Along with millions of people I watched the final Big Brother eviction night with my feet up on Sunday. I had been disgusted by the behaviour of some of the people in the house. Then horrified by some of the vox pop pieces done in the streets of London where people were actually agreeing with Jade and saying that she was well within her rights to behave that way. Then after Jade was evicted we watched as her publicity machine rolled her out onto countless daytime TV shows to cry in public and say she was disgusted in herself. Brilliantly media trained, she gave all her Big Brother earnings to charity.
But what concerns me is the completely over-the-top reaction of the general public who have been whipped up into a frenzy by the media and are now taking it out on the lesser celebrities who were featured on the show. Jade's 'gang' of Jo (a C-List pop singer) and Danielle (a former Miss England who had been stripped of her crown) had joined her in her bullying of Shilpa and had egged her on. But both girls were very much following the pack and watching their evictions was absolutely toe-curling as you saw the enormity of the consequences of their behaviour slowly dawn on them.
Now there are death threats! Jade has had to stay in a safe house. Jo was on morning television yesterday, also in hiding, and absolutely inconsolable and distraught. Danielle is also holed up somewhere, dumped unceremoniously by her footballer boyfriend and her 'career' (as it was) in tatters.
The most ironic thing is that now the public, stirred up into high dudgeon about such obvious bullying on our TV screens, is now bullying these girls. They were silly, mean, stupid and at some times just plain nasty. They were also extremely naive, swept away by the excitement of being one of the celebrities on Celebrity Big Brother. That doesn't mean they deserve death threats for God's sake. The media, that has created this climate has a responsibility to call this to a halt. I hope we see the editors of the red-tops do something about this before it goes too far. And I hope Channel 4 and Endemol take stock of how they have handled this whole debacle and think very carefully in future about what they do and do not screen.
Comments