The reality TV show ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ is so sensational in the UK this year that it has caused a major breakdown in international relations between the UK and India. A host of ‘stars' of stage and screen’ including well known Bollywoood actress Shilpa Shetty ,Jermaine Jackson, Dirk Benedict (A Team's 'Face') and other people more well known in the UK from pop bands and other reality TV shows have been locked in a house for 3 weeks.
One of these 'celebs' is a previous Big Brother contestant called Jade Goody who made a name for herself through her absolute lack of education and resulting various funny sayings including "Rio De Janeiro - that's the name of a footballer isn't it?" Unfortunately Jade's lack of education and intelligence has also led her to be exposed on this show as a bully, a bigot and as an alleged racist. Her bullying of Shilpa is unprecedented viewing on our TV screens every night.
In a strange twist the show brought Jade, her mum Jackiey (a one armed lesbian) and her toyboy boyfriend into the house and instructed all of the other contestants to be their servants and wait on them hand on foot. Her mother refused to even call Shilpa by her name saying that she didn't understand the language and referred to her as 'The Indian'.
This 'social experiment' has led to an unprecedented number of complaints, and effigies of Big Brother producers being burned in the streets in India where Shilpa is as revered as The Beckhams are here in the UK. It has even been the subject of discussion at Government level and it threatened to overshadow Gordon Brown’s week-long fact-finding mission to India by spilling over into today’s private meeting with PM Manmohan Singh. India’s trade minister Kamal Nath warned the Chancellor that the spat was damaging relations.
Now there are worries that the programme is causing not only a breakdown in international relations but also wider racial unrest. The climate is almost hysterical.
Why do people expose themselves in this way? Will this help or harm Jade's future ‘career’ as a professional celebrity? Only time will tell. What is not up for question is the extraordinary impact such programmes can have and that television producers need to think very carefully about the kind of content they decide to make public. As we see the increasing backlash we have to ask have the producers at Endemol gone too far this time with what they have allowed to be screened?
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