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Will
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It's only a TV programme, not real life (though it is an interesting mirror of life, exaggerated due to the isolated conditions in which the participants are confined). It's real purpose is to earn money for its makers through phone votes, so cynics could see the current brouhaha as merely a set-up situation to polarise the viewers and encourage calls.

So please, why all the fuss. It's even headline news in France now.

 

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The sad thing, really sad, is that the managing director of the UK section of the production company, Endemol, is the grandson of Joseph Bazelguette, the engineering genius who designed and oversaw the building of the London sewer system, so the grandfather dedicated his life to removing as much ordure as possible from our lives and his grandson is striving to put it back again.

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I know - you can even see different video clips of the actual argument on the Sky News website. 

It's so embarrassing 'cos' they keep saying things like Jade Goody is the real face of Britain and all that is bad about the country.  If that doesn't carry racist undertones then I don't know what does.  They are making it into an India versus Britain competition.  Very scary and unhealthy messages being put out to the masses. 

The french version of this addictive show - Loft Story - only lasted 2 seasons over here.  It didn't stir any interest.

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[quote user="Will "]

It's  an interesting mirror of life, exaggerated due to the isolated conditions in which the participants are confined.

[/quote]

Well, a mirror of life of a certain kind, the kind of people who strive and are desperate to appear on TV and in a Big Brother context. That is something they all have in common. After that, surely anything goes, and what can be expected?

I can't imagine that you would search for Young Hero of the Year or Young Carer of the Year amongst the Big Brother cast, for example. Me-me-me gone wild, captured by cameras.

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What scares me is that Jade Goody represents so much that I have spent my professional life trying to overcome! She is unintelligent, unrepentantly ignorant, crude and unpleasant and she becomes a millionaire and widely admired by other unintelligent and ignorant people who now believe that you don't need to work or improve yourself to be successful you just have to distill all of your negative characteristics and display them as often and as loudly as possible.

There is an interesting take on the issue from Mark Lawson in The Guardian today:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1993906,00.html

I read that Carphone Warehouse's sponsorship of BB was worth £3 million! However, I imagine that will be partly made up for C4 from the phone votes which will now increase in number as people take sides. I see that eviction for Jade is 20-1 on, but I think it may be closer than that...

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I have never watched it, I would never contemplate watching it, it's complete c**p and yet another rather sad example of the falseness of 'modern' society with this crazy obsession of worshiping so called celebrities.

The finest component on a modern TV is the 'Off' button.

That said, 'The trial of Tony Blair' shown last night was a brilliant piece of british screenplay.

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I have never, or ever intend to watch BB - & I honestly don't understand how it gets the viewing figures it does.  Watching dumbed down TV with dumbed down "celebrities" is not my idea of how to spend an evening.  The likes of Jade becoming a millionaire only confirms, to me, what is happening to Britain - & it's very worring.

From - Worried, of Charente !!  [:(]

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They are obviously trying, unsuccessfully, to paper over the cracks, and in many ways that is more interesting than the shenanigans in the house, which have now become tedious. Shilpa complained on air to Big Brother a couple of days ago about what she saw as 'racist' comments - then yesterday she said publicly that she did not regard what the other girls had said as being racist. The sponsor gets all holier than thou and pulls out - gaining far more publicity than if it had just gone with its original agreement. Channel 4 bosses just dig themselves into a bigger hole.

I guess once another manufactured-celebrity issue has taken over the headlines it will just prove one thing for Big Brother - the old adage that any publicity is good publicity.

Meanwhile, for those who feel Shilpa may have been the butt of unjustified taunts in the BB house, take a look at former Celebrity Big Brother contestant Germaine Greer's take on it at http://media.guardian.co.uk/bigbrother/story/0,,1992028,00.html. The Guardian is, of course, by far the most PC of the British dailies and Ms Greer is not exactly associated with reactionary, establishment views either, but...

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Thanks for your Guardian link, Dick. Perhaps a bit more of what we would expect from the good old Grauniad than mine, but still perfectly valid and very true. One frightening thing is that the attitudes mentioned by Lawson are not among the many ills besetting Britain that people think they can escape by coming to France. They are even more prevalent in the land of the cheese-eating surrender monkey (oops, I'm slipping into type casting myself now). [:P]
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I have just looked at the BBC 'vox pop' comments, and there are some comments there which seem to suggest that people are either missing or avoiding the point, which is the brainless racism that this rather fragrant (in the Private Eye sense) actress has been faced with. There are comments which suggest that bullying and racism are less important than child abuse, so we don't bother about them, that telling someone to 'go back to their own country', or refusing to eat something because they have touched it, or asking 'do you live in a house or a shack?' do not have racist overtones. Well, not if you are in denial, they don't.

