Tuesday, 31 Jul 2007
In recapping Big Brother for AfterElton, I’ve been trying to keep a tab on what the live feed subscribers are seeing. To that end, the Big Brother forum at Television without Pity has been incredibly useful. Not only is TWoP home to some of the smartest conversations about television, the strict moderation keeps it all very sharp.
Now imagine my surprise this afternoon when I decided to check on the thread, having last visited some 20 hours ago, and found that 35 pages of discussion had happened in that time. Yikes.
For me, the most interesting aspect of Big Brother is that we do get a glimpse at the man behind the curtain. It’s really interesting to track the discrepancies between what the live feed subscribers see and what CBS viewers see, a glimpse into how one can manufacture the reality of reality TV.
On the current season Dick and Danielle are the only remnants of the season’s “enemies” twists where one man was surprised to learn that his ex-boyfriend would be a part of the cast and another woman learned her high school rival was there. Dick and Danielle are a father and daughter who’ve had a rocky relationship, she was mostly raised by her grandparents and the two haven’t spoken to each other for two years after she failed to pay back money she borrowed from him.
If you only see the primetime Big Brother, you’d have an image of Dick as a blunt, punk-rock curmudgeon who hides his caring side. We see him taking slow steps towards reconciling with his daughter and giving her good advice in the season’s squirm-inducing romance between Danielle and the flirtatious Nick. (Danielle said goodbye to a live-in boyfriend at the beginning of the season, CBS has just stopped short of calling him a cuckold on the show.)
The live feed viewers, however, have a very different view of Dick, however. For that segment of the audience, he’s a short-tempered bully who has repeatedly cursed out one female housemate, using threats of violence, death wishes and rape as well as all the derogatory references to her sexual organs you’d expect out of someone who has issues with women.
His angry words in her direction have gotten worse and worse until last night, he poured his drink on her. That might sound minor, but for someone who’s used threatening language again and again, an invasion of physical space like that is cause for concern.
The frustration is increased by how the other housemates have rationalized that there isn’t reason to worry and have mostly held onto their friendship with Dick. Most of them have drawn the ire of live feed viewers for their “Mean Girls” tendencies.
However, the most bothersome aspect is that CBS has edited out all of his worst moments. His rudeness comes off in primetime as bluntness, his anger as crotchetiness and, in the end the main message is that he has a heart of gold at the center. By constantly shrugging off his threats and dismissing them (by portraying him in an opposite manner as he behaves) the network is almost giving their okay to his behavior.
July 31st, 2007 at 3:00 pm
It certainly makes you wonder what other characters have been edited on shows where there is not a live feed…
August 1st, 2007 at 9:17 am
It also makes me wonder what kind of contracts the participants have with CBS. One would think it includes lots of contradictory statements like “CBS will make every effort to ensure participants safety” and “participants will not hold CBS liable for any injuries on the show.”
If he does end up assaulting a woman on the show, can CBS still be held partly liable? It seems to me they should be, contract or no. Maybe the problem is that I learned reality TV rules from The Real World (which was so much saner than any of this) but it seems to me that housemates that become physically abusive should get kicked out, contest or no contest. Hate speech culminating in any form of physical violence would have gotten someone kicked off of The Real World - and my impression is that TPTB at MTV would have supported it. But CBS is doing what they can to keep him there, which means they are deliberately ignoring a potentially dangerous situation. Which I think, no matter what their contract says, makes them partly culpable in anything that may happen in the future.
August 1st, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Max, on a similar note, there was a column that got several Asian-Americans to watch and react to the “race war” Survivor, including Shii-Ann from Survivor:Thailand. She commented on how she heard a lot of racist comments that never made it onto the air.
Mickle, from what I’ve read the woman who had a knife held to her throat in the second season of Big Brother successfully sued the network and the production company, so there’s a case here.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
good. I’m not that anything done so far (on the part of the show) is more than just meanness, opportunism, misogyny, etc. - except maybe reckless endangerment, if that applies - but they really ought to be held partly responsible is something worse happens.
It’s bad enough to put someone who is potentially dangerous inside the house, it’s quite another to manipulate the show to make it more likely that he will stay - even after he’s shown to be capable of violence towards his housemates.
August 2nd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
er - “I’m not sure that….”
(sigh)
August 12th, 2007 at 1:43 am
If you haven’t seen the latest updates over at the TWoP forums about Dick’s tirades from yesterday then you need to check them out pronto. Back when he was going after Jen all the time I couldn’t believe he wasn’t kicked off. Everytime I think it can’t get worse with him it does. And every time I think that *now* will be the time the show steps in & removes him (I remember a few seasons ago someone was removed for kicking/throwing a chair and I don’t even think anyone was around the area when it happened!)…nothing happens.
Descriptive rape threats. Homophobic taunting. Extreme verbal abuse.
I guess he can get away with anything as long as he doesn’t touch anyone but I don’t see how the show can consider themselves safe from him hurting someone physically when he’s inches away from other people during these tirades and could do something *instantly* before any show security could bust out and pull him off.
It also makes me sick that they allow him to still be there yet can’t show how he really is on the edited tv broadcasts.
Argh!
August 20th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
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