And so is… literary critic Peter Craven, who’s written a cracker of an essay on why. So go read it, and don’t forget to evict Katie so Jamie can take the “etro” out of “metrosexual”!!!
12 Responses to “I’m a craven BB fan”
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A little diffuse, perhaps, but Craven makes some good points. It’s nice to see some complexity introduced into what becomes dumb if it’s a love it or hate it argument.
On Jamie – what’s with all the waxed legs and chests those boys have? Are Gen Y antagonistic to male body hair or only reality tv peeps?
“Well, the horrors in the house become the objects of intimate and intense feelings of repulsion or attraction in direct proportion to the degree of exposure. [...] Well, Big Brother is a game – one that feeds intimately on so-called real life – and as the World Cup soccer shows, we can invest a game with passion and purpose enough. [...] under the Orwellian eye of Big Brother [the housemates] have no occupations or politics; their job is to feel and to touch and to be seen.”
The problem with Big Brother, and why I hate it with such a complete vengeance, is that contrary to the argument of the essay the show is 110% political. The parallel is between a depoliticised spectacle and contemporary culture.
A concrete example: the single most important rule is that there cannot be any collusion, coordination or organisation between ‘housemates’. Right. Let’s put them on AWA’s. All ‘constitutive power’ evaporates. I tink Michael was a prick simply because this was the only way he could demonstrate some resemblance of control over his life (by controlling others). Welcome to the dystopia of the disenfrachised residual in neoliberal society!
On a more speculative level, the way reactionaries manipulate people’s fears, anxieties, sense of justice, or sense of righteousness is exactly the same way ‘housemates’ are used as an elaborate tools to manipulate the passions of the audience. Once audiences relied on the skill of writers and actors to produce an empathetic artifice. Now producers have realised they can create the artifice of ‘reality’ more easily. Affective politics, affective entertainment.
This has nothing to do with ’sport’, where their is at least an unspoken respect between those who have committed themselves. The ‘housemates’ are the complete opposite, placed in a situation divorced from reality where they have play at ‘being themselves’. The parallel to the World Cup is utter nonsense. Unlike the World Cup that has required years of training, national histories of sporting competition and the actual excitement of matches that sees skill tempered by chance, the ‘housemates’ only need to provide their 20-odd years of ideological training and wilful submission to the most convoluted of living arrangements.
The ideological command is simple for both types of ‘housemate’ (in the house and in the audience): Invest yourself!
One investment is measured in the complex stupidity that captures the attention of another investment.
Quick!
Vote!
Actually I’ve found that dynamic interesting now
Nominations: Someone will nominate someone and keep saying ‘us’ as if speaking for the commune, collective
Big Brother will say that’s a cop out, you are not talking for the group wanting them to make more of an individual choice or liberal choice if you prefer
The Thursday before last on Uplate Mike Goldman wore a cannabis leaf T-shirt under his jacket. I must be the only person in Australia to have noticed that. Bong on, Mike!
On another note, Happy Birthday, Claire! Go you vegetarian good thing!
Vegetarian I can understand, but what’s with the total abstinence?
Oh come on, you mean you haven’t seen Big Brother UK yet? Compared to its lame Australian counterpart it’s positively Shakespearian.
Courtesy of austculture I thouroughly recommend you watch housemate Nikki (who hasn’t got a boyfriend and hasn’t had a shag in six months) to get a glimpse of what we’re missing. If Peter Craven wants deeper meaning then he really can’t go past BBUK.
Nikki needs water!
Nikki nominates
The first video’s a ripper.
A little diffuse, indeed. And as for the “brilliant and charismatic” Gretel: well, there’s no accounting for taste. I’ve seen Dobermans with friendlier smiles than Her Archness.
Camilla’s my bet this year. The fanbase relate to the pimples.
Kim
I agree totally. Craven’s essay is a cracker and a sterling example of why “Cultural Studies” is so useless! I have read dozens of essays by Cultural Studies types a la Catharine Dial-an-opinion Lumby, which all succeed in nothing more than mangling language.
Craven once more highlights just how important a classical education is for understanding pop culture!
‘The thing that really terrifies us about Big Brother is that the exhibitionism, the self-obsession and the eroticism as a substitute religion run so deep in our culture.’
No it doesn’t. It simply saddens us that once upon a time station owners had the good sense and the balls to ring up their station managers and tell them to ‘Get that crap off my TV station’
BB does however show quintessentially why our society only allows its under 25s to run student unions, although even then wiser heads have to ensure they don’t get their hands on any mandated resources nowadays.
Please, vote Jamie and Katie out, so we don’t have to put up with their annoying crying for another week!
Katie’s gone. Bummer. I was hoping Jamie would go.
Although evidently I’ve changed my mind since I wrote the post!