Fred'sNotDead

What a Furore!! Grace Dent sums it up for us. Thank god for her...

So another Celebrity Big Brother is over. Shilpa Shetty is crowned queen. Jermaine Jackson and Dirk Benedict are second and third.

What a relief it's finally over. I was compelled by Big Brother as I've always been, but feel-good telly this was definitely not.

Big Brother feels like escapism less and less these days. It's not like the daily double edition of Friends on E4, which, after a hard day at work, is the televisual equivalent of a warm bath, half a valium and snuggling up on the fluffy tummy of Sesame Street's Mr Snuffleupagus.

No, Big Brother isn't happy telly. It's not satisfying. It doesn't send us off feeling like we've achieved anything. It chucks up hundreds of questions but no answers, makes us revisit childhood traumas and relationship woes and makes us confront our own prejudices and hypocrises.

It has us drumming our fists with fury, calling Ofcom, despairing the fabric of British society and arguing with our friends. It leaves us swivel-eyed and knackered in a lump on our sofas shouting, "I hate you! You're rubbish these days! Mmm…errr, when does BB8 begin? I need to set my Sky+…" Let's face it, we're all hooked.

That aside, the fact that Shilpa, Jermaine and Dirk, the non-British contingent took the top places pleases me greatly. OK, pleases and amuses. Here we are, good old Blighty, the land where every woman is free to pole-dance, binge-drink and reverberate our own bare bum cheeks merrily on CCTV in Basildon Cocoloco Niteclub (just as Emiline Pankhurst dreamed). Hurray - girl power! Then along comes Shilpa Shetty: a teetotal Hindu girl who lives with her mum, likes cooking, early nights and praying and we give her first prize for possessing the characteristics we Brits admire.

Next along, Britain's second most-adored housemate is Jermaine Jackson, an African-American Muslim bloke admired for keeping the house unified with his softly spoken lessons in peace and tolerance.

"Kindness is a strength," Jermaine would whisper, "Use this to build a strong foundation." Having used up his 14-word quota for the day, Jermaine would tootle off back to the bedroom, unfurl his blue matt and begin praying.

"Hee! Hee! You should put all your little mantras into a book!" squeaks Davina. Erm, Davina, Jermaine doesn't need to. It's called the Koran, it's available in bookshops already.

In fact, stop press: the attributes of Jermaine, who Britain has warmed to so greatly, could be summed up neatly as "peacefully following Islam". Crikey, could someone tip off Sky News? I think this might warrant one of their big crash, bang, wallop red alerts and Kay Burley pulling a face like Chicken Licken waiting for the sky to fall in.

To add to the melee, third place in popularity goes to Dirk Benedict, an American bear-hunting conservative who thinks women should stay at home and look after their own babies, do the cooking and cover up their middle-aged cleavages.

How Dirk's views fit in with ten years of New Labour rule I can't quite figure, but I do know that Britain seems to have found a place in its heart for someone who likes blasting critters then turning them into fancy hats.

Damn you, Big Brother, for making me think about all of this socio-political nonsense. Thank heavens I can go back to watching Friends again. The one where Phoebe changes her name to Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock makes me feel nothing but fluffy numbness.

The evictions of Jo, Cleo, Danielle, Ian and Jack all flew by for me in a blur. Jo clearly wasn't that bothered by the accusations against her. In her heart, Jo doesn't believe she is a racist and she truly didn't seem to think that she'd been nasty to Shilpa. She simply refused to feel the requisite amount of pain we all wanted her to, no matter how much Davina did her Mrs Doubtfire face and flapped her cards.

To be quite honest, the more Davina showed the contestants the footage of what had been going on in the outside world and pulled a face like she was on a War Crimes tribunal, the more it all looked like a huge, stupid storm in a teacup and the more vindicated Jo and Danielle became.

Especially when one housemate after another queued up to say, "Yes, there was an incident last week, but no, it wasn't racist and everyone had moved on from there and they'd been getting on fine this week and erm, that's it."

"But why didn't you step in?!" Davina quacked at Cleo, Dirk and Ian. No, Davina, more importantly why didn't you step in? The housemates are sensory-deprived, brain-addled people in a vacuum, making mountains out of molehills down to sheer boredom. The TV crew in charge were the people with the power to step in and stop anything.

But with Jade and Jo now long gone into hiding, Danielle took the full flack of Davina's annoyance. Spat out of the house through jeers and howls, down a catwalk, into a chair, called a racist, showed footage of the world calling her a racist, grumped at by Davina, hissed at by the audience. If this was justice, then why didn't it feel more satisfying?

"It's only a game show!" Davina quipped at the start of the finale, which felt like a two-finger salute to everyone who complained.

Because that's all it is after all, isn't it? It's only a game show: only a few careers and livelihoods ruined. Only a few relationships shattered, a few contestants' families heartbroken, only a few safehouses booked and kids living without mum while she's in hiding, and only a few psychologists on standby and contestants said to be near-suicidal.

This is totally normal on game shows, isn't it? You should see the drama on Countdown when they run low on pens. Carnage, emotional fall-out, safehouses being booked everywhere.

Thank you so much for all of your emails during the Celebrity Big Brother blog. I read every single one and they're continually hilarious, thoughtful and outraged (usually all at once). Thanks so much for writing. It's good to know it's not just me going quietly berserk.

I hope you all come back on Friday for my regular TV OD column, where I'll be discussing Skins, Dancing on Ice and all sorts of other stuff.

I asked you last week what they should do to make BB8 better. You mailed me lots of good suggestions, but one was very popular:

"Bring back the chickens. And make them all do the gardening. Give them something to love and look after."

For some reason I like the idea of the BB8 going back to basics. Feeding chickens. Mowing lawns. Clipping topiary. Maybe the odd minor argument in a house meeting due to one housemate sneaking in a contraband pencil.

It wouldn't be that exciting but I'd still be there on my sofa. Day in, day out, sighing, saying this is crap, not as good as it was, moaning about the state of Britain today and saying I'm going to stop watching soon. But I'd still keep on watching. I always will.

Labels: Big Brother, Dancing on Ice, Grace Dent

posted by Freddy @ Wednesday, January 31, 2007 Comments: 1