The Insider deplores Channel 4’s ratings-motivated exploitation of heinous housemates
It is not like the Insider to get on her high horse about anything; I favour instead Cervantes-style tilting at windmills and cocking snooks at authority in general, the Law Society in particular and—when there’s nothing better to do—the Young Solicitors Group, just because members look so funny when they get all hot and bothered. However, the recent ‘Celebrity’ Big Brother (CBB) controversy had your correspondent jumping up and down in her seat shouting most unladylike things at the TV screen. Why such ire directed at what is, after all, an entirely trivial programme?
For one thing, CBB is watched by millions of people—eight million, up from 3.5 million before this story broke…h’mmm, wonder why they didn’t pull it—forming views about how to treat others based upon what they see. Even without the potential loss of millions of pounds in trade with India, to whom Gordon Brown had to grovel last month, this is a far from trivial matter.
For those of you on a monastic retreat for the past few weeks, CBB recruited Shilpa Shetty, a Bollywood diva hitherto unknown in the UK; not only a hottie, she is also ladylike, does not swear, speaks in measured, well-modulated tones and tries to be helpful about the place. So far, you would think, so good. Unfortunately, her housemates included Jade Goody as plug-ugly ringleader of a triumvirate of foul-mouthed, spotty, farting, peroxide, bitching harpies who had it in for Shilpa from the start. Comments in her presence tended to remain at the level of baleful glares and huffing like asthmatic hippopotami; behind her back they really let rip, and Channel 4 loved airing every depressing minute of it.
Channel 4 states that what went on is socially/culturally based, and not racial; in a breathtakingly cynical move they called Shilpa into the diary room, and by dint of loaded questions that wouldn’t get past a justice of the peace at Chorley Magistrates’ Court, managed to corner her into saying that she did not think the abuse was racially motivated. So that’s all right then.
Goody herself, evicted to deafening silence—no crowd for ‘security reasons’— said “I’m not a racist, but I accept I made racist comments”, which is a bit like Hitler saying “I’m not anti-Semitic, but I accept that Auschwitz thing didn’t look good”. Surely, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you want to be serving it à l’orange and not giving it the Nobel Peace Prize. But the party line advanced by Channel 4 was that effectively until a blatant term of racist abuse was used, everything else can be brushed aside as ‘cultural differences’.
In my opinion, the following household happenings were racist:
Constant references to Shetty as “the Indian” (by Goody’s mother Jackiey Budden).Constant mispronunciation of Shetty’s name, culminating in the salutation, “Oi! you!” (by Budden).
References to Indian people being thin because they all have food poisoning (by Jo O’Meara).
Comments about Shetty wishing she was white, and being “a dog” (by Danielle Lloyd, former Miss Great Britain—already being sued for bringing the show into disrepute by boinking one of the judges and posing in the nip for Playboy).
Comments by O’Meara and Lloyd about Indian and/or Chinese people eating with their fingers, combined with snide comments about Shetty’s personal hygiene eg “you don’t know where her hands have been”.
Reference to Shetty by a ‘bleeped’ four-letter word, reported in the press as ‘Paki’—which Channel 4 denies. Alternatively one presumes the word to have been ‘c*nt’ since all the other main swear words including the ‘F’ word go out unbleeped (by Jack Tweedy, Goody’s partner).
Interestingly, none of the above comments is attributed to Goody; her methods seemed rather different, varying from telling Shetty that other housemates did not like her, and getting right into Shetty’s personal space, to having aggressive loud and frequently drunken arguments which, to her credit, Shetty fended off without descending to Goody’s level. Goody did, however, refer to her as “poppadom”.
There are other instances, for example I gather someone referred to Shetty living in a shack. Crucially, whatever Channel 4 may say about the bullies’ motivation, the terms in which their aggression is couched were overwhelmingly aimed at Shetty’s race.
In the meantime Channel 4, by its inactivity, condoned behaviour which bordered, if not trespassed, on the criminal; in my opinion much of what happened was racist abuse and could be open to prosecution as ‘hate crime’.
Channel 4 announced a review of the show and chairman Luke Johnson “regretted any offence”—do I smell a rat, or is it just a rather large weasel?—caused by the show, but doused speculation that it could be pulled off the air (yup, weasel). The fact that Carphone Warehouse, a major sponsor of the programme, withdrew its backing will certainly have made Channel 4 sit up and take notice. However, it still aired contestant Lucy Buchanan, in the opening episode of Shipwrecked, reportedly saying black people were “really bad” going on to add: “I just don’t appreciate people coming into our country and taking over our culture…We’ve got way too many cultures. Britain’s not really Britain any more…I’m for the British Empire and things. I’m for slavery, but that’s never going to come back.”
Oh, for a cricket bat with a breeze block nailed to it, coated in horse manure.
Britain will always have its fair share of jackasses, but Channel 4’s decision to give them a platform in pursuit of ratings should in my view come back to bite them in the gluteus maximus, and sooner rather than later.
Jennifer James is the Insider
