Unreality TV
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
The Hindu, 28 January
ALL words can be cheapened by misuse, especially when they are misused by the powerful. The reality they refer to is disguised, rather than revealed. But what happens when the word in question is “reality” itself?
On his visit to India, Gordon Brown, still the bookie’s favourite to succeed Tony Blair, urged people back home to support Shilpa Shetty because a vote for Shilpa was “a vote for Britain”. Like others, he was at pains to stress that Jade Goody did not speak for her fellow Brits.
That’s both true and untrue. There is a very large number of people in this country who share Goody’s prejudices and use language more offensive than Goody’s without blushing. Racism remains a demonstrable fact of British life – on the streets, in workplaces, in the media. It permeates the criminal justice system, from police on the beat through courtrooms and into prisons.
On the other hand, significant progress has been made, progress reflected in the response to Goody’s televised behaviour: the record number of complaints, the withdrawal of sponsorships, Goody’s vilification by the very tabloids that turned her into a celebrity in the first place.
Yet the suggestion that this is a landmark in British race relations is far-fetched. For a start, it seems to take “Reality TV” at face value.
While Shilpa and Jade were locked together in the Big Brother house, in another part of London six men were going on trial for conspiracy to bomb the London underground. The prosecution presented evidence that they had used chappati flour in their explosives. The headlines the next day read “Chappati Bomb Plot”. None of the six defendants in the case is South Asian; all are from either Ethiopia or Somalia. The prosecution also presented evidence that they had purchased vast amounts of hydrogen peroxide (a more critical element in the explosive mix than flour). Yet there were no “Bleach Blonde Bomb Plot” headlines (despite the alliteration).
Had Goody attacked a Muslim contestant, using recognisably anti-Muslim insults, I wonder if the reaction would have been quite the same? Under the impact of the war on terror, racism has mutated in Britain, acquiring a more Islamophobic emphasis. Yet as the “chappati” headlines indicate, the spillover victimises not only Muslims but South Asians in general.
Goody’s tearful repentance completed the story arc in accordance with the producers’ preference. A more significant outcome to the affair would be the demise of Big Brother itself and indeed the whole genre. This is not “reality”, with or without the quote marks. It’s a highly contrived spectacle, as should have become obvious when the BB producers informed Goody of the widespread offence her comments had caused. (The premise of the show is that the contestants are living in a sealed bubble, on view to a public from which they are cut off.) If the producers had kept Goody in the dark, would we have had the self-criticism and the rapprochement with Shetty?
The reality constructed by “Reality TV” producers is one in which banality is alleviated by personal antagonism. It institutionalises the exhibitionism-voyeurism syndrome that seems to be characteristic of our global consumer society. It was by being obnoxious on Big Brother that Jade Goody became a celebrity, and it was for that quality and that quality only that she was recruited for this year’s series. In Goody’s mind, when she attacked Shetty, she was only doing what she was paid to do. It’s a performance mode by no means confined to Big Brother. Across the media spectrum, columnists and commentators are well rewarded for a willingness to vent prejudices and make sweeping generalisations, the breezier the better.
Gordon Brown expressed great concern about the effect of the BB blow-up on Britain’s image as a tolerant multi-cultural society. What a disturbingly unreal world we live in when the nation’s leaders believe more damage is done to its overseas image by a contestant on a TV show than by its participation in the Iraq war, its collusion with human rights abuses in Guantanamo, its support for Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon, or the fact that its current Prime Minister is widely regarded at home and abroad as the puppet of a foreign regime and an unscrupulous liar.
On the day Jade got the boot from Big Brother, police investigating the cash-for-peerages scandal arrested one of Tony Blair’s top aides on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. As an example of impartiality, this event might actually be good for Britain’s image abroad, especially in countries where politicians are not fully subject to the rule of law. The government, of course, would rather talk about Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty.
On the Indian side, there has been a parallel preoccupation with image. The hype that preceded Shetty’s appearance on British television was far greater in India than in Britain, where she was, to begin with, just another C-list celebrity of the type Big Brother specialises in. (Now she has become, according to the BB announcers, “Bollywood’s number one box office star”.) In sections of the Indian media, the event was trailed as some kind of international breakthrough, another breathlessly welcomed it as a bit of recognition for India on the global stage (or rather, the global stage as perceived in the West). For too many, this has become an end in itself, as well as an apparently unappeasable hunger.
The Indian Tourism Ministry plastered the British press with full-page adverts inviting Jade to make a “healing visit” to India. The bright sparks behind this marketing strategy no doubt considered it ultra-hip: getting down and dirty in the pop cult arena. But I don’t know anyone here who wasn’t startled by the spectacle of the Indian Government seeking dialogue with Jade Goody, even with tongue in cheek. As for the Indian politicians venting their indignation over British racism, how many have said a word about Britain’s war on Iraq or the persecution of British Asians in the name of the war on terror? I hate to use the phrase, but it’s time for everyone to get real.
