BB: Big deal or no big deal?

[rosamicula]

It isn't racism, at least what I have seen of it, which is very little and read of it, which is edited down still further. It is much more a clash of class than of race. If Shilpa had been white, English and equally posh the others would have reacted to her in the same way (the resentful, spiteful way that last year's non-slebs reacted to the

Comments

[magfish]

just a minor point (and at the risk of revealing how much i know about this crap due to working in a sector that has to monitor it): jade has never won big brother. she did make it to the last day in the 2002 edition, but she actually came fourth and was the first person to be kicked out on the finale evening. i don't think even the "great" british viewing public would be stupid enough to make her the winner of anything much.

[rosamicula]

Good grief. Thanks for that. That's quite cheering really.

I should check my facts before spouting off...

[yaruar]

And it's worth noting that she was kicked out first because the british public hated her because she was a violent loud mouthed bully, it was only after the PR teams got hold of her and spun her that she became the idiot savant that Living TV wants her to be.

[pensive_mary]

I haven't seen much of it, although if they would subtitle Jade so I could follow what was going on I might be tempted.

[ant_girl]

I fail to see how comments such as "go back to the slums", "fuck off home" and "you don't know where her hands have been" can be construed as anything but racist.

I still feel sorry for her. I know she is getting handsomely paid and could leave if she wanted to, but that is not a justification for the treatment she is recieving.

[rosamicula]

I don't think any of them is doing it for purely altruistic reasons. And unless they are total innocents (and all of them employ managers and PR people to ensure that they are not) they must know that BB is little more than the modern equivalent of a Roman circus so the more shit and blood that fly the better the outcome for them and their careers.

[rosamicula]

I still feel sorry for her. I know she is getting handsomely paid and could leave if she wanted to, but that is not a justification for the treatment she is recieving.

I agree that the way she is being treated is horrible, but then there has been enough publicity about the UK BBs, actual and sleb, for her PR and management to know that it could be really unpleasant, and that the more unpleasant it was, the better the ratings would be and the better the outcomes would be for ther career and profile. I don't she is doing it for any reason other than self-promotion. She will make far more money from exclusives and interviews because of this controversy, and the longer she sits it out and teh ratings rise, teh more money she will make.

It is bullying, but she is not a schoolgirl in the playground or a junior employee being intimated by her bosses and colleagues with no choice in the matter and no menas of resistance.

[blue_condition]

I said pretty much the same elsewhere - it's resentment of superior social status, the only "racism" is the language they're using to express it....

The cynic in me did wonder if this all happened as a response to tanking viewing figures, though... BB had slumped to about 3.1m viewers and it's apparently now got over 4m... and after all the lady in question is an *actress*... ;)

[andrewducker]

But surely using racist language to express something is still racism?

It's like using the word "Gay" to mean pathetic - I won't put up with casual homophobic language even if it wasn't intended in a homophobic way, and I don't see why I should be any different about racist language.

[blue_condition]

OK, I don't think it's *conscious* or *intentional* racism - it's knobheads using their stunted language skills to attack someone who isn't one of them, and they're latching on to race as the most visible way of insulting her. Race isn't the reason they're attacking her, I think; race is just a convenient way of expressing it.

So yes, it probably is racism, and yes, it's repellent, but it's repellent more because of the stupidity than anything else.

> "gay"

I reserve the use of "gay" for very camp men and Nissan Figaros.

[blue_condition]

...and as someone with a passion for language, could you explain how "Jackiey" got her name? ;)

[jozafeen]

I used to work with a woman christened 'Jaky' purely due to her father being so inebriated when he registered the birth he was unable to spell Jackie. Same thing here do you think?