Racism in Britain By A Bore in Culture Thu Jan 18, 2007 at 12:00:00 PM EST Tags: big brother, indians, racists (all tags)
	The current crisis de jour for the media set in Britain centres on the antics of a group of B-list celebrities willingly incarcerated in a CCTV'd complex, in the Channel 4 show Celebrity Big Brother. For those of you unfamiliar with the premise and infamy that has built up around the series, allow me to bring you up to speed.

Celebrity Big Brother is a reality TV show in which a group of handpicked celebrities are asked; and agree; to spend about a month in a purpose built 'house' in Borehamwood. During this time, they are ordered to perform various silly tasks to win luxuries, and these are usually geared towards minor humiliation or embarrassment. The celebrities are deliberately stressed by the withdrawal of luxuries such as cigarettes, by the close proximity to one another, and by each others irritating personal habits. Generally speaking Endemol (the production company) pick socially incompatible contestants so ratings-winning hilarity ensues, making everyone involved a nice profit. To continue winning ratings in an increasingly creaky format (it is now #7), Endemol have engaged in various morally murky and unedifying tactics to manipulate newspaper outrage and bring in watchers. In the last series, Michael Barrymore, a celebrity whose fall from grace was caused by the discovery of a drugged and viciously sodomised dead man in his swimming pool at one of his parties, entered the Big Brother house whilst in the middle of nervous breakdown. And duly went through it on national television. He cried about 6-10 times a day, for our entertainment. This year, the media are up in arms because of the racist antics of three of the celebrity contestants: Jade Goody, Jo O'Meara, and Danielle Lloyd, in their dealings with another of the contestants, a prominent Bollywood actress called Shilpa Shetty. Jade Goody is the 'star' of a previous non-celebrity Big Brother series, made famous by her ignorance and stupidity. Jo O'Meara was a member of a band of child entertainers with delusions of adequacy. Danielle Lloyd is a softcore model slash footballer's girlfriend. What was initially presented as a clash of personalities has, as it is shown, quickly degenerated into a quasi-racist group bullying against the Indian, with discussions about how she shouldn't prepare their food because she was dirty, that she should "fuck off back to her home", that she ate with her hands, that she was so thin because she didn't cook her food properly, and so on ad nauseam. About 20,000 complaints have now been filed with the appropriate watchdog. Estimates differ since the website crashed. This outrage comes at a convenient time for Endemol and Channel 4. Based on early ratings, this was the least successful Celebrity Big Brother of the lot. One of the fractious partnerships combusted early when both Danny Tourette and Leo Sayer left abruptly (Tourette had engaged in an adulterous affair with Sayer's wife, so their inclusion was a naked incitement to audience-grabbing fisticuffs.) As Private Eye pointed out, it was beaten in the ratings war by a riveting edition of Grow your own Veg: Potatoes on BBC2. It is worth remembering that everything that is seen from the house has been edited together from hours of footage. The footage is spliced together and packaged live, so producers are fully aware of both ratings and media coverage as time passes. It is becoming increasingly obvious that there has been careful manipulation of footage to boil the pot just enough to gain coverage, but not enough to take the show off the air. An example of this is the explicit censorship of the nickname that the three have for Shetty; "Shilpa Poppadom"; which has been leaked today. Removing this from the footage has allowed Endemol and Channel 4 to spin the situation as a clash of well, class, or personality, or anything except for naked prejudice. It is evident that Channel 4 and Endemol have played the media adroitly. When Shetty (who has a hot sister) was told to fuck off back to her home, the originator of that remark, Lloyd, was called into the 'diary room' (where the only interaction between the people in the house and the people behind the scenes takes place). The producers attempted to somewhat defuse the criticism, which as I write this is getting truly ridiculous, in perhaps the least effective manner possible, as if they were saying "keep on bitching about her, but tone down the racist angle slightly, yeah?" She was confronted by her statement and asked emotionlessly and colourlessly if she stood by it. No censure. No lecturing or warning about her behaviour. That was it. Of course, she pretended she didn't remember saying it, retracted it and promised to apologise to Shetty. After playing the racism-for-ratings card, one wonders how Endemol can be any more downmarket, unless the next edition of CBB will include Gary Glitter, MJ, and St. Winifred's School Choir. Anyway, moving on, the wasted pages of downmarket tabloids and the radio wave outrage ponder whether it is racism(?!), and if these 3 girls are indicative of current attitudes in Britain today. Let us examine this. Consider the institutions of state in Britain. Consider the proportion of minority representation in parliament (2%) to the general population (7%). Consider Jack Straw's voyeuristic admission that he'd like to see under the veil of Muslim women attending his surgery for his help. Consider Stephen Lawrence - a black youth who was killed by 5 noted local extremists, and where the police response to the crime was so shabbily half hearted, just so uninterested that the subsequent inquiry found that the only possible explanation for their consistent failures was 'institutionalised racism' at all levels in the police. Consider how the police even treat one of their own, the case of Gurpal Virdi, where he was accused -and convicted!- of sending racist hate mail to himself. Consider the curious case of the largest chemical explosive haul in mainland Britain, which was mentioned in "News in Brief" in a single national newspaper in Britain (p4, below the Volvo advert), virtually ignored because, well, the culprits were white nationalists and not brown skinned arabs. Contrast with the "Forest Gate" debacle, where the word of a single informant was enough to send 50 armed police officers to the address of a low income family, to encourage them to throw a grandmother onto the street, to shoot to kill (but merely wound) a civilian, and to smear as a paedophile a blameless citizen, all with willing accomplices in newsrooms throughout this fair nation. Consider the odd inevitability of black people being voted out early in popular TV competitions reliant on voting, regardless of their skill in those competitions. Once is a mistake, twice is unfortunate and three is surely indicative of the biases of the voting public. So our institutions, our newspapers and the people all show evidence of, at its most charitable, racist prejudice. Maybe we deserve the TV we get.

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in Borehamwood Michael Barrymore Shilpa Shetty discussion s Private Eye hot sister truly ridiculous Gary Glitter St. Winifred's School Choir. proportion like to see 'instituti onalised racism' Gurpal Virdi largest chemical explosive haul grandmothe r onto the street to shoot to kill (but merely wound) a civilian smear as a paedophile Once is a mistake twice is unfortunate three Also by A Bore