Sorry, O Little Gang of Mine, but - Traci Bingham & Dennis Rodman
apart - what follows relates entirely to the participants in the latest
UK version of Celebrity Big Brother. But if you get a chance to see it
over your side - dug out, maybe, from that tangled mass of cable
channels - do not hesitate..!
A CAT, A SNAKE & A COCKEREL: LIFE IN THE BIG BROTHER HOUSE
Celebrity
Big Brother. In the UK, there appears to exist no middle ground in the
public perception of this extraordinarily popular show. It is either
loved or hated. The same absence seems to be the case with respect to
brows: there is decidedly no middlebrow view of the activities of these
illustrious goldfish either. The highbrow view seems to derive from a
spectrum ranging from haughty disdain to explosive disgust. The lowbrow
view is spectrum free: it is simply one of shameless, indulgent,
fanatical absorption.
Personally (brow positively Neanderthal)
I love it - the mix of feral C-list celebs, neurotic has-beens,
ravenous chancers & token normals, forced to share group isolation
for 3 weeks. A medieval torture was to cast the malefactor into the sea
in a sack in which were also contained a cat, a snake & a cockerel,
these being seen as nature’s most malicious creatures. A feeble
penalty when compared to the joint incarceration of these walking
wounded.
Each of them – with one notable exception – is a
seasoned performer. Each one seeks, to some degree, the realisation of
self through exposure to the public forum. And, indeed, this need not
be the most ignoble of ambitions. With this in mind, let's consider
first the good guys. Both Preston - the man in front of, & main
motive force behind, the excellent post-Two Tone band, The Ordinary
Boys - & the curiously gentlemanly Maggot - member of the riotous
Welsh hip-hop crew Goldie Looking Chain - appear to have modest enough
goals. As musicians within the broad territory of rock and roll,
they’re travelling a familiar path, enjoying some success in terms of
record sales & gigging promiscuously. Both bands are characterful
outfits, very clearly extensions of the multifarious talents &
personalities of each of their individual members. So for Preston &
Maggot, both already team players, fame is not necessarily the spur.
And
then, moist & milky from the cradle, there is Chantelle, to all
surface appearances, Essex Girl by Barbie Inc., but in reality a
remarkably feisty proposition, unfased by the monstrous heavyweights on
the other side of the age divide. Placed in the Big Brother house in
the paper-thin guise of a member of an imaginary girl band, Paris
Hilton look-alike model Chantelle has not simply survived the exposure
of her non-celebrity (a condition of her remaining), but has
flourished. Ingenuous & untutored to the point of tabula rasa,
& completely without natural guile, she has teetered optimistically
from room to room, quite ready to fight her corner when necessary, but
apparently free from rancour or grudge.
Which is more than can
be said of the remaining ‘housemates’. Recent evictions
notwithstanding, there has dominated proceedings throughout a Gang of
Four - Michael Barrymore, Dennis Rodman, Pete Burns & George
Galloway. These are creatures of an altogether different complexion.
Within moments of the arrival of each in the Big Brother House, it was
clearly apparent that there were chips being nursed, grievances being
incubated, obsessions being entertained & neuroses being indulged.
Michael
Barrymore saw the superstructure of an enormously successful career
come crashing down in the wake of, first, the rancorous breakup of his
marriage following his coming out as a gay man, & then - to the
predatory delight of the media - the death of an apparently sexually
ravaged young man in Barrymore's swimming pool after a coke &
alcohol-fuelled party. Barrymore's refusal to take any responsibility
for the tragedy & his subsequent noisy breakdown lost him a vast
fanbase almost overnight. An attempt to revive his wrecked career
failed miserably & the kindest verdict that can be returned for his
appearance in the Big Brother House is that he has hoped to schmooze
his way back into the affections of the British public.
If this
has been his devout wish, then he's gone about it in a strange way.
Alternately weeping in secluded corners of the House (in full view of
the omnipresent cameras), bursting into fragments of song & bizarre
comedy routines, arguing with fellow housemates & gazing
inscrutably into the middle distance with a fag on, Barrymore has
emerged more as a deeply troubled melancholic with a caseload of
unresolved issues on board than a revitalised family entertainer just
gagging to get back on the boards. But with the finale due tomorrow, I
find it difficult to prepare to consign him callously to the outer
darkness from whence he came. There is also about him a sort of
genuinely uncomprehending bafflement, &, much against rational
judgment, I can't help seeing him - pace the dead man's family - as
more sinned against than sinning. And his sudden bravura defence of
Preston & Chantelle against uncompromising attack from Galloway was
genuinely thrilling. Stalking around the room like an outraged
giraffe, Barrymore simply reduced the veteran bruiser to repetitive
muttering from the depths of his chair. So where in the first week one
might happily have thrown him bodily to the ravening crowds outside,
now maybe judgement should be tempered with mercy.
Any who held
their breath awaiting the greening of Dennis Rodman will now be on
oxygen support. Whether stalking, cruising, lying in wait or simply
inert on a sofa, Rodman has displayed all the sensitivity & grace
of a grizzly bear awakening from sedation. Attempts at verbal
communication have been massively hampered by the constant &
curiously arbitrary interposition of swearwords. If they were all
removed from transcripts of his utterances, there would remain about
half a page of A4 stationary. Additionally, speed of delivery & an
almost impenetrable accent of no clear provenance have had housemates
staring blankly at him when an interrogative lilt has indicated the
posing of a question. Mendacious, manipulative & sexually
obsessed, he has been a menacing & troubling presence in the
House. To her enormous credit, Chantelle would not leave alone
Rodman's drawled speculation that her failure to tell the truth when
quizzed about her crucial part in one of the Big Brother tasks might,
in different circumstances, have 'got her face smashed in'.
