Unless it’s good timing from the point of view of Fairfax Online’s bottom feeder search optimisation strategy – soak up those google hits for Big Brother 2008 and Corey Worthington. You know they the advertisers want to.
Last night the most read story on the Sydney Morning Herald website was:
Every year, with the facile op/ed, retailing the same old arguments, with about the same level of analysis as advertorial or astroturf. But this year’s there’s a big clanger, and probably the reason why the SMH was getting its hit fix – in a season where the ratings are slipping and the show’s manipulations and its theatre of cruelty have reached all time lows.
Melinda Houston wrote:
And the freak-show element has brought its own rewards, such as the unlikely friendship blossoming between Nobbie and Travis…
Oh really? People are only reading this trash because Travis was hospitalised as a direct result of the culmination of a campaign of bullying and vilification orchestrated by the aptly-named Nobbi. You can’t read all about that in the Fairfax press, but you can in the blogosphere – go to these posts from Lauredhel and Eye on Big Brother, who’s been writing sharp analysis all season about the real reasons why BB has been:
holding up a mirror not to all of society, but to a bloody great chunk of it…
And as I’ve been suggesting in what I’ve written about the show, what we see isn’t pretty, whether it’s some of the stereotypes cultural analysis of BB reveals, or whether it’s the last desparate actions of a franchise which is now trashing itself, and trashing those to whom Channel Ten and its producers owe a duty of care. But the show must go on. For now. At any rate.
Update: Eye on Big Brother reports on some intertubes snooping into incidents of bullying BB doesn’t want to talk about, or wants to lie about.
Travis would have to succeed in a private lawsuit against the attackers. Negligence and reckless indifference to the potential harm in spraying “shower gel” (the bottle didn’t look like a body care product to me) into someone’s face.
I hope he recovers from his shingles quickly and that he doesn’t lose the sight in that eye.
Eye on BB may have fallen into a trap. According to Behind BB, the attack on Travis happened in the toilet, not in the shower, as BB is making out.
Eye is right, however, as seeing Ben’s freaking out as meaning Ben is selfishly seeing he will be thrown out by the public for what he did to Travis.
Ben is a lawyer, and may be thinking about possible legal action from outside the house, by Travis’ family.
Speaking of Travis’ family… I don’t believe Kyle has a respiratory problem. I think he and BB may be threatened with legal action by Travis’ mum for repeating the slander about Travis’ sexuality.
There is also still the unresolved problem of Rima’s absence. Will BB be compensating her for loss of earnings? What about Rima’s prizes on exiting the house? Does Rima have a case for legal action against BB?
The show is falling to pieces.
Ben is a lawyer? and he sprayed caustic liquid into someone’s face?
He’s probably worried about his future employment prospects as well.
A law student, I think.
Ben is a lawyer, and may be thinking about possible legal action from outside the house, by Travis’ family.
A law student, I think. A real lawyer would be looking at disbarment.
And we wonder why we have troops boozing and dressing up like the KKK and our former PM and current Opposition Leader shrugging it off as lads letting off steam.
This show is truly sad. Why is still going?
Sorry, Ben is a law student.
Tigtog is right. He would be thinking about his future employment prospects.
We still don’t know exactly what it was that Ben put in Travis’ eye. Was it shampoo or something nastier, like cleaning spray? If you examine the pictures of Ben before the incident, you can see what looks like a spray bottle rather than a shampoo bottle. What is for certain is that you cannot trust anything BB says about the incident.
Yep, and Eye has done a fine job in his post of drawing the (gendered) links between “tolerance” of “lads” on BB and in the broader public sphere.
I cannot take advantage of name type sakes at this time of night.
Update: Eye on Big Brother reports on some intertubes snooping into incidents of bullying BB doesn’t want to talk about, or wants to lie about.