Big Brother

Many people across the UK will be glued to their TV screens tonight (30.05.07) as we see the launch of yet another series of Big Brother. Everyone will be waiting to see if anybody they know has got in to the show as people are plucked from obscurity and thrust in to the limelight to spend time in a house in front of millions of TV viewers.

The argument with reality TV shows like Big Brother that I like to ask is this: Is the show more about the TV company using people to get good viewing ratings or about the contestants using the show to get famous? I think it is a bit of both which is a very dangerous mixture as it means you have people that are willing to do anything to get famous and a show that is willing to exploit that hunger for fame at any opportunity.

I personally commend anybody that goes on that show as you have to be very brave to give up your job, your friends, your family, your privacy and your life for the time that you are in the house. If you are willing to sacrifice all of this for fame then you are a truly motivated person. The problem comes when people think they are strong enough to deal with anything that comes their way as a result of the show get out of the house and back in to reality to find that they can’t cope with it. If you win the show or are able to get enough notoriety to be offered work after the show then you may see it as a sacrifice that was worth making but what happens to the people who don’t. For the ones that don’t it then becomes very hard for them to find work as everyone knows them as so and so off Big Brother and no run of the mill companies will employ them.

I think if you can go in the house and beat the producers at their own game by making a future for yourself out of it without becoming one of the top hated people in the country then you have achieved something great. The only problem is that now with producers trying anything to create controversy no matter what game plan you go in with its going to be very hard to achieve those things and not be a pawn in their game.

The show is really a test of who the strongest people and showing how strong you are. If you can survive being watched twenty four hours a day with people that have been put in the house with you deliberately to clash with you and with situations that have been created to cause controversy, without if affecting the way you behave and the way you act then you have a very strong character.

I think Channel 4 or the production company need to do more for the contestants in the way of support as well as counselling before and after the show as for the time they are on the show they are just used as pawns to create ratings and there is only so long you can do that for or only so hard you can push someone before one day something very terrible is going to happen on reality TV as they continue to play a dangerous game of “top this” with every series trying to do something more controversial than the next. There has to one day come a point where you can’t go any further.

Adam Sibley
Founder of the Talented Young People organisation
www.talentedyoungpeople.com
"Envisage it, Believe it, Achieve it!"

http://www.talentedyoungpeople.blogspot.com/