The group of disgusting dipshits on Big Brother this season continues to make me embarrassed that our country still contains people with those kinds of attitudes. Having worked in reality TV, I do feel a bit like I understand why it’s tough for CBS to show ALL of the stuff that’s being said: You don’t need to construct reality, but you do need to frame and contextualize it. If producers don’t have diary-room quotes or in-scene confrontations about these racist and misogynistic comments, then casually airing them without any further comment comes off like tacit approval. These hamsters are proof positive that we don’t live in a country where you can just assume viewers will hear that stuff and have the correct “EW” reaction to it. So the contestants have to give CBS the words to frame those scenes as, “Wow, look at this gross racist jerk,” because your show’s point of view must be absolutely explicit that those remarks are wrong; they can’t run the risk of accidentally propagating that point of view among other morons — especially future contestants who might, in a lesser-season Real World kind of way, interpret the screen time as some kind of reward, and decide that’s acceptable behavior and a great way to get on TV. Problematically, it took the other houseguests a strange amount of time to start reacting and being grossed out. They’re STILL not doing it that much, in an effort to balance their disgust with the social demands of the game. Whether CBS should intervene (and when/whether emotional bullying becomes equal to physical bullying, the latter of which is against the stated rules) is a whole other argument, and a worthy one to have, but in the meantime it’s certainly good that the producers have handed the jerks some rope and let them hang themselves on national television. No one who watches the show could possibly think anything other than, “Wow, they are TERRIBLE PEOPLE, and it is NOT a trick of the editing.”
It’s too bad more of the culprits aren’t being revealed on the broadcasts, but they may be, in time, as the numbers decrease and there is a hotter spotlight on a smaller number of people who can’t hide behind the fuss others create. Aaryn was the first HoH of the foul crew, for example, so she is (deservedly) the current poster child for all that’s gone rotten in the house, while equally icky people fly under the radar because Aaryn is a louder, larger target. And in her mean-girl ignorant awfulness, Aaryn is so APPALLINGLY unremorseful (“I wish I cared about this more, but I don’t,” she said to someone who was trying to clue her in to her racism) that she actually pulled one of those “I am sorry you reacted the way you did to my comments” pseudo-apologies where it puts the blame on the person to whom she’s supposedly apologizing. And the targeted contestants are being so classy and restrained and articulate — in ways Aaryn could never hope to be– as they struggle to balance being in a game with surviving Mean Girl Boot Camp. Regardless of what kind of edit some of the other culprits are getting because they can skate by in the shadows, I hope what’s on the air is illuminating for those like Aaryn, and that it enlightens anyone watching the show who currently shares her unfortunate, damaging, backward views as expressed by her on the show and in the feeds.
In other words, YUCK, ya’ll, but we’re here now, so let’s hope something positive comes out of it.
Also, Julie Chen looks nutballs. The end.
