This trash makes you feel righteous? Get real

We hear a male voice with a Geordie accent and strangely elongated vowels:

“1pm, Shiva, Amit and V.P. are on the maidan burning an effigy of an Englishwoman . . .

“3pm, Gordon and Manmohan are in the press conference room fielding press queries about Shilpa Shetty . . .

“10.50pm, David and his important guests are in the Question Time room devoting half of the programme to debating whether Jade Goody is a slag or a racist . . .”

Pinch me. The future PM David Miliband has called for the public to vote Jade out of the Big Brother House (and we have, haven’t we?). The Chief Whip and the Shadow Home Secretary have called upon people not to watch the silly show and have condemned its editing, as if they knew editing from salami. The trade union Unison has demanded that the profits from the programme be given to charity, the sponsors have pulled out, a perfume brand has been withdrawn, a modelling contract cancelled, and the police are investigating. For five days every conversation goes something like this: It’s all nonsense, don’t know what the fuss is about, anyway I don’t think it’s race, it’s class/but I do think it’s racism, gosh, have we spent an hour talking about that?

Everyone knows that it’s garbage; everyone’s talking about it. The argument over the stock cubes has a more solid hold on the nation’s sense of history than the walk in the woods. Is it because the mad laboratory conditions in which these “celebrities” are being held permit the exposure of cultures at work in the greater society? Is BB a mirror on the nation?

A lot of British Asians seem to think so. The BBC Asian Network calls the BB imbroglio its biggest story ever, with more audience response than Kashmir, the rise of the BNP, the Pakistani nuclear bomb and other ephemera. It seems that thousands of fellow citizens have their own experiences of being sniggered at, and it all comes back to the surface, like hot water on a boil, when Jade struts her stuff.

Hold on, though. That’s what Jade was for, wasn’t she? Jade always was the greatest freak in the show, the two-headed singing baby, the Elephant Man. And because, like crack or porn, you can only get your hit by taking more and more product, the ringmasters devise ever more sadistic exercises for their well-paid mutants, as God-like kids do with pet mice.

The viewer’s evasion is that they somehow make us watch it. Their dishonesty consists in arguing that, if it’s really, properly understood, it’s worthy, important stuff. Andy Duncan, the Channel 4 chief executive, allowed that: “The debate has been heated, the viewing has at times been uncomfortable,” and then went on, “but, in my view, it is unquestionably a good thing that the programme has raised these issues and provoked such a debate.” Unquestionably? If I burnt down Andy’s house could I persuade him that by so doing I had raised important issues of fire safety and the control of pyromaniacs?

Now, this one time, the profits from last night’s eviction are to go — Channel 4 suddenly announced — to charity. So tell us once again, Andy, in one of your savage, satirical plays, how slimy, hypocritical and expedient politicians and journalists are. We all know that, if they could get away with it, C4’s ideal spring and summer line-ups would be Big Brother Race Riot with Abu Hamza al-Masri and Nick Griffin, and Big Brother Cat Fight with Naomi Campbell and a mirror.

But if Channel 4 is bad, we may be worse. We tune in to watch a programme that has been deemed to have racist content, precisely because of the row.

I loathe and fear Jade. Her mother, Jackiey Budden, who was evicted last week, was the stuff of my nightmares: slack-gobbed, dead-eyed, yowling, incontinent, illiterate and needy. She had never heard of a dilemma. “What’s a dimella?” she asked Big Brother. Mum and lass are trailer trash — crazy-making underclass folk who’d want to kill you because you once read a book and didn’t call your father a c***.

Oh yes, my prejudices are pretty spectacular too. Jade is, I think, a lightning rod, designed to take the danger of self-knowledge away from us. Mrs Poppadum? We’d never say that behind anyone’s back, would we? It’s not us, it’s her. She’s the racist, sling her out. The Sun headline yesterday, accompanied by six horrible pics of Jade (whom the paper monstered last time around, as well) was “Evict the face of hate”. The irony was that the page itself was the face of hate. A columnist condemned Jade’s hate speech. “She shrieks racist obscenities, her piggy eyes bulging as she struts round the house like a demented toad.” And that, presumably, is just what Our Lord would have written if He were a columnist.

