Utterly moronic garbage (Big Brother (TV Series))

Member Name: Burning_Darkness

Product:	Big Brother (TV Series)
Date:	01/11/09 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Format has potential to be interesting

Disadvantages: Utterly moronic, vulgar, boring, patronising, massively over-hyped

Britain is the most heavily-surveilled country in the world. The state constantly bombards us with PC 'new-speak' aimed at controlling the way we talk, and, by association, think. Numerous newspapers splatter their front pages with 'news' pieces about a national reality tv show whilst pieces on illegal wars and widespread corruption are relegated to the inner pages. And the name of that show? 'Big Brother'. Dont worry about that funny whirring sound- its just George Orwell spinning in his grave at speeds exceeding 10,000 RPM.

There have been some fascinating social psychology experiments over the years. In 1963 a psychologist by the name of Milgram observed that normal people could be induced to give what they believed were fatal charges of electricity to people in the next room, just by recieving persistent commands by figures of percieved authority. In 1971 Zimbardo carried out a prison experiment attributing to students the roles of either guards or prisoners, the experiement being stopped before completion because the guard-students had supposedly begun behaving in too brutal a manner towards their prisoner counterparts.

The Big Brother format, -in which a group of disparate individuals are forced to share a sealed house together whilst the whole thing is filmed and broadcast to the outside world- is one with immense potential, that if handled intelligently could be both entertaining and illuminating at the same time. Sadly, the show is nothing more than a pathetic media spectacle, in which assorted idiots and attention seekers (or, in the case of the celebrity specials, ailing lowest-common denominator celebrities desperately looking to give their careers a boost and politicians making a vulgar attempt to boost their public profiles) are forced to perform mundane tasks in between squabbling inanely amongst themselves, with no hint of intelligence whatsoever present throughout each of the painfully dull and drawn out episodes. Viewers, meanwhile, can 'take part', voting out the contestants they dont like.

Perhaps if deadly monoxide gas was pumped into the rooms when the contestants failed at a task, or if indiana-jones style lowering ceilings were employed, or if groups of lions were occasionally released into the house in the early hours of the morning, then the show would be worth watching, but as it stands Big Brother is an offensive and utterly vacuous piece of low-brow, voyeuristic garbage designed to keep the masses distracted.

Summary: vulgar and vacuous trash