Eye on Big Brother reflects on the end of Big Brother. As always, he trains an astute eye on the broader cultural significance of the show – and of its demise.
22 Responses to “Time to go II”
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That’s a magnificent line.
He’s a fabulous writer. I hope he stays active in blogdom.
He’s also a fabulous observer of motivation and hidden impulse. He will stay active. Too many fans, not enough Aarons.
Well, the quality of the late night movies on the ABC seem to have omproved of late and they’re not all repeats. So who cares?
pffft
That dude’s OD’d on Baudrillard’s simulacrum. Only hypocritical copywriters and pomo theorists would make a critical distinction between what is ‘real’ and what is allegedly not.
Well, the quality of the late night movies on the ABC seem to have omproved of late and they’re not all repeats. So who cares?
Us wretches who get up at sparrow fart to go to our day jobs! I’d love the opportunity to watch the late night movies.
Helen,
What I meant was tragics like myself who used to watch that idiot Mike whatever on BB Up Late. (Though not this seties ‘cos they didn’t have it.)
Reading that was the closest I’ve ever come to BB. And I still remain quite puzzled as to how Duncan et al can honestly believe that Getting on TV is such a marvellous achievement and so forth. And speaking as a parent, I want to know how someone can end up at Duncan’s age with no brains. What were his parents *doing*?
#5
Dude, Baudrillard is so… pre-now. But I see he’s still a symbol that students love to use (in a rather shallow way, really), in order to project ridiculous, decidedly more modern, theories upon their world. It all sounds so intelligent, but it just sounds like “But, dude, what is real anyway, man, you know?” Ugh.
And look, if we’re going to throw on our ideological subscription badges, I was actually one of those wankers at uni who loved to refer to themselves as an “existentialist” – so I’m all down with the impossibility of objectivity and the illusion of truth and reality, bla, bla, bla…
But I think what is more modern is the ability to create critical distinctions, using concepts of truth, where, however “meaningless” an intellectual may see the truths to be of those who go on shows like Big Brother – everyday Australians – there can, of course, be a kind of “realness”, in contrast and comparison to the increasing pseudo-reality of advertising that now completely fashions the world of media, pop culture, internet, etc, young people exist in. You may feel it unnecessary, because there is no “true” aspiration, no core Self to maintain (so, who cares if they buy into the fake world of TV, etc, right?). And yeah, I disagree (but it has nothing to do with poor Baudrillard and the powerful metaphor of the Coke branding, etc, yawn, etc). Because what’s so fascinating to observe in pop culture is how far the impact of modern media extends – it leaps right out of the field of “cultural study”, etc, because it’s potentially having a huge effect on the psychological nature of human beings. In a very negative way, I think. Because the world these young people live in, I’m sorry, isn’t “real”. And by that, I don’t mean in an pomo/existential/whatever way… I mean in a very basic way, because that world is, literally, a production. But we reached a point (where reality TV comes in) where people started perceiving it as an actual reflection, as being REAL. That’s clearly dangerous, because there’s a power dynamic in the spell of that world (especially in the realm of celebrity it mostly thrives on) where people are then effectively having their experience of being human dictated by this contrived reality. And it’s a reality controlled and created by a completely unethical segment of this society, and it only wants to use that control to make money, at the end of the day – whatever the cost to our psychological, spiritual, whatever you want to call it, lives. Because people totally buy into it. It’s relevant to so many social crisis’ we now face: the body image epidemic for women (and everything that comes from that), the list is endless. And now it also has defined politics, might I add, where elections are basically productions, much like big television shows (like Big Brother), where the spectacle is dictated by riding, predicting and controlling trends in demographics, from which a “script” is written.
Cheers, the blogging goes on… (just somewhere else)
And so, in Big Brother, what we see is a moment where never has this been so literal – that people have literally consumed “themselves” as contrived, manipulated products, but totally absorbed it in complete naivety, thinking that they were connecting to something “real”. Which means that these people actually developed self-perceptions, etc – in the case of boys like Duncan, entire aspirations and ideas of “life” and being – that were a result of this production.
I’m sorry, but there is clearly a critical distinction to be made between what is “real” and “unreal”, in terms of exploring the dissonance between people and the culture they’re plugged in to. That site was written, admittedly, for a certain context (it was written for everyday people who don’t have any idea who Baudrillard is!), so it’s always delicate to have an audience like this one read it… but, even so, it’s simplicity aside, I stick by that distinction. It may not fit into your theories, but it is very much a reality, out there, in the… um… real world.
Anyway, thanks to everyone else!
Do let us know where, Aaron!
