[Big Brother UK] The House that Charley Built

In my last post on Big Brother 8 I mentioned the return of manipulative editing, used to make Carole look completely unreasonable for arguing with the increasingly sour and unpleasant Nicky.  A lot is made of Big Brother's sneaky editing of the highlights programme but, in truth, this is but one string to the producers' bows.  This week, instead of manipulating the highlight footage, Big Brother has been putting its satellite shows to work in a desperate attempt to keep the only interesting housemate from being evicted.

The housemate in question is, of course, Charley Uchea, South-East London "It" girl and professional nerve shredder.  How do I know that people find her interesting?  well firstly because the network of cracks and defects that make up her personality is completely hypnotic and secondly because despite having mentioned pretty much every house mate in my Big Brother posts, Charley is the only one that brings people to my site via google.  Hardly scientific I agree but when "Charley" brings me loads of hits but "Tracey" or "Ziggy" don't, I have to conclude that it is Charley who has captured the public imagination.

This week, Charley won a "knobbly knees" contest and her reward was to spend a couple of days in a caravan with milk-fed goon Brian.  The caravan itself was torture enough and it duly prompted a classic Charley scream.  She was then told to divest herself of her typically classy leopard skin and big boot ensemble to wear a knotted hankie and a floral dress.  Charley seethed.  However, the best was left until last as aside from being an idiot of epic proportions, it turns out that Brian is actually a comedy tramp.  Locked in the caravan with Charley, Brian began by drinking enough cider to sink an aircraft carrier before moving onto refined activities such as farting, wanking and pissing himself.  It takes a lot to make you feel sorry for charley but the caravan reward pretty much clinched it.  Funny that.

I normally don't bother watching Big Brother on the Couch.  Back in the old days, one of the highlight shows a week would include insights from a professional psychologist.  Always completely ludicrous, these insights tended to be little more than editorial spin rendered in the medium of popular psychobabble.  On the Couch is little better.  At best, the show tells you what you and everyone else knows (namely that Ziggy and Chanelle aren't a proper couple as much as they are a strategic partnership with benefits) but at worse it essentially dresses up whatever the current editorial line is and presents it as scientific fact.  This week's On the Couch featured the claim that people like Charley because she's honest and she can't help but be herself.  Big Brother's Big Mouth then featured people defending Charley.

So Charley gets a humiliating "reward" that is presented in such a way as to make her look sympathetic and a victim, then we're told by psychologists that Charley is psychologically incapable of being two-faced and then we're shown proles agreeing that Charley's nice.  We even get to see Charley be the victim of wigged sociopath Billi's childish attempts at manipulation.

Why?

Well, at the moment, Charley is not only the most flamboyant personality in the house, she is also the one that people most enjoy watching.  Remove charley and what's left?  Chanelle and Ziggy, which nobody is buying; Billi plotting from behind his sunglasses and sour-faced Nicky lusting after dull Liam.  If Charley went, where would the arguments come from?  With Charley in the caravan the house seemed peaceful and serene by comparison.  Ratings poison, especially as this season of Big Brother is apparently not doing too well.

Obviously the attempts to rehabilitate Charley and present her childish tantrums, constant preening and general selfishness as "charming" and "honest" would all be for nothing if Charley were to be up for eviction.  Indeed, it looks like curtains for Charley until she got into an argument with Billi, prompting Big Brother to "punish" her by voiding Billi's nomination, effectively dropping her below the threshold for the public vote this week.  Meaning that Charley survives to screech for one more week.

Manipulation?  obviously.

One of the more interesting ways in which Big Brother controls what goes on in the house is through the skillful application of "rewards".  If the group are down and miserable they give them an easy task and let them have the reward.  If things are getting dull, give them an easy reward and ta-daa!  Instant party.  One rather suspects that had Ziggy and Chanelle won the knobbly-knees contest then Big Brother might have given them luxury food in the ugly caravan, but as it was Charley it was far more entertaining to give her cider and spam sandwiches.

EVERY aspect of what you see on Big Brother is carefully manufactured.  From the editorialising by the hosts to the editing of the highlights show to the topics of discussion on the satellite shows.  This manipulation is usually pitched at such a level as to make you think that you've reached a conclusion about someone on your own (how many of you decided you quite liked Charley during the caravan sequence?) but occasionally the producers lay on a bit too much sauce and the manipulation becomes obvious.

Between the last few days' content and the "punishment" of Billi and Charley, it is obvious to me that Big Brother are desperate to keep Charley in.

For many people this is provocation enough to stop watching the show.  For me it is part of the fun.  The challenge now is not only to work out the real social forces at work both in the house and in the housemates' personalities but also to spot the editorial joins and realise when I'm being manipulated.  For many people, Big Brother is just entertainment, but, for the intelligent Big Brother fan it is a masterclass in psychology and critical thought.

Comments

[Joe]

Interesting post. I hadn't thought about the manipulation of what goes on in the house, and what gets presented to the viewer. At the end of the day it seems that people love to hate Charley, and want to see what else she gets up to. Her eviction will be interesting I think.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I think people definitely enjoy hating her. But I think Big Brother are going to try and "take her on a journey" as they said in On the Couch.

The great thing about the editing process is that in effect you can take a person on a journey without them having to go anywhere. You just put a more and more positive spin on it and suddenly it's not "Charley the grotesque" but "Charley the loveable character".

[Plopple]

Hi,

I agree with what you say.
I would also like to say that I like Charley simply because she's a bitch, and that's always fun to watch.
She talks 3 times faster than anyone else and she uses this to squeeze in 3 times as many insults.

Plopple
http://bigbrother-8.blogspot.com/