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    Big Brother - Nein

    When my Mrs lived in France, we'd quite often go out and grab a coffee and just sit in a cafe on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix and watch people walking past. We'd sit there for hours just looking at French people talking, running and gesticulating, wondering where they were going and what they were discussing.

    Isn't Big Brother just an extension of that?

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      Big Brother - Nein

      The language JtS chooses is instructive here, I think: he has us anti-BB types worrying about the programme. That paints us as Deeply Concerned bleeding-heart types, who are all of a flutter about it all. Making any points we raise that much easier to dismiss. I don't think this is a conscious strategy on his part, but people do reach for this kind of rhetoric, I think, when they'd rather not directly take on what people are saying.

      I mean, he hasn't responded at all to the points about cruelty and voyeurism, for example. My guess is that if he sees this as all a lot of woolly liberal worry, rather than, say, a thought-through position on culture and its connection with commerce, he'll find it easier to think he doesn't have to respond to any of it.
      Well, I suppose the cruelty and voyeurism points (in my eyes) are equivalent to those who choose to indulge in similar activities at home, or with other like minded friends. These people volunteer themselves to be put on BB, they choose to follow the rules the BB producers "inflict" on them.

      I do have you "types" worrying about it, because you said so yourself. It's not my opinion, it's what you said. It's hardly reaching for rhetoric if it's responding to your very own point.

      TV by it's very nature is voyeuristic, we watch things that happen to other people.

      I dodn't disagree that the occurences on BB can be cruel, but it's a game show, it's no more cruel than The Krypton Factor or Gladiators.

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        Big Brother - Nein

        I'll semi-let you off on the "worry" thing, because I see I did use the word. Though to be honest I think it's pretty clear that in the phrase "worry about whether it's any good or not", "worry about" is being used to mean "be bothered with" rather than "lie awake fretting and composing concerned letters to the Guardian on the subject of".

        But the following seems to me to be nonsense:

        TV by it's very nature is voyeuristic, we watch things that happen to other people.
        That's stretching the word "voyeuristic" a long way further than it'll go. For exmaple, the undignified family rows on EastEnders are actually fiction. This makes a difference.

        I dodn't disagree that the occurences on BB can be cruel, but it's a game show, it's no more cruel than The Krypton Factor or Gladiators.
        I agree that a lot of game shows have an edge of humiliation, though I think you chose bad examples. But BB ups the ante a lot. There's a difference between "And at the end of that round, Mr Dobson, you have scored 7 points", and gawking at your woman off BBC London having a breakdown.

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          Big Brother - Nein

          Gangster Octopus wrote:
          Still, I couldn't help reading the first few pages in the voice of :



          Sorry ger...
          Dont be sorry. I laughed my nuts off when I saw that. A little too close to the truth, perhaps.

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            Big Brother - Nein

            Yes, Eastenders is fiction (it'd be hard to argue that point) but to some extent, it's still a step along the route of watching what other people get upto.

            Fiction: Eastenders - actors pretend to be someone else
            Improvisation: Whose line is it anyway? - comedians pretend in made up situations
            Manipulated Reality TV: Big Brother - contestents (everyday people) pretend to be something to win, but often reveal their true selves.
            True Reality TV - everday people are themselves

            I think Big Brother, isn't true reality TV, as there is an element of acting in it, although the "actors" are amateurs rather than professionals.

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              Big Brother - Nein

              Well, from where I live, Henlys Corner is a step along the road to the Scottish Highlands. Doesn't mean people speak Gaelic there.

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                Big Brother - Nein

                it's just a huge excuse for '4' to not come up with any more worthwhile programming. Instead we'll turn on the telly of an evening and be confronted with this endless shitstream of inanity
                I might be wrong, not having studied the C4 schedules, but I don't think Big Brother is actually on the station that much? I mean, there's the half hour shows on weekday nights, and the longer eviction shows on Sundays, but apart from that, isn't it mostly the E4/E4+ schedules that are cleared for live streamed coverage? Again, I stand to be corrected, but I'm not sure a great deal of more worthy programming gets shunted aside.

                Is the revenue, or part thereof, from Big Brother used to finance more C4 shows?

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                  Big Brother - Nein

                  I take it nobody's watching this anymore then?

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                    Big Brother - Nein

                    I havent watched it since the opening night. That was more than enough.

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                      Big Brother - Nein

                      i'm afraid i am watching it

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                        Big Brother - Nein

                        So has it been any good penge? I heard about the relationship stuff and one of the girls is a right stroppy one. Who do you think will go on Friday?

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                          Big Brother - Nein

                          Stopped watching it after the wedding debacle. Also, could no longer bear Alexandra.

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                            Big Brother - Nein

                            I'm only watching it for fleeting glimpses of Sylvia ... the rest of them are a bunch of fucked up wankers ... obviously!

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