Celebrity Big Brother and the death of journalism (again)

Almost exactly a year ago, I suggested that a particularly venomous article by Julie Burchill signalled the end of journalism, as various manifestations of what we used to call the broadsheet press appeared simultaneously to realise that vileness sells best and if you can’t do vileness then at least write about other hacks being vile, like moderately literate hyenas eating each other and ultimately themselves and then vomiting up the partially digested flesh and selling it to the highest bidder.

But you know what? I was wrong. The Burchill piece was still actually about something that matters, whatever you might think of the way she approached it. This is the end of journalism. On the DigitalSpy site, one Catriona Wightman – who sounds as if she should be the captain of lacrosse at a halfway posh convent school in Berkshire – essentially transcribes a few minutes of Celebrity Big Brother, most of which concerns a debate about whether one of the housemates had wiped his bottom with a towel. There is no attempt at wit, no pretence of analysis, not even any simulation of enthusiasm or explanation of why we ought to care. Ms Wightman just writes down what some people did and said on the telly:

Lionel Blair, meanwhile, seemed disgusted by the whole scene as Luisa said: “It probably was Jim.”

Now, I’ve been accused before of intellectual snobbery, of being too harsh on people who, it is argued, are “lacking in cultural capital”. So maybe I’ll be pilloried again for suggesting that Ms Wightman, apart from writing shit about shit, is also writing about stupid people for stupid people. Whether she herself is stupid or shit I couldn’t possibly say. But if she isn’t, she’s pretending to be, which is probably worse. But now I’m writing about her, so what does that make me, apart from a stupid hyena who’s decided to eat shit?

Big Sister

The news that Posh Spice-looky-likey off of Big Brother Chanelle went to LA dressed as Posh Spice, but Posh Spice wouldn't see her really ought to set me off on a Baudrillardian flight of fancy about how many simulacra you can fit on a size zero dressmaker's dummy. But instead I'll just point out that if Chanelle looks like anyone, it's Angela Rippon.

Dumb and then some

I've written before about Jade off of Big Brother, and about Jade: My Autobiography, by Jade Goody, which is a book about Jade off of Big Brother written by Jade off of Big Brother. I feel slightly unclean in raising the subject again, but she infects the Zeitgeist to the extent that it's unavoidable. If I were writing this blog in the 14th century (apart from the fact that I'd be burned for sorcery) I'd feel obliged to raise the unpleasant fact of the Black Death. So it is with Jade. Sorry.

I come back to her because of a new survey that lists the books that Brits don't finish. All the usual suspects are in place: Ulysses; War and Peace; The Satanic Verses; big, important books that you feel you ought to read, but never quite get around to finishing. Or even start; one of the most disturbing findings from the poll is that 55% of respondents buy books for decoration, with no intention of reading them.

This becomes even more depressing when you realise that one of the unread books is the aforementioned Jade: My Autobiography. Now, I can see all sorts of reasons for not reading the book, and for not buying it in the first place. But, presuming you're the sort of person who might choose to acquire it, you're not likely to cast it aside with disgust, because you suddenly realise what a dreadful woman J.O.O.B.B. is. So there can be only two reasons for not pursuing it to its inevitably gripping conclusion. One is that you find it too intellectually taxing. The other is that you bought it simply as decoration; the implication being that it should be propped up between A Suitable Boy and A Brief History of Time, as a means of impressing the neighbours.

It's then that you remember that the people who purchase Jade: My Autobiography are, to some extent, an elite, in that they buy books at all, even if they only buy them to make other people feel inadequate. Which ties in with another story, about allegations of skulduggery in phone-in quizzes on TV. The big chinstroke for many commentators seems to be about the level of trust between producer and consumer, coupled with the suggestion that you've got to be pretty dumb to keep chucking money at these competitions, despite the production office mantra that the viewer isn't stupid. But wasn't the truth about the aptitudes of the sofa species (or at least the professionals' perception of those aptitudes) already apparent from the questions being asked? As Holy Moly reports, a researcher on This Morning (in its Richard and Judy incarnation) was tasked with setting the teasers for 'Mid-Day Money', and was advised that "What is the capital of France?" might be too challenging a conundrum for the target demographic. His facetious suggestion of "What colour is an orange?", however, was accepted with alacrity.

And before anybody says it, yes, I know. The capital of France is 'F'.

Jaded

Right, I said to myself, I will not get involved in the latest Big Brother controversy, I don't want to give them any more publicity, it's demeaning, it's banal, it's a waste of time, it's...

Ah, bollocks.

