Big Brother All-Stars is an Exercise in Arrogance!
BB7 Article by Roxanne McDonald
I was speaking with an associate (or emailing back and forth with him) today, and as usual we were discussing one of our favorite pastimes, reality TV.
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We agree on many points and about most characteristics when it comes to the granddaddy of reality TV shows, Big Brother, or as it is this season, Big Brother All-Stars (BB7). |
We two, like many viewers, imagine Will and Jase are gonna tear up the game,
tear apart weaker (but seemingly stealthy) alliances, and will likely, if they stay in “character”, tear new ones for those competitors they see as the greatest threat.
For instance, on the first night of Big Brother All-stars, the night or episode where Julie Chen invites the winning/voted-on Big Brother Allstars from past seasons back into the house for this season, Will speaks in the diary room about Kaysar: derisive and as egomaniacal as ever, Will says that Kaysar is (and I paraphrase, not liking Will all that much, anyway) undeservedly cocky/arrogant. Now. Isn’t it interesting that the most solipsistic, self-centered, egocentric of the group always always point to others in their assessing of such qualities as arrogance, when in fact the arrogance rests primarily in that very speaker?
What is most interesting, though, is what is obvious to us literate folk who have read and studied George Orwell’s 1984, a daunting (and prophetic) dissertation, if you will, on the dystopia that is now a big part of who we are in many civilizations, the US especially. And further, if you have been following from the first season of Big Brother all the way through to Big Brother Allstars, aka Big Brother 7, you will possibly remark at the intended similarities and the creepy outcomes of such a construct as Big Brother reality TV. The very first ever episode, for instance, has each of the invited BB guests chauffeured into the COMPOUND! in an all black utility vehicle with the windows blacked, as well. One of these vehicles alone is not such a big deal, but a caravan, creeping slowly toward the site of doom, against a heart-throbbing background sound effect, is eery.
In another example—that anticipates the fight-to-the-death-challenge that will be Big Brother Allstars—one player (I think it was Allison a few seasons back, so we will say Allison for now) has an important secret she cannot reveal to even her closest ally in the house…for there are cameras EVERYwhere (even though we at home do not see them…in the shower, in the closets, etc.). So she devises an absolutely brilliant method of conveying her message: she holds a novel she has been reading, and in a very clandestine manner, points, one at a time, to words that make up the message to her in-house friend. WELL! Big Brother will have none of that (even though it is already fascinating TV for those of us who are reality TV, Big Brother, etc. aficionados), and calls her into the “diary “ room—the interrogation room, really, and forces her to speak of her secret by demanding repeatedly that she reveal what exact words she had been pointing to.
In general, however, is of course the bizarre need to not only expose oneself to millions of viewers (by physically undressing, smooching with some dink under the covers—and under infrared lighting and camera lens, or verbally disclosing things even our trailer trash, incestuous, abusive grandfathers and uncles would blush at) but to subject oneself to the very experiences future-thinking Orwell and others dreaded! Yeah, yeah, it’s often said that these guys are in need of the million-dollar prize (or 500k prize of Big Brother Allstars, in this case), that they need to get through college, need to pay for Grandma’s glaucoma operation, etc., etc.. But methinks the need is greater to share grandstanding and histrionic behavior, acting out and camping it up as, for example, does the controversial Marcellas—who, as my email buddy has confirmed, was so boasting about his being “THE MOST popular/well-known Big Brother house guest” that he was SURE to be voted into the Big Brother Allstars house by viewers. HA.
We love the most intense of intense, especially when it is on television and NOT in our own already challenging lives. But we are not so starved for entertainment (of which there is much fine material available on many channels) that we would actually welcome the braggadocio of little brothers…especially not when there are the nastier, more cutthroat, and, ahem, better looking competitors like Kaysar. Go true hunks, and show those Cro-magnon Howies with the repulsively protruding arboreal ridges that they look at so cockily in the mirror far too often and the pitifully lacking Australopithecus or Barbie Doll others…and win this so-called game—with originality, craftsmanship, and wits!
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