2 posts tagged “reality tv”
This morning I decided to stop watching Big Brother US. The simple reason is that I just can't keep watching and supporting a show where the houseguests are so vile, nasty and horrible to each other.
They say that Survivor brings out the worst in people, but the Survivors that I have seen have nothing on this season of BBUS. I haven't watched the previous seasons so I don't know if all seasons are like this - if they are, I'm glad I haven't wasted more of my time with this show...
BBUS isn't like the other Big Brother shows. The format of BBUS is closer to "Survivor in a house" than any other Big Brother. In BBUS the housemates are allowed to discuss nominations (it's necessary, actually) and who to vote out, since in BBUS the housemates vote each other out and the viewing public has little to no control. Because of this the house is full of manipulation, scheming, backstabbing, lying, hypocrisy, arguments... I thought it'd be interesting to watch, but to me BBUS has crossed the line when it comes to personal insults, racist remarks, and dissing other religions... I should've already stopped watching when Dick poured that glass of iced tea on Jen's head.
These people get away with so much stuff that would get one removed from the Big Brother UK house, or at least majorly boo'd after getting evicted. I think I prefer my Big Brother with RULES against certain kind of language and behaviour.
People actually argue on BBUK all the time, but they argue about things like the food situation, hair straighteners, and someone kicking a ball over the fence. The fights aren't as personal as the ones on BBUS. For example, on BBUS someone would've probably found a way to turn Chanelle's past (about being adopted and her real mom being a prostitute who got murdered) against her and used that in an argument, which is just disgusting, but I could seriously see it happening. Also, usually the people who get involved in an argument on BBUK have someone to turn to when they're upset: even Charley had Nicky and Tracey, or the twins. On BBUS, however, it's quite possible for the houseguests to turn against one person and make them a nervous wreck. I always think it's cowardly to form a group against one person, especially when they haven't really done anything that bad, but whatever.
Big Brother US is just depressing and horrible and I'll probably never watch it again. I just can't enjoy watching a show where thoroughly nasty people are not only welcome, but able to have all the power and put down others. It's just disgusting.
A reality TV post for a change...
I have been watching Big Brother UK and US this summer and I'd like to just mention some reasons why some housemates (or houseguests) are dislikeable to me. Basically "ugly inside".
Hate
Pretty much everybody hated Charley in this year's BBUK, but in the end the hate of other housemates ended up making me dislike them more than Charley herself. Gerry and Chanelle in particular, but I'll focus on Gerry since I'll talk about Chanelle later.
Gerry was actually even my favourite housemate for a while. He was goofy, cute and funny, and I even thought he was kind of good-looking. But then one day he snapped and started "defending himself", which basically meant arguing with people, at times aggravating people more and more on purpose (that's what it looked like to me). Often his target was Charley. I'm not going to really defend Charley because everybody knows she's very argumentative, but it does take two to tango. There were some fights between the two when I took Charley's side, since I did think that Gerry was trying to annoy her on purpose and his holier than thou attitude was starting to get really old. Even outside fights he had turned into a miserable complainer and wasn't pleasing to watch or listen to in any way. He became my most hated housemate besides Ziggy.
Then Charley was evicted, and after her eviction Gerry cried and said something along the lines of "don't get me wrong, I wanted her to go, but I didn't want her to have to face those boos". And I thought, wow... Is Gerry really likeable again? I hope now that Charley and Chanelle are gone he will talk about others behind their backs less and be less miserable.
The second example is from BBUS. Among others there are a middle-aged rocker man "Evel Dick" and a 23-year-old model/nanny Jen. At the beginning Dick was like a breath of fresh air to me as a reality tv personality, since he'd keep everything out in the open, bust people lying, tell everyone exactly what he thought about them and so on. However, he's turned out to be quite a bully, and I finally started to dislike him after reading about how he poured a glass of iced tea on Jen's head.
See, he really hates Jen for whatever reason. On week two Jen won the HoH and nominated Dick and his daughter Daniele for eviction, but there's more to it than that. Honestly, I don't really even know anymore why Dick dislikes her so much, because he calls her absolutely anything and everything possible you can think of. It's ridiculous, really. But every time Dick starts a verbal attack against Jen, she just smiles and says "cool" or "thank you for your honesty". She is handling the situation in such a cool and mature manner that Dick ends up looking like an idiot. Maybe he realizes that and that's why Jen annoys him even more. Well, since he's not able to intimidate Jen by calling her names, he has now gone low enough to start physical intimidation. His lack of respect for other people makes him very ugly and horrendous in my eyes and I can only hope that he won't last long in the game. Too bad it seems like CBS is giving him a good edit, so most of the United States isn't getting a truthful image about what a bully this person is.
I think that's enough about hate. But yes, hate does make a person ugly!
Showmance
When the BBUK season started, Chanelle had so much potential to be a great housemate and to even win. But then came Ziggy. These two seemed to get glued to each other after knowing each other for 5 seconds and that ended up ruining Chanelle's time in the house. It's not just that showmances in general are damn boring to me (because mostly the lovebirds just cuddle together somewhere whispering stuff, zzzzz), but Ziggy and Chanelle's showmance ended up being a very frustrating on-off-on-off-on-off story with endless fights and jealousy. It was just painful to watch and it's too bad that Chanelle had to literally walk out to end it. I'd rather have seen Ziggy walk...
See, when Chanelle was without Ziggy she was still that same funny, weird girl that she was before Ziggy came into the picture. Her diary room entries were hilarious, and when Big Brother's birthday party locked Ziggy away from her for 10 hours, she was so entertaining and full of life - completely different from the boring cuddling/fighting with Ziggy. I wish Ziggy had never come into the house, I honestly believe the season would've been a hundred times more entertaining without him. I'm not going to blame the whole relationship stuff on him, but goddamnit. When there's a 19-year-old girl and a 26-year-old man, anyone can see who should have the balls to end the relationship when it gets bad, whether it's on TV or not.
I've heard Ziggy say the words "I care for you" so many times that I think it's absolute bullshit. Which leads us to...
Camera-consciousness
Ziggy. The guy doesn't seem to forget for a second that he is on a TV show and it shows in everything he does. He didn't want to break up with Chanelle at first most likely because he thought that the audience would hate him if he did that. Well little did he realize that viewers like me would hate him even more for not having the balls to call it quits, but let the damn thing drag on and on and on. One moment he'd be kissing Chanelle and whispering sweet things into her ear, the next moment he'd be complaining to other housemates how Chanelle is so young and immature. Such a false person.
It's really because Ziggy constantly has a "good guy" act on. He's trying to please everyone to be "the likeable guy", but it's so easy to see through it. He could say nice things to even Charley in one-on-one chats, but then the next moment be taking it all back in an argument or while talking to Chanelle. He is incredibly two-faced. His falseness and "camera-consciousness" also become clear in the diary room where he chooses his words very carefully - always pauses for a long time before answering. He just tries to choose the perfect words to appeal to whoever is listening to him, but once again, it's so easy to see through. All he says are cliches and worn-out words because he tries to kiss the audience's ass by trying to be harmless. It's so aggravating. Ziggy is just incredibly dislikeable to me.
I think that's it for now...