King Ken

One of the advantages of living so far out of the loop is that it's very easy to avoid the latest manifestations of Celebutardery, although this can sometimes be frustrating. I've missed Myleene's showers ("Hmmm, I wonder, if I stand under cold water, maybe my nipples will show through my bikini, and lots of people will watch..."), the unlikely resurrection of Steve Strange, and a parallel universe in which England cricketers can actually do something right (although not cricket, it must be said). And it would have been nice to have experienced Ken Russell's brief sojourn in the Big Brother house, especially as it gave rise to this thoughtful appreciation of Jade Goody and her family:

"I grew up in the slums of Southampton and we had a word for people like that - guttersnipes. There should be a Devil's Island where we can send these people, they're all going to Hell anyway. I've met people from all walks of life but no-one so vulgar. It's almost as though they've been programmed to be vulgar, horrible and objectionable. They speak in a language which is deliberately limited. They didn't even seem to know how to use a knife and fork."

This from a man who once filmed Vanessa Redgrave getting an enema, not to mention Oliver Reed's genitalia.

Also: something for the Who fans at CiF; a contrarian view of media interactivity from the LA Times (thanks to Wyndham for spotting this); Patroclus needs your blogging epiphanies for the book that's going to make her rich and famous and the scourge of lifestyle journalists everywhere; and The Chasms of the Earth has staggered back into life, although they're still dicking around in the Louvre, and Ian McKellen hasn't started overacting yet.

And please don't talk to me about the Morrissey/Eurovision thing. I'm already experiencing a strange mixture of elation and nausea.

"Of Man's first disobedience..."

A few days ago, I was rooting through an old pile of unlabelled video tapes. (Incidentally, has anybody yet had to explain to a small child what these bulky, noisy, obsolete slabs of plastic are?) All manner of odds and sods were there, including, for some reason, several hours from the first series of Big Brother, shown in the summer of 2000.

As luck would have it, the recording I found was of the episode that propelled BB from being an interesting media experiment, to a bizarre cultural phenomenon - the downfall of Nasty Nick. In case you don't remember, Nick was the posh City boy who was discovered to have been plotting against his housemates, and was ejected from the house. Following the original broadcast moment by moment, it's difficult to see exactly what he was doing wrong, apart from being friendly to individual housemates, and then bitching behind their backs. In the end, it appears that his mortal sin against the Gods of Endemol was illegal possession of pencil and paper.

In retrospect, what was interesting was his justification for his actions, and the response of his housemates. He said that he saw the whole thing as a game that was to be won, and he was prepared to do anything to win it. Craig and Melanie and the boring Irish one and the others were dumbstruck. They were friends, weren't they? How could he have been so two-faced to friends? When Nick made his final, contrite speech to them, after being told of his imminent expulsion, it was important for him to clarify that he liked them all, and hoped they'd be friends in the outside world.

I'd followed the first BB quite closely, but became pretty bored thereafter. I thought at the time it was because the novelty had worn off. But, looking back to the first series, there's an intrinsic difference. From the second series, housemates know what being on Big Brother is. In the first one, they were just some people, thrown together. They'd never been viewers or voters, so didn't know what emotions could be stirred up by the Channel 4 press office and the silly-season tabloids. Intriguingly, in the post-mortem with Davina McCall, Nick lets slip that he'd seen the original show in the Netherlands, and that's what had made him want to appear. So maybe he knew what was going on.

Moreover, the producers seemed content to suck it and see. They'd selected a bunch of people of varying backgrounds, and let them get on with it. They probably knew that Nick was ambitious and political, but (unless they were playing a very subtle game) his actions caught them by surprise as well.

In subsequent series, everyone knew what the stakes were, even if they weren't all bright enough to acknowledge a game plan. But the producers over-egged the pudding by provoking conflict and encouraging politics. The Nasty Nick story warmed up our water-coolers because he seemed like the devil incarnate by comparison with his contemporaries. Now everyone's a Nick, and the only reason they don't smuggle writing implements into the house is because they wouldn't know what to do with them.

The original Big Brother, all chickens and home-made party costumes and Scout-like assault courses, was a contemporary Eden. But the snake wasn't really Nick, any more than he was Satan. The snake was everyone who watched it, and worked out how to play it, and applied to get onto the next show. Just as in the Bible, the snake represented knowledge and self-awareness. (I know this means Davina is God, and that Geordie bloke is something akin to Milton, but bear with me.) Nick was Adam, cast into the outside world without even the sustenance of an Eve. One of the most extraordinary moments in the episode is when Nick admits to a dumbfounded Anna that the moving story of his wife's death in a car crash had been a complete fiction.

This death of innocence is what turned BB into a vile, manipulative freakshow, where the only seedy pleasure for the viewer is the knowledge that you're not as grotesque and stupid as the drooling peasants on display. The producers selected the nutters and the cretins, and the Heat-friendly self-publicists selected themselves. But by the beginning of the second series, the whole concept had lost something more important than its innocence, or even good taste. Paradoxically, as the competitors became aware, the show lost touch with reality. Which, for a reality TV show, is a bit of a problem.

Goody bag

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