Big brother is a game show in that started in the UK and has been replicated all over the world.
Here is a link to the current edition this year Big Brother
For several years the premise was simple. Put so many people in a huge house, and each week one is voted off by the audience. The last person left, wins 50,000 pounds. This all happens over 12 or so weeks.
This program exploits people enough but this year they have taken it to a new level. The producers have deliberately made the house smaller than before, grouped diametrically oppposed people in the house and made up games and tasks that will purposefully set the housemates at one anothers throat.
The most recent 'game' has resulted in the police being called in to the house after a fight in the house. The first time EVER. Why did this occur? Well, 2 girls were 'evicted' from the house but were not. Instead they were put in a bedsit and for several days given a screen to watch and allowed to see and hear what all the housemates had to say about them, good and .... bad. Well, you can imagine what this did? The girls were released back into the house and that night a fight erupts. The latent distaste brewing to all new levels. It has created a public storm and massive publicity for Big Brother but I have to question the humanity of such a show.
Is it morally correct to deliberately set people at each others throats? Is it fair to exploit people in this way for one reason, TV ratings? I think not.
Feel free to discuss.
Dread Famous is a book by the comedy writer Ben Elton that is based on this rather peculiar show. It is about a murder in the house and is very well written showing all the angst among the housemates. I wonder if the the Bog Brother producers read this and decided to take a note out of the books producers methods (if not as extreme)
Edited, Sun Jun 20 06:27:32 2004 by JennockFV