in TV afterwards (Jade Goody and John Tickle). Though I think a third guy (a cheeky scouser or something) did some DIY programmes on Discovery Home & Leisure (before it became Discovery Realtime). Oh, and there was the weird black woman with the black fright wig who was on the cover of the news papers a few weeks back for being broke and being paid for three-in-a-bed sessions with a TV presenter ... Kareoke/Moloko/M'basa/something-like-that.

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makosi, though science used to call her Moloko, which was funny.

I would suggest that anyone who doesn't watch Big Brother and appreciate it for being the most interesting social psychology experiment of the last 50 years should be rounded up, stripped of their clothing and slapped with badgers. on telly.

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The most interesting social psychology experiment of the last 50 years
See, the first series was fucking fascinating - I mean, amazing - mum and me were glued to it. They had no idea just how exposed they'd be, no concept really of what was happening to them - it was brilliant telly and intellectually stimulating.

And then Craig went into the diary room in the second last week and told everyone he was giving the money to some disabled kid and suddenly he won when before that he'd been a total non-entity and Anna should have won arghargharghargharghitstillhurtstothisday.

(The worst (and little known) part being that another fund ended up donating the money and he got to keep his winnings. Yes, I'm still sore about this - I loved Anna. I was straight at the time and I still loved Anna.)

And then the second series was miiiiiiildly interesting, 'cause I was like, "ooh, they know the game this time round, this is different..."

But that got tired really quickly, and then by the third series I didn't watch any telly anymore and I was sure as hell not gonna switch on to watch boring, carboard cutout histrionics run around a boring cardboard cutout house showing off their best angle.

So yes, I agree, it was that. But now I think it needs revamped a little more before it'll have the same magic for me.

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yeah the first series was interesting because, as you say, of the lack of self-consciousness. Its around this dimnesion that the series has evolved, their has been an arc of increased reflexivity and self-awareness which is partly, for me, why it has become more fascinating by the year. Its really really hard for me now not to go all Lacanian. I'm going to try though, but allow me this: the way the gaze of the other has now been inscribed in the performance of the self reached its apogee this year in Sezer, who thought he knew what the Other (aka the public) wanted.

For Lacan (see, I cant stop) this is the fundamental question that the other's gaze poses for and to us: Che Vuoi? What Do You Want? And not just the other of personal interaction, but the impersonal big Other who is attested to in the inedelible stain of self-consciousness haunting even our private moments. This haunting by the inscrutable and unmeetable demand of the Others desire is close to the bone of what it means to be human. Rabbie Burns cuts humanity at the same joint when he points out the impossibility and the urge to "see ourselves as others see us" that nags around our lives.

And Sezer thought he knew what the Other wanted; he thought he could see himself as he was being seen. And of course what he didn't factor in, what he couln't see, was that it was precisely this knowingness, this assumption that he knew about the Others desire which so enraged It that It voted him out with the largest share of the vote since year zero.

And the effect that had on the group. Sezers claim to know about the others desire had infected 6 people, who were so sure that they were what was wanted that their performance of themselves had become confident, arrogant, imperious and rather cruel. (Sezer and Grace were the two leaders of this tribe, even the names are genius this year.) They crumbled spectacularly. It was like watching a psychoanalytic seminar on the fantasies we use to fill in that blind spot in our world picture which is ourselves. We dont know those fantasies are fantasies til they are dispelled in these kinds of moments, when we are violently reminded that we really dont know what the Other wants or sees in us, can never be entirely sure why we are are loved, hated or ignored. And _top_ entertainment, _amazing_ drama. You couldn't have scripted that moment.

And now, like all of us, they are just bumbling through, doing, with a slightly heightened frenzy, with a little more poignancy and pain, with more deliberation and reflection, more laughter and forgetting, that dance we all do, that human default dance, of "just trying to be ourselves" hoping that somehow that will be enough to appease the invisible fates and furies perpetually in attendance. Great Telly, really really great.

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You should be advetising for Big Brother. On the Discovery Channel or something. Heh.

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i would _love_ that job.

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There really ought to be less pop-psych and more philosophy from their resident psychologist (from what I remember).

