Big Brother 8

I just turned on my computer to write a post about Big Brother 8 starting tomorrow (I've stopped smoking so i'm looking for distraction if you must know, hence the three lengthy posts today with the possibility of a fourth depending...) and I was checking out news stories before writing, as you do, when I came across this story. Now, it's not so much the general stupidity of the story, the thought that a team of police officers is actually watching big brother (though of course the whole premise of modern policing is to place cameras to cover every inch of this great nation, so i suppose we shouldn't be too surprised). No, it's the more specific stupidity in this sentence:

A police source said: "No hint of that [racism] will be tolerated. If necessary, we'll visit the studio to apprehend housemates."

Why is it a 'police source'? Would he only say this (which amounts to, 'If there's a crime we'll consider talking action.' Quite controversial words from a policeman I'm sure you'll agree) on guarantee of anonymity? What an idiot.

So to the post that I was actually going to write.

I always look forward to Big Brother. It is the highlight of my television year. I have never been able to watch Celebrity Big Brother, for some reason (which I'll elaborate on) it seems like an entirely different show, so I only get one fix per year. I don't do other 'reality' shows either for reasons which...

The beauty of Big Brother has, to me, always been its lack of plot. Let me clarify my meaning by referring to other shows – I'm A Celebrity etc. (i'll be honest, not watching them I'm not too sure what shows to include, but my point still holds)- these shows all include an amount of plotting, the following of a pop star dream, the need to survive in strange conditions, whatever. Big Brother is (or at least should be as far as I'm concerned) simply a matter of people living in a house for x days. Which isn't to say that there is no plot, just no enforced plot. Given the possibility of watching 24 hours a day, the narrative is completely open. When a housemate is just sat one can read anything into the face(this aspect reminds me of certain Italian neorealist films just pausing the camera on faces for maybe a beat too long, a beat that gives you time for contemplation outside of the director's instruction), one can chose your own narrative from all the ones swimming around. This being what the programme makers have to do obviously, and I'm not claiming some sort of democratic utopia where the viewer is the only editor. I am claiming that interesting things can be thrown up outside of the editors boundaries, which can then 'infect' one's viewing of the 'highlights'. I'm not even going to claim that this is subversive in any way, being as it is a necessary part of the thinking behind the programme and as such already accounted for. I am claiming that it makes it interesting as narrative laid bare. The way that nothing can escape the logic of narrative.

This pure version of Big Brother is as every series passes more and more of a myth. The first one I watched (2) was pretty much as I have described it, but since then they've been going more and more to attempting to properly narrativise the show, bring it under control (maybe it was subversive after all?) with tasks and mini tasks and secret tasks and rooms etc. But even then there is always aspects which escape this control, things get out of hand, or, more often than not (and it is this which people seem to forget in the rush to tabloid fueled disgust) things stay under control, despite the best efforts of the producers.

So i'm looking forward to Big Brother 8. I'm hoping the whole racism row form celebrity Big Brother doesn't overshadow the show (though obviously this is another narrative that will infect the show unintentionally, everything will be read in the light of this, by us and by the housemates, things that would otherwise have been meaningless...), especially as I didn't watch it (and I note in passing that s'far as I can tell the careers of Jade and Danielle don't seem to have exactly suffered as the general consensus of papers and magazines had it at the time (the same papers and magazines which still publish shit about them)).