Pete
Burns is one of those monsters that, initially, you love to hate.
Frank to a fault & gifted with a poisonous way with words, you
cringe but come back for more. And then suddenly you realise that, in
fact, he's out of control. He is not a sort of street level Oscar
Wilde, savage but principled, concerned only to deflate pomposity &
pretense. He's actually deeply malicious & - when in full scouse
flight - determined to do maximum damage. Unusually, through gossip
& black anecdote, first he stabs his prey deeply in the back &
then, when the blood's up, he sallies forth & plunges the same
knife in from the front. What malignant cocktail of needs & drives
has this aging bionic ladyboy being so uninhibitedly cruel, we can only
speculate. What is psychologically fascinating is that he presents so
symmetrical a balance between feminine poise & masculine aggression
& yet he appears to loathe both gender with equal passion.
Finally,
the indefatigable George Galloway. Villain because of his more than
cordial relations with the murdering Husseins, Sadam & Uday, &
hero because of his bandstanding before the Congress interrogators,
Galloway enjoys (word chosen with care) the reputation of left wing
loose cannon. Deserting his Bethnal Green flock for a month in favour
of a somewhat wider constituency, Galloway claimed at the outset that
his intention was to spread the anti-war/pro-old style Socialism
message from the pressure cooker environment of the Big Brother House.
Whatever
one expects from one's MP, one hopes for a little savvy, a smidgen of
worldly wisdom. To the surprise of no one (save, no doubt, Gorgeous
George, now he's back on the East End beat), Channel 4 - maybe with the hammering meted out to the BBC for tendentious reporting of the Iraq war in mind - simply excised any diatribe
of political nature coming from the Galloway corner. So we didn't get a
whisper of why Tony Blair should be impeached, or what should have
happened to Saddam Hussein, or why the great Soviet experiment was
betrayed by the Trotskyites.
What we did get was some of the
most abrasive bullying coupled with some of the coldest & most
calculating manipulation that the short but rich tradition of reality
television has ever witnessed. Nestled motionless in his armchair,
Galloway's small, still, empty blue eyes watched everything. Wreathed
in Havana smoke, he absorbed the scene - the bumbling plaintiveness of
Michael Barrymore, the earth mother expansiveness of Rula Lenska, the
puppydog cavortings of Preston & Chantelle, the hippy-dippy
cluelessness of Traci Bingham, the fawning attentiveness of Pete Burns,
the predatory prowling of Dennis Rodman... And, apparently
whimsically, he cherrypicked - a friend & confidant today, his
subject basking in the charismatic attention of the omniscient sage,
tomorrow a hapless victim of the basilisk judge. Responding to &
playing on the very frailties & vulnerabilities that lay behind
their hunger for attention & acknowledgment, he tweaked their
strings & then let go. Easy meat when your prey is melancholy
Michael or juggernaut Jodie. But even the centred (if somewhat luvvie)
Rula & the blithely secure Preston were played on his line - let
run & then reeled in. Both were confused & then hurt. Why
should someone give & then take away? Surely no one gains, least
of all the protagonist.
Watching him at work has been something
of an education in the dynamic relationship between weakness &
strength in a personality. His ability to read need in others & to
exploit it betokens a kind of dark, perverse strength. But to require
the oxygen of public acclaim - or, if necessary, disapprobation - in
order to respire is to be fatally flawed. For the sense of the
integrity of self to be hostage to the rapt attention of a mass
audience is profoundly disquieting & I saw that particular weakness
as underpinning all of his gameplaying during this fascinating two
weeks. There is, of course, an alternative scenario: that his
barnstorming is propelled by the messianic certainty that he is here to
bring us into the New Jerusalem; that he is, in fact, free of
self-doubt. Now that would be profoundly disquieting. Maybe we should keep a close eye on the post Big Brother George Galloway!
Well,
by midnight tomorrow it will all be over. The Big Brother House will
be empty, following the exit of the victor - almost certainly either
Preston or Chantelle. For my part, I'm indifferent as to who wins.
It's unlikely to be the good guys who benefit most from the exposure,
anyway. Pete Burns will get his chat show & the minor celebs will
queue up to be humiliated. For all the abundant flakiness that was
apparent from the start - indeed, maybe because of it - Michael
Barrymore will be given his chance for televisual redemption. Preston
& Maggot will return from whence they came & The Ordinary Boys
& Goldie Looking Chain will shift more units than ever.
Messrs Rodman & Bingham will fly back home, their picture of
Britain & its Brits forever tarnished. As for Chantelle's media
future - somewhat speculative, I'd say. It's difficult to see how or
where her combination of low intellectual output & girly charm
might most obviously be employed. There is - sadly - already a Paris
Hilton. She could, of course, simply become Mrs Preston. Now, the
media would love that - for a while. Hopefully, she'll return to Essex
& pick up where she left off. I'm sure she was an entirely happy
soul before the producer's secretary made that first 'phone call. And
George Galloway will flourish because if justice is done & the
electorate of Bethnal Green, the scales cast from their eyes, summarily
unthrone him, he'll end up on Pete Burns' Late Night Lineup. And then
contracts will be signed & Pete will end up on the Gorgeous George
show, & so on ad infinitum & certainly ad nauseam.
Now
- who's being wooed for next year's Celebrity Big Brother? I propose a
meme - UK version & US version. Which 12 celebs do you want to see sharing sack space with a cat, a snake & a cockerel..?
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