Memo to watchers of Big Brother: Get a life

PUT crudely, most right-thinking folk think Big Brother is rubbish - it contains no deeper truths, it's a game show appealing to the human lowest common denominators of sex, deceit and money.

Whether chatting beside the office water cooler or at a dinner party, nearly everyone accepts this view. Big Brother is tacky, revealing unpleasant people at their very worst in undignified displays of self-exposure. My own view is that the lack of integrity of the participants and their desperation to become a TV celebrity is horrifying. To me, they beautifully encapsulate the extent to which Mrs Thatcher succeeded in sinking us into the American slime of money and status obsession. Here can be witnessed the values that she wrought in young people - not one of them has suggested the obvious solution to their plight of sharing the money between them and not competing to be winner.

But I keep watching. The odd thing is that those who are following the programme obsessively and those who have taken one look and said "never again" have pretty much the same view of the programme and its characters. So what makes the difference between those of us who watch and those who do not?

Let's look first at the fans.

Whatever else is said about Big Brother, it is far more interesting than any of the "get your emotional kit off" pseudo- therapy shows. True, in its openness it is desperately un-British but that does not make it Australian or American in sensibility.

The nakedness is best symbolised by the fact that participants often do not bother to put on more than their underpants, leaving exposed flesh that is usually covered. In the same way, they have allowed cameras with microphones to pry into their secret doings and sayings, so that we see and hear what is normally invisible and inaudible.

What others say about them behind their back is revealed.

The self-interested lies that are the stuff of office and family politics are exposed as never before. A great deal that would "best be left unsaid" is said, brought out by the pressure-cooker environment.

Big Brother's characters are often acting, putting across a version of themselves for the wider public or to each other, in order to avoid eviction.

This is not so very different from ordinary life - all the world's a stage and so forth.

For those who watch the programme, part of the fascination is in trying to work out who they are trying to affect by what they say and do. Most gripping of all is when they appear to be authentic, such as when sexual chemistry, or anger, appear. You can't help wondering "How real is it?"

And that, I suspect, is the key.

Given all this, why doesn't everybody become hooked?

The answer may lie in the extent to which people have their own lives worked out.

Because I do not have children and am of a youngish generation, I am, I think, far more preoccupied with these falsehoods and truths of ordinary life than a typical parent or an older person would be. The problem of what is real is a huge one for younger generations.

IN the past, the young were confronted by a number of certainties.

A young person's identity was likely to be ascribed by their place in society, by their class, their education, by their relationship to the Church, the morals with which they were brought up and the like. Nowadays, though, a young person's identity has to be achieved - through education, job and so on. It is much more a matter of choice, of personal responsibility, requiring options to be weighed. The certainties Nick Bateman, the Big Brother participant evicted by his housemates yesterday that used to be taken as read now have to be deduced. The question, then, of "What is real?" is a far more pressing one than it used to be.

But equally, there are swathes of younger people for whom the unrealities of Big Brother hold no interest. In some cases this is because they know who they are and find the doubts of others tiresome. There are also very large groups of Britons who reject the attempts to entertain through titillation that dominates TV channels today, including Channel 4, whether it be by showing people being humiliated, or the lure of second-hand sex or money lust. Instead, they prefer to live firsthand. If they do enter second-hand lives it is through novels.

For parents, there is the bright and unmistakable glow of authenticity that children bring, and for older people, morals provide certainty.

If they have succeeded in maturing, they will be seeking second- hand living through TV only if their firsthand lives have dried up.

For the theory to work, Big Brother's audience would be largely a young one, consisting of people who, in short, aren't quite sure who they are. And it does seem to be borne out by the little audience research, from Channel 4, that is so far available.

Despite the huge amounts of publicity, this is very much a minority programme, watch ed by an average of three million (although at 11pm, one TV viewer in four is watching Channel 4, in comparative terms an excellent figure).

Most interestingly, though, on average 25 to 30 per cent of people watching Channel 4 at any one time are 16 to 34 years old. When Big Brother is on, the proportion nearly doubles, to 49 per cent.

It is indeed the young, the group which is most uncertain of its own truth and that of others, which is attracted by this fascinating exploration of sex, lies and unreality.

AS for the remaining 51 per cent of viewers, ie, those over 34, some strong predictions can be made. They are likely to be childless. They are very likely to be single because of divorce. If elderly, they are most likely to be loners whose families do not stay in touch. They are also most likely to be among the 13 per cent who suffer a personality disorder - someone with a weak sense of self and a tendency to "get lost in other people". Flaky people like the soon to be much-missed nasty Nick Bateman.

Yes, that's us Big Brother fans: folk with a fragile grasp on reality and an unhealthy interest in the doings of others and who probably need to get a life of our own. A bit like the people we watch and, probably, the ones who make the programme as well.

Copyright 2000
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