Aaron, ditto with Kim @ 10. I’ve enjoyed your commentary and have an unalloyed scepticism most of the time about BB. Merlin was my favourite, for his exposure of its … well, whatever and of course, his politics.
eye, i think the situation is far more sinister than you give me credit for, but I also don’t think a desperate plea for resuscitating the real/not-real distinction is going to do it. At the heart of your critical comments is a slightly tautological argument that (let me know if I am oversimplying this, which I probably am):
1) the media apparatus (advertising, pop culture, blah) has teh power
2) the kids are suckers for that shit and desire to live in the world hence constructed
3) the kids are living in a world which they believe is REAL…
4) and it is actually a product of the evil machinations of teh power.
Ok. I agree there is much abject stupidity about circulating as cultural commodities that consumers will for some reason consume. The sheer fact of 8 years of Big Brother tells us sfa other than someone was apparently making money from the venture. It does not tell us that the reality of consumers is constructed by the cultural industries that own the media apparatus. Where is the power of consumers to do anything?
Most actual studies of media consumption (from romance novels to porn consumption) indicate that consumers of popular culture do so in a critical manner. What ‘we’ see and perceive as being consumed may not, and, as the research indicates, probably isn’t what is being consumed. They actually live in a ‘real’ world in part constructed from the detritus of the ‘false’ world of popular culture you describe.
For example, a slightly less pessimistic (and hyperbolic) way to interpret Duncan’s use of “I want to live”, is to understand ‘live’ as an inverse metonym for ‘have an adventure’. To return to your existentialist roots, similar in some ways to the way Sartre briefly explores ‘adventure’ in _Nausea_, and less a biopolitical question of the commodification of an actual ‘life’. Everyone wants ‘adventure’, cause, well, it’s fun and random shit happens and you can tell stories about it afterwards (or in ‘real’ time on ‘live’ tele, lol)! The sad thing is that Duncan is led to believe that appearing on a sadistic tv show will be such an adventure or perhaps, as you intimate, it is the _only_ form of adventure for Gen Y. Maybe he meant ‘live’ in a kidney-transplant sort-of-way, I don’t know really, I wasn’t there.
This year’s BB was distinguished by the number of nasty people selected for the show – Nobbi, Rory, Brigitte and Terri, a Pauline Hanson supporter for god’s sake. Situations were created to exacerbate their nastiness, and if these people went too far, they were simply edited to look reasonable. If people had been exposed to the true nature of Terri, she would never have won. I think this reflects on the character of the producers. For this I’m glad they are now out of jobs.
Eye
Brilliant stuff and the type of pop culture analysis that is so rare – if not non-existent – in Australia; not using all that French faux-scientific lingo as a security blanket. PLEASE don’t make this your last pop-culture blog post. There are more verdant pastures beyond BB!
Pop culture commentary that is ficto-critical, snappily expressed, and cerebrally fibre-optic is a godsend after over a decade of copper analogue reductionist porridge that like that music that comes in only two types – country and western – is only ever served as Parisienne and/or marxian.
You should take care using terms like ‘ficto-critical’, Mr Greenfield. You could be mistaken for one of your enemies.
Klaus
I have no idea who that person is, so how can he be my “enemy”?
Did you read the profile? Professor Muecke is a preeminent practitioner of fictocritical writing in Australia. Even the most cursory engagement with fictocritical writing would have to include his book, No Road. He is also of the ‘Parisienne’ school you so despise.
Nevertheless, I agree with your praise of Eye, if not with the characterisations through which you attempt to – by contrast – bolster that praise.
Glen, I don’t want this to go back and forth and so on – and we’ll both think what we think (which isn’t so bad a thing!), but I will say that in referencing porn and romance novels, you are going as far away from reality tv (and my argument) as possible (well, maybe not with porn – but that’s a whole other essay, so let’s look at porn as escapism, for the purpose of this). These forms of pop culture still have a place in people’s lives as escapism – of course, many people consume such things because they are “unreal”, understanding they are. But this is about “reality” television, so what’s particularly interesting in reality tv is that we are talking about a production that works in the same way as porn, as “fiction”, etc, but is now presented to an audience – and consumed – as “reality”. So the psychology of the reception and perception of this is completely different to when Mary Smith tucks herself into bed at night, to read books that will inspire dreams of Fabio. Mary Smith isn’t basing her ideas of “reality” off Mills & Boon. But she is basing her ideas of reality off Big Brother. So a jump has been made.
At a site like this, everyone – for the most part – is in a very different boat, we’re savvy consumers (well, one would hope!). But out there, in the living rooms – in the lives – of everyday people, the lines are being blurred, and the distinction between fantasy and reality – as construed through pop culture (and largely, above all, TV), which these people spend so much time in. They spend more and more time in these mediums, and less time in reality – that’s a stat we also have and know. So I’m more interested in how this is shaping and changing the psychological nature of being “human”, and how it affects a range of elements: morality, aspiration, self-esteem, the function of fantasy, how people relate to one another, and so on.