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makyo.livejournal.com

I'm a simplistically literal bastard and I'm horrifically offended by your statement. How dare you?

(Actually, you've probably got a point. I usually try and at least give people the benefit of the doubt - if it's likely they're just being flippant, and if it's a topic where flippancy is at all appropriate then that's ok.)

I can't really comment on Big Brother - I watched five minutes of the first series and thought ``I'm not interested in what any of these people do or say'' and have only seen isolated fragments (of at most 20 seconds' duration) since then. From what little I have seen, I'd find it difficult to argue with any degree of enthusiasm against the idea of them being taken out and shot. I have yet to get around to formally pitching my idea for a format for the next series: `Big Brother - The Cask of Amontillado', in which ten publicity-hungry nobodies are walled up in a dark, damp, rat-infested cellar. I think it's a winner, though.

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laserboy.livejournal.com

I have yet to get around to formally pitching my idea for a format for the next series: `Big Brother - The Cask of Amontillado', in which ten publicity-hungry nobodies are walled up in a dark, damp, rat-infested cellar. I think it's a winner, though.

I highly recommend Saw II. :-)

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Oh, you could totally just have a whole series of Big Brothers based on Poe short stories.

Big Brother - The Pit and the Pendulum
Big Brother and the Masque of the Red Death
Big Brother - The Tell Tale Heart (wherein all the contestants bar one are slowly killed and hidden under the floorboards to rot until the last goes insane)
Big Brother - The Fall of the House of Usher (this one might be interesting to engineer but I think that with care you could get the whole plot out of them)

Oh my God, that would be the best show of all time. Trap them in a house, and poke them with stimuli to make them reenact films and/or stories that they've never seen! I'm writing to Channel 4 as we speak.

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octopoid-horror.livejournal.com

I'm the exception, right?

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As ever, Mr Monster, as ever.

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I'm just a shameless troll and I like winding up your Aspergers geek friends.

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spaj.livejournal.com

All BB fans should be rounded up and shot = ok
All pakistani's should be rounded up and shot = ?

How do you draw that line?

Just interested... / bored

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People aren't born BB fans - it's a choice they make.

Judging people by things that aren't their fault is pointless, judging them by their actions is, well, the only reasonable way to judge them.

Of course, you can go the whole hog, deny free will, and say we shouldn't judge people at all.

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spaj.livejournal.com

Yes, but what you're really saying is:

"This is my LJ, I decide what you can say and be judged light hearted and frivolous, and what you will have you branded a racist ignorant pig".

And while that's all well and good, and in line with culture, civilization and all that, it's still a little nazi-esque. You mini-hilter you. (Monty-python ref, not a typo)

Anyway, not really saying much. Just saying, I think...

Adam

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Nope, wasn't saying anything like that.

I was advising against leaping to the conclusion that people were being 100% serious and not just being over-the-top.

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0olong.livejournal.com

Hmm... what about 'all Christians/Muslims/practising Jews should be rounded up and shot' then?

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Personally, I feel that shooting people is only justified in self-defence.

But judging people based on their active participation in a particular kind of belief system will be valid for certain things. Crtainy more valid than judging them by the colour of their skin.

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only if you strip these remarks of _all_context does is it become remotely problematic to discern their intent; even as presented here, fairly de-contextualised, it is pretty clear that the first is the kind of hyperbolic aesthetic snobbery you get in the broadsheets; the second either dull rascism or a bad joke.

This latter interpretation is the only really problematic one, like originally i thought of saying that all people who dont watch big brother should be rounded up, tattooed and gassed; but i thought that was pushing humour way past good taste. That would be the real problem, what if you just don't like someone elses taste, however reasonable their intent?

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That would be the real problem, what if you just don't like someone elses taste, however reasonable their intent?

Then you live with it. Why on earth would we all like the same things?

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I think matters of taste are amongst the strongest forces of affiliation and dissent; i think taste is often the final arbitar of what we can and cant bear and who we end up with: "he's very nice and everything, but he's just not my cup of tea...". I think what you were saying is that ironic hyperbole and argument-as-fun are to your taste, where as PC (over)-sensitivities and censorships weren't. I'm saying that in the end I think in this post you are making a declaration about your house style, about what is and isn't to your taste.

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