BB satisfies our taste for cruelty. But what is so odd is that to discuss real things we have to make them unreal first, and then describe them as reality. Maybe we’ll understand better when art catches up with this moment, and we all troop off, replete with salience, to see the tragic Jade Goody — the Opera.

Comments

[Jane Watson]

David Aaronovitch tells it like it is (again). As with the Libby Purves 'England sucks' column, what we see in the hot air enveloping Jade Goody is the posturing of those who consider themselves oh-so discriminating (and above reproach). I would argue that Jade Goody has no sense of superiority to others; she was not aware of the possibility of seeming racist precisely because she isn't. This doesn't mean she is obliged to like all individuals equally, and, as The Sun demonstrates, if we find someone objectionable (for any reason) we tend to insult them. We 'personalise' insults, often by referring to the physical appearance or 'classification' of our antagonist. Which of the following is not OK? 'Demented toad', 'black bitch', 'whingeing Pom', 'mean Scot', 'Irish git', 'ginger menace', 'fat cow', 'blonde bimbo', 'white trash', 'bible-basher', 'zionist', 'islamist', 'underclass', 'druggie', 'drunk', 'hoodie', 'yob', 'illiterate'? As Borat's gormless victims show, when people are terrified of giving offence, they are paralysed into stupidity and wide open to coercion. Being afraid of confrontation is not benign, it invites domination, fosters dependency and lets the lunatics take charge of the asylum.

[Frank Schnittger]

My dimella is that I had to look up salience and couldn't find a salient meaning in this context. Does that make me a Goody Goody two shrews?

[John Barrie]

I do not possess the gene that enables me to enjoy Opera, or, for that matter, anything requiring an ability for artistic interpretation, such as is required for appreciation of Opera, the Turner exhibits, and such like. However, I am mindful that many of those who do, would consider themselves 'replete with salience', rather like Del Boy Trotter at the Opera ! In reality, probably the only thing that they truly understand and appreciate is the popcorn. Hence, to use the Goody parlance, "I fink some may be f-----g fakeing it". Yes - I do understand the meaning in the context used, although I wouldn't mind betting that Goody could put it far more succinctly ?

[Will]

"We hear a male voice with a Geordie accent and strangely elongated vowels"

I don't know if you're supposed to be quoting someone or if you are saying the stupid crap above yourself but -- the gadgie you're on about is a f_ckin' Mackem! When will you Cockney gits ever understand anything that is outside of your stupid arsed little bubble that you inhabit? Meedjia tossers the lot of you.

By-the-by...there are approximately ten million idiots who live in London (anything less would be an understatement). The population of the UK is approximately 60 million - er-bloody-go, you lot are in the minority with your stupid accents and the rest of it that you adhere to (like paying to be shafted by an anti-semitic mayor for example).

As for the rest of your post...I didn't read it because you sound more and more like Victor freakin' Meldrew's long lost brother in reverse as each day passes.

[Will]

Mackem credentials of BB narrator here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Bentley

and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_on_Tees

[dan]

Reality TV shows are vile, getting viler and ought to be stopped.

As David says they appeal to a sense of cruelty , and positively encourage us to be judgemental of people placed in stressful, artificial situations. They prop up the baleful cult of celebrity by feeding the endless appetite for more people prepared to do demeaning things in return for their chance at their 15 minutes.
That does not mean that we should be afraid to confront things that need to be confronted, but that we should not create these freak shows with confrontation engineered into them, just to give the viewers the chance to feel superiority.

So much of the reality shows are about exploiting class differences and preying on the need for recognition of those who agree to be involved .

A public service broadcaster should not be in a position to produce such rubbish.

[Moobs]

Hallelujah! Finally I disagree with you about somethng.

[Daniel]

Will says that Bentley is a Mackem and cites wiki as proof. Wrong! "...born in Gateshead..." - I'm afraid he's a Geordie mate. Living in Stockton and supporting Middlesbrough probably makes him an honorary Smoggie too. Though everything else he says is spot on. Bloody Londoners!!