Big Brother's persistent problem with racism

[Fla Dem]

Last edited Sun Jul 28, 2019, 10:36 AM - Edit history (1)

THE WEEK
Neil J. Young
Opinion
July 27, 2019

<<<<Snip

That's certainly what it feels like on this summer's Big Brother, the hit CBS reality competition television show in its twenty-first season. Each year, the show assembles a group of mostly-white, mostly-hot twenty-somethings, locking them into a sealed house where they live under constant surveillance for several months and vote each other off one by one. The isolation and competition that drives Big Brother resembles the premise behind CBS' other megahit show Survivor, although Big Brother's houseguests certainly enjoy better food and comfier beds than Survivor's castaways. But the particular nature of Big Brother, including the 24-hour footage of the house that diehard fans can watch online, has always given the show an air of social experimentation. What can we learn when we cut off a group of Americans from the outside world and see how they behave?

Perhaps too much. Once again, what we've seen is that members of the Big Brother cast can't stop themselves — even knowing they are under continuous observation — from letting out their prejudices. Racism and other bigotries have long plagued the Big Brother franchise — and reality TV more broadly — but this season's ugliness feels particularly pointed and problematic given our political moment. Meanwhile, CBS's mishandling of its show demonstrates the complicity of network television in fomenting the very conditions that encourage racism while doing everything it can to cover it up, and reflects the broader casualness with which white Americans dismiss or ignore the very real racism all around them — not just on television.

Big Brother's problems this season started on the first episode when three houseguests were immediately nominated for elimination. That all three cast members were non-white — out of a cast that includes only five racial minorities — and that they had been put on the chopping block by Jackson Michie, a muscled good ol' boy from Tennessee, suggested dark days ahead for the show. In a new twist for the program, the contestants who were voted out in the first three weeks didn't have to immediately leave the house but were instead sidelined to Camp Comeback, where they could compete to return to the game. But hewing to Big Brother tradition, the white majority house sent one non-white cast member after another — two African-American players and one Bangladeshi-American competitor — into purgatory before unceremoniously kicking all three out in one fell swoop last week, a brutal visual for the show. On Thursday night's show, the house stayed consistent, voting out Isabella Wang, a Chinese-American player from New Jersey, leaving only one non-white contestant out of 12 left in the game.

The cast's rapid whitening of the house has happened alongside a steady stream of racist comments from some of its members, something that has been well documented by those following the 24-hour live feeds. But you would hardly know that from watching the episodes of the show which run in primetime three nights a week. Instead, Big Brother's producers have stripped the broadcast of those racist comments and, even more importantly, cut the episodes so as to give the white offenders what Nicholas Caruso over at Pop Dust has called "nice-guy edits." (Off-camera, Big Brother producers have reportedly warned one particularly egregious cast member about his racist comments, a move that seeks to protect the contestant as much as it does the show itself. Publicly, CBS executives released a statement this week saying they "share some of the viewers' concerns.&quot


more>>> https://theweek.com/articles/855138/big-brothers-persistent-problem-racism

[murielm99]

1. There is some serious bullying going on as well.

That skinny little pre-school teacher was bullied and ostracized for something she did not even do!

Bullies and mean girls, just like real life.

[Fla Dem]

2. I watched BB regularly from the 1st season. But had to stop.

For some reason the last few years they have really gotten some very misogynist, racist people in the cast. If they weren't that, then they were just plain cruel and nasty. Maybe I just got too old to enjoy that type of "twenty-something" show (all but 4 are in their 20's this season). The producers can influence the show, and we know they do when the HG's are called back to the "diary room". Or why they don't kick them off when they become racist.

Yes I know there are bullies and mean girls in real life as well as racists and sexists. But, CBS just doesn't have to showcase them on a show geared to a younger audience. That gives the impression that behavior is ok.

[murielm99]

3. Maybe I am getting too old for it, too.

I don't watch every season.

I wasn't going to watch this season, after that nasty season of Celebrity Apprentice. That woman who won was a bully, and I could not stand the way she squealed all the time. My husband started watching, so I joined him.

I liked Tyler last time. I wish he had won.

I think they do a poor job of screening people, and sometimes I think they make up the rules as they go along. I have read that that Michie character has past arrests for domestic violence. Is that true or just an internet rumor?

[LessAspin]

4. CBS has totally tarnished it's image.

It really is disgusting...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/103713396