Exploitation of people for TV ratings aloneFollow

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

Well that may be true Smash. At least you would never be accepted to a show like it. There would only be room for yourself and your ego in the house, no other contestants
I wonder who would win, does your ego have a name btw?

Btw, you are one of the last posters I like seeing on this board. Too many sockpuppets here, hence my not posting recently. Much too much.

1.Only one of the two girls that where put into the Bedsit was involved in the fight, this particular individual was put into the house solely because she is the least intellegant individual they could find. Seriously she have to have simple words like Disgression and comeupance explained to her.

2. The 'Fight' was over the mess after the immature members of the house had a food fight <after being warned by other housemate that it was not acceptable>. One house mate came in and told them to clean up and the main instigator of the foodfight <a 5'6" 7 stone momma's boy> started giving attitude and hell broke loose.

If it had happened to all bar 1% of the population they would have beat the skinny little sh*t to a pulp.

3. This was the 5th series of the show, in none of the other series had any incedents like this occured.

4. it is pretty obvious that none of the people in the house are in it for the prize fund, money maybe but the finacial rewards for being in the house are from media contracts, stories sold to newspapers etc rather than the prizemoney <£100,000 by the way not £50,000>

5. If you don't like it don't watch it.

Dead Famous had as one of it's main characters a political activist called Swampy. This series of Big Brother had....a political activist called Kitty. My eyes rolled.

Is it fair to exploit people for profit? Whether its fair or moral is meaningless. It has been standard procedure since the dawn of humanity.

You have more viewers = more revenue base

The average person is an idiot. I wouldn't be at all suprised to find out most "reality" programming is as scripted as an episode of Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones or pro wrestling.

Of course, reality programming is basicly Jerry Springer in prime time anyway.

What can i say 10 months with absolutely no Television or Commercials or anything, just the internet it feels like im in another world.

"Reality Television" translates to "Hey, we don't have to pay script writers and we can still make tons of money. Sweet!"

You do realize you left yourself wiiiide open by saying that?

But(t) I'm too nice of a guy to take advantage of you. ;)

I was glancing at the TV guide channel the other night to see what was on, and the little blurb above the TV listings had some women who had featured on two "reality" shows I'd never heard of. They were asked about their reactions in certain "dramatic" points in their respective shows, and they both intimated that in fact those reactions had nothing to do with the situations in question, but were recorded weeks earlier in response to something totally unrelated and edited in to make the scenes more dramatic for the viewing audience.

To paraphrase their statements, "Reality TV is all about taping real life and editing out the reality."

To be fair, a lot of the people who are exploited by these reality shows get some pretty sweet promotion deals afterwards. I guess there's more than one way to break into TV these days, if you can pocket your ego for a while. :)

^^^^^^

Semantics, with a side of sarcasm.

Tasty.

I'd call it being gainfully employed, but if you prefer the other description, it's all yours.