The programme generated more than 400m hits on Big Brother websites, 2.5m video downloads, a record 50,000 complaints to the television regulator, a private audience for the winner with the current prime minister, a plea to vote for the winner from the next prime minister, a national debate on racism and a rolling story across the world. Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother seems to be living in the "interesting times" referred to in the sinister Chinese curse. Is Jade Goody a racist? Was the series "racism as entertainment"? Do 50,000 complaints mean such a show should be taken off air? No to all of those. But before I explore this rather surreal terrain, let me remind you how the recent furore was, in a sense, business as usual for the most celebrated and reviled reality show on television.
There is one thing that sets Big Brother apart from most other shows in the world: the influential and vocal minority who want it stopped. When it was first produced in Germany in 2000, an elderly regulator tried to stifle it before it was aired. He argued it infringed the individual's basic right to privacy and compared it to the Nazi era. He failed. In Mexico, a small group of Catholic patriarchs own most of the country's major companies. They tried to strangle Big Brother by withdrawing all advertising from the programme. They failed too. Last summer, the Australian prime minister told Network Ten it should decommission the series. But it declined. In Malawi, the parliament demanded the state broadcaster take it off air. The cowed management there complied. But the courts declared the politicians ultra vires. In Bahrain, the Big Brother house was carefully constructed with separate boys' and girls' sections and a prayer room. But angry Muslim clerics demonstrated outside the house. They succeeded this time—the series ended after eight days.
Normal human behaviour in the Big Brother house includes the participants rowing and making up. And what even many of the show's biggest fans cannot believe is that such events are unplanned. The manipulative, all-seeing producers must have chosen Jade and Shilpa in order to provoke racial conflict. They do not understand that Big Brother is 12 characters in search of a story. The producers put this group together but the cast wrote the script. And no one knew in advance what that script would be. With 35 cameras, 20 security staff and a production team of 200, it is still carefully managed. There are rules which the housemates must abide by, including prohibitions on violent or threatening behaviour. Of course they fall out and take sides from time to time. But the production team find that the housemates usually resolve their differences, as happened on this occasion when Jade and Shilpa made up. All sorts of things occur in the house, but it is absurd to claim that this series was designed to serve up racism as entertainment. Indeed, was racism involved at all?
No doubt about it, according to the Sun, the Mirror and the News of the World ("Vile Racist," "Vile Jade Goody"). But the many columnists who debated the issue were evenly split between racism, bullying and class as the motive for the fallout. The complaints to Channel 4 were also divided. The point is that you cannot be certain about a person's motives. So this was never an open and shut case. As it happens, I know Jade Goody and I do not believe her to be remotely racist. Her father is mixed race. She spent nine weeks in the Big Brother house in 2002 with three black people without the hint of a racist attitude. She had a blazing row with one of them, Adele—but that was about verrucas.
Jade certainly has a temper and may be prone to bullying—not an attractive trait, but not a crime either. What is far more significant is the national debate on racism that the incident inspired. Is Big Brother entertainment, or is it social documentary? It defies television's usual categories, but this was BB at its best—a show that constantly surprises us as it explores the spirit of a new generation. It was the same when Brian, a gay man, won Big Brother 2—the warmth of his personality eclipsing the stereotypes that gay people have had to put up with on television in the past. Or when Nadia triumphed in 2004 and proved that a transsexual need not be dismissed as a "freak." And the story was the same for 2006's winner Pete, a Tourette's sufferer—a charming man afflicted by a foul mouth.
Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, has previously praised Big Brother for the racial understanding it has promoted. But he attacked this series, along with a gang of politicians whose knowledge of television is probably limited to Newsnight and Question Time. They felt, no doubt, that they had to respond to the weight of complaints. And here we have to acknowledge a new phenomenon—by dextrous use of the web, a mass protest can now be whipped up in 48 hours. It's a powerful democratic tool, but we should all keep a cool head. Last year the BBC also received more than 50,000 complaints about Jerry Springer—The Opera. Contrast that with the big row over Brass Eye on paedophilia just five years ago (only 992 complaints to the regulator), or the televising of The Last Temptation of Christ in 2003 (a mere 1,554). We are in a new era in the relationship between viewers and programmes.
Looking back, we can now say that this most recent series has—by accident rather than design—done more than anything for a decade to force us to examine our prejudicial attitudes. Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary who was one of the critics of CBB this time, later had the good grace to credit it with inspiring an extraordinary issue of the Sun on 30th January, devoted to an anti-racism campaign. The front page featured teenagers who had been verbally abused.
I have been reminding myself of Channel 4's remit, as laid out in the 2003 Broadcasting Act. It should demonstrate "innovation," appeal to "a culturally diverse society," include "programmes of educative value" and "exhibit a distinctive character." This year's Celebrity Big Brother may have proved uncomfortable viewing. But isn't that exactly what those who framed the act had in mind?