It would have been lovely if poor Duncan simply wanted an “adventure” – but it wasn’t that simple to him. He thought that his life would be “sorted” (another word he used – our conversation was bigger then I reduced it to for the article, of course), and when I asked him if he’d thought about an education as a way to kickstart his life (as opposed to getting fame, the minute he was 18 and free to do so – his age reference was actually partly a reference to the age limit of BB) he laughed at me, and saw education s being what you did if you couldn’t first get the fame, and, even more disturbing, saw education as a long road to fame that was a kind of last resort. Again, I asked him what he wanted to be famous FOR, and he had no idea. Just… you know.. famous. I then said, “But your life is actually a really long time – this is a very short experience. So what happens, a year later, when it’s over – won’t you be back to where you are now?” And he honestly couldn’t see that, he thought it would change his whole life, and that everything would be different. Which is the slogan, after all – look at the way idol markets itself, “Dreas come true” is their slogan. But what happens when the dream is over?
And this is a whole new game culture is playing. There’s a real shift in that thinking, and that’s something this modern era of the “everyday celebrity” has brought about – once upon a time, you could never aspire to it in the same way, because it really wasn’t considered possible. It was a fantasy. It was attached to various talents and artforms – singing, acting, etc – and it was viable for those who wanted to pursue these careers. But now it’s a completely viable aspiration for “everyone”.
But it isn’t, anyway! We tend to buy into the concepts that we come across and have sold to us in media and pop culture (like idol’s “dreams come true” branding), to the point where, like Duncan, we don’t look logically at the situation (which then, to me, just proves the point I’m making), because who ever really got famous and had their life “started” by Big Brother? How many people seriously get famous from youtube? I’m so tired of the soundbytes from intellectuals about “youtube”! Oprah Winfrey managed to put most of the ones we’d “know” into a single episode! And even then, what did these people get, in the longer term, from this? Not much. The most famous youtuber, in recent years, was Lonelygirl… and she turned out to be an ad, carefully constructed by people who had the money and know-how to construct it!! Did the audience perceive her, knowingly, as fantasy? No, they thought she was real, and they related to a marketing scam as if they were connecing to reality. They weren’t. Youtube is over, it’s completely poisoned by business, now, anyway – we’re talking about Milley Cyrus’ youtube video, about Madonna’s latest message to her fans. So there’s this idea out there about the “fame generation” that’s complete fantasy anyway.
But, of course, shows like Big Brother need to manifest the mythology of everyday fame, because that’s how they lure people, and that’s really the dynamic the whole product was based on. It completely over-rides the logic of those who buy into it. It’s like the kids who go on Idol to be a world star, and they stand there and say, “The whole world’s going to know me”, when the track record of Idol kids is quite pitiful. And the show perpetuates that myth – the judges sit there and say things like “A star is born”!! The people behind the scenes are costantly lying to them, propping up their ego, their false expectations. You talk about hyperbole, but they’re the kings of it! And even the consumers buy into it. I sit there, every year, watching the immense emotion people invest in these characters, and I often say, “Oh, please, you’ll forget these people in five minutes”, and I always get a flood of emails from people who assure me they won’t, who find my assertion quite offensive. They’ll buy that Idol’s music, they’ll follow their career… no, no, cynical Aaron, they “love” this person!! But the show ends, and… well… nothing happens. It’s complete fantasy – transient, disposable, but – in the moment of delusion – very real to people. They can’t distinguish between the reality and the production, and what’s so fascinating is that they live in an emotional, conscious state where they “think” and “feel” as they’ve been manipulated to, and they have no idea. They think they’re being “real”. And, perhaps, for all intents and purposes, it is – it’s a new “real”. But it’s a reality created by a business, and that worries me and has such far-reaching implications beyond some lucrative trashy TV show.
So, we have a new culture of aspiration that comes from this, and there’s an increasing dissonance between what these young people think they can aim for, and what is actually possible. There’s a dissonance between what they perceive is happening, and what actually is. It’s a pseudo-reality, not a consciously engaged fantasy. They really do buy it! They’re not as savvy as you think. I would have once maybe even have agreed with you (kind of), but I went out there into that world, I’ve been literally living and breathing it for three years, now, and it’s very different, I think, to how academia, etc, have it pinned.
Oh, and thanks again Kim (and everyone else!), I’ll be blogging at my other site, Pop Psychology For Beautiful People. I’m actually going to be focusing on this a little more, and adding some new features, etc, once my poor little fingers recover from the BB typing madness. It can be found at http://www.aarondarc.com
Thanks, Eye! We’ll be reading with interest! Expect linkage!