I am sure that 'people like Jade' - and there seems to be a lot of them - don't recognise their own racism, stereotyping or discriminatory views. What C4 and Endemol (and Ofcom) are doing is to reinforce that ignorance and to lend some sort of credibility to it. I am also certain that many in the UK (and some old pals from the 'robust days' of this forum) are clapping their hands with glee...

edit - I've just had a look at the discussion 'elsewhere' - I'm glad to see they are keeping up their reputation for incisive comments, social integration and logical thinking...

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[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]Ahhhh at last I know who this Jade Goody is that people have been talking about!!  Never seen BB or similar 'Reality' (Ha!) shows and don't want to.  OK now I know who she is, what is she? actress? singer? or what?[/quote]

What is she? See Dick's previous comments, near the top of the thread.[;-)]

She's a totally manufactured "celebrity", whose only claim to fame, (apart from Dick's comments), is that she won a previous series of "Big Brother", the NON-celebrity version.

 

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No, she did not even win it. I believe she came third. Her claim to fame seems to be the size of, and outpourings from, her mouth as evidenced by that previous BB appearance.

I don't apologise for knowing a little about these things. Our son's fiancée works for one of those English magazines that owe their existence to the great unwashed's obsession with Jade and her kind, so it pays to keep up with the latest 'goss' as they call it.

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No, she didn't win - though I don't suppose anyone remembers who did win that year. Or perhaps any year. She's famous because she is simply ignorant. In "her" Big Brother, I think full realisation of the level of her intellect was displayed during a conversation in the BB House when she asked where Norfolk was, because Norfolk's abroad, innit. If it wasn't Norfolk, it was somewhere similar.

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I haven't seen the show, but, at last, it seems, "reality TV" has lived up to its name and shown something that is undeniably real.

That in Britain there is a spreading underclass of talentless, dumbed-down trailer-trash with unconsciously racist views.

Nothing personal, Dick, but isn't this largely the fault of the members of your profession who have persistently preached the "prizes for all" concept of education?  And the politicians who believed them, too, of course.

Patrick 

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Well, Pat, if we ever had, I might agree with you. Don't get your education news from the Daily Mail.

I think it a bit unfair to suggest that we have promoted or rewarded ignorance, though, and the breakthroughs (such as there have been) in tolerance in society have been brought about by 20 years of work in the education system.

In fact, I take huge and massive exception to  your comments. I refrain from  saying further...

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I seem to remember recent comments on this forum about mediocrity becoming the norm in schools - though I think that was French schools.

I do hope Dick and his colleagues do as much as they can to dispel the notion that the likes of Jade are good role models for those presently at school. Though it cannot be denied that, for whatever reason and in whatever way, she, in particular, has been successful in her life despite her much-publicised 'ignorance'. That's not confined to so-called trailer trash though (horrible word). I can point you towards somebody with an A level in geography, gained at an English public school, who thought that Amsterdam was in Paris.

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Unfortunately too many young people seem to think that they have what it takes to be a great footballer / actor / model / singer and their confidence often outweighs their talent and education doesn't play too much of a part in their ( or their parents) scheme of things. With so much of UK tv devoted to making 'celebrities' out of nonentities, it is hardly surprising that such an attitude exists.

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"I do hope Dick and his colleagues do as much as they can to dispel the notion that the likes of Jade are good role models for those presently at school. "

This reminded me of the time when I was mopping my classroom the floor because we didn't have enough strategically placed buckets to catch the leaks. A pupil to whom I'd been extolling the virtues of education said to me, "So I can have a good job like you, Miss ?"

I flatly refuse to accept responsibility for the Jade Goody's of this world.

Hoddy

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Beryl wrote:

"Unfortunately too many young people seem to think that they have what

it takes to be a great footballer / actor / model / singer and their

confidence often outweighs their talent and education doesn't play too

much of a part in their ( or their parents) scheme of things."

Exactly. The idea that education is a way to improve one's life chances is becoming rather quaint in the eyes of many. Not all, yet, fortunately, and rather less so in ethnic minority groups.

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