Cultural

TV As well as echoing the sentiments of this post from TV Scoop, I also wanted to point you to an 'essay' from the original version of the blog when I had this to say about the first series of Big Brother:

"The Big Brother house was a necessarily sterile place where cultural pursuits were kept to a minimum. But whether on purpose or through subtle manipulation the Big Brother Eleven became a microcosm of the current state of Popular and High culture in the UK. Don?t believe me? Lets take this one step at a time..."

I'm now slightly appalled that this is pretty much the stance that Channel Four have taken over what is happening in the house -- the 'mirror on society' excuse:

"In the seven years it has been on air Big Brother has seldom been far from the headlines. [...] The reason it commands so much attention, intentionally or unintentionally, is that it goes to the heart of who we are as individuals and as a society. [...] The latest series of Celebrity Big Brother has strayed into particularly controversial territory ? the issue of racism and whether or not it remains ingrained in British attitudes despite all the progress we have apparently made towards becoming a truly multi-cultural society."

Which actually sounds like an admission of a behaviour that they've previously denied has occured. I was very careful when I wrote about this the other day not to use the R-word. Then this happened. Oh dear lord.