Initial thoughts on Big Brother 10 (and I'm going to try and not lament the passing of the live stream, let's take that for granted).
What I find most interesting is the acceleration of the usual process, the becoming a Big Brother housemate. This is especially noticeable given the disparity between the fact that Big Brother announced at the beginning that none of the contestants were housemates, and the way everyone immediately settled into the role of housemates.
It is something I say every year, but again the great thing about Big Brother is the difference between how everyone goes on about being Real all the time and the way everyone conforms to the usual Big Brother contestant framework. Big Brother is a great example of the way that our "self" is created, not from within, but from without. So each Big Brother contestant cannot help but be a creation both of every other person in the house, but also of every other Big Brother contestant that has gone before.
And this is what I mean by acceleration - after the 9 previous Big Brothers, everyone knows exactly how to behave (and I'm not saying that they're pretending this, the exact point is that is not a conscious process) and already we have the classic clichés which in previous series took longer to come out. Prime example being Sree, who on the second full day is already in the Diary Room telling Big Brother how much he loves all the other housemates and couldn't bear to leave them. Elsewhere we have Marcus already railing against the injustice of Big Brother, Beniziar complaining about the lack of food and the hunger (after something like a day of eating soup) that prevents her being herself, being entertaining (note that the desire to be oneself carries with it nothing but the duty to entertain), the list is endless, culminating in Karly apparently saying she was thinking of leaving because she was bored already (I haven't seen confirmation of this quote). The point being that once they are in the house they become nothing but housemates, and being a housemate structures their being, in the same way that in the outside world, our being is structured by our, in classical Marxism, social class.
And this is where the second element of structure comes in, that each housemate finds her place in the house only with regards to all the other elements in the house. By putting in people from a variety of different backgrounds it is almost certain that each housemate immediately starts acting in a predestined manner, conforming to the stereotype that the other housemates put on them. Perhaps this element is not quite so accelerated this year, but already we have seen a change in Sophia from the enthusiastic happy woman who screamed with pleasure on the way into the house, to the person who is trying to ruin every one else's enjoyment, grumbling and complaining and being suspicious. This is her position, and she must play it whether she likes it or not. Similarly Sophie who is cast as the dumb blonde, a role she admittedly seems adept at.
And of course we already have the constant deferment of pleasure, all the talk of being oneself, "I'm just here to be myself and enjoy the experience," means that no one ever simply enjoys themselves, the enjoyment is always deferred, "if it wasn't for this or he or him, I could be myself, it or her or him is bringing me down though." And they replay scenes from previous Big Brothers (after a day they are performing YMCA, a classic Big Brother trope) as if in previous Big Brothers there was the possibility of enjoyment which is now lacking, but by copying them maybe they can find it again, which of course they can't.
The Twins from Series 8 are the exception to this rule, they really did just enjoy themselves from beginning to end, in a way matching Lacan's rewriting of Descartes, "I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think."
What I find most interesting is the acceleration of the usual process, the becoming a Big Brother housemate. This is especially noticeable given the disparity between the fact that Big Brother announced at the beginning that none of the contestants were housemates, and the way everyone immediately settled into the role of housemates.
It is something I say every year, but again the great thing about Big Brother is the difference between how everyone goes on about being Real all the time and the way everyone conforms to the usual Big Brother contestant framework. Big Brother is a great example of the way that our "self" is created, not from within, but from without. So each Big Brother contestant cannot help but be a creation both of every other person in the house, but also of every other Big Brother contestant that has gone before.
And this is what I mean by acceleration - after the 9 previous Big Brothers, everyone knows exactly how to behave (and I'm not saying that they're pretending this, the exact point is that is not a conscious process) and already we have the classic clichés which in previous series took longer to come out. Prime example being Sree, who on the second full day is already in the Diary Room telling Big Brother how much he loves all the other housemates and couldn't bear to leave them. Elsewhere we have Marcus already railing against the injustice of Big Brother, Beniziar complaining about the lack of food and the hunger (after something like a day of eating soup) that prevents her being herself, being entertaining (note that the desire to be oneself carries with it nothing but the duty to entertain), the list is endless, culminating in Karly apparently saying she was thinking of leaving because she was bored already (I haven't seen confirmation of this quote). The point being that once they are in the house they become nothing but housemates, and being a housemate structures their being, in the same way that in the outside world, our being is structured by our, in classical Marxism, social class.
And this is where the second element of structure comes in, that each housemate finds her place in the house only with regards to all the other elements in the house. By putting in people from a variety of different backgrounds it is almost certain that each housemate immediately starts acting in a predestined manner, conforming to the stereotype that the other housemates put on them. Perhaps this element is not quite so accelerated this year, but already we have seen a change in Sophia from the enthusiastic happy woman who screamed with pleasure on the way into the house, to the person who is trying to ruin every one else's enjoyment, grumbling and complaining and being suspicious. This is her position, and she must play it whether she likes it or not. Similarly Sophie who is cast as the dumb blonde, a role she admittedly seems adept at.
And of course we already have the constant deferment of pleasure, all the talk of being oneself, "I'm just here to be myself and enjoy the experience," means that no one ever simply enjoys themselves, the enjoyment is always deferred, "if it wasn't for this or he or him, I could be myself, it or her or him is bringing me down though." And they replay scenes from previous Big Brothers (after a day they are performing YMCA, a classic Big Brother trope) as if in previous Big Brothers there was the possibility of enjoyment which is now lacking, but by copying them maybe they can find it again, which of course they can't.
The Twins from Series 8 are the exception to this rule, they really did just enjoy themselves from beginning to end, in a way matching Lacan's rewriting of Descartes, "I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think."
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