Big Brother: Camilla, Ashley, John and the Fallout

July 4, 2006

I’m not going to write a great deal about this. Put simply, it was a joke that went too far, everyone involved has said that. No real harm was done, but Big Brother had no other option but to throw Ash and John (or Michael and Michael) out of the house, which is fair enough and understandable. As usual, my problem lies with the aftermath.

The incident was not shown in any way on Channel Ten, let alone on Big Brother itself. In fact, Channels Seven and Nine have shown more footage than Channel Ten. The footage was streamed live on the website. Among others, Senator Helen Coonan, Stephen Conroy and that insidious Family First guy (Steve Fielding? Man I hate that ‘party’) have all jumped on their horses and started shouting in the name of children, women’s rights, sexual assualt, broadcasting decency, internet regulations, ad nauseum. Even politicians that matter have joined in, such as John Howard, Kim Beasley and, on the other side of the argument, Peter Beattie.

The incident was shown only on the live streams at 4.30 in the morning. Any child watching at that time is falling victim to a greater, and more prevelent, evil than Big Brother, namely bad parenting. If they want to have a go at letting kids see the footage, speak to Channels Nine and Ten and their ‘news’ departments. Even YouTube pulled the videos within about six hours of them surfacing. Women’s rights and sexual assault issues are fair enough, but the real analysis shouldn’t be of what happened, but of how it was dealt with. The actions were wrong, no debate there. However, the consequences were harsh and relatively swift. These things happen, and I believe that by showing they are not tolerated, this sets a better example then not having the problem in the first place.

As for John Howard calling to axe ‘this stupid program’, well maybe he should stick to the job he’s been given, rather than dip into a bit of media censorship. It’s not like he’s paid attention to anyone saying pull the troops out of that stupid war, or let the stupid refugees into the country now, has he? And now Howard has turned this into an international affair that’s starting to move its way around the internet.

It’s a TV show. Lots of much worse things (in terms of sex, violence, crime and other ‘moral outrages’) are depicted in many other shows and every night, the ‘news’ from all channels bombards us with horrors in more detail that make this pale in comparison. The best thing is to take the incident, and the actions that followed it, learn from them and use them as an example.

Big Brother is a social experiment, let the results of the experiment become lessons, not condemnation.

As always, thanks to Behind Big Brother for the open forum and ability to provide the information that the official channels couldn’t.

Posted in Media