I may as well admit it. I watch Really Bad TeeVee. One of my favorite indulgences is Big Brother. Yes, you read me correctly. I don’t have cable or satellite, so I’m stuck with three and a half channels of whatever garbage CBS, NBC, FOX, and sometimes PBS (that’s the “and a half”) deign to broadcast at me. Summer network television is craptacular at best, so I’ve been looking forward to the start of the new season of Big Brother.
I have to say that the first episode was not everything it could’ve been. The powers that be have ordained that this new crop of jackasses should all be young and, I assume, what passes for attractive. With the exception of the lone Iraqi kid, they’re all cookie cutter replicas of ideal American plastic prettiness. I couldn’t tell you one of their names or describe any of them to you. All I recall is a lot of teeth, hair, and tanned flesh.
And I’m not the only one who noticed this fact. The girl who won head of household* nominated the kid from Iraq as one of her two potential evictees. Her reasoning? She didn’t feel a “connection” with him or the girl she nominated. I realize this is a game, but it seems unfortunate to me that she didn’t feel any responsibility for getting to know the evictees.**
* For those who haven’t seen the show, the head of household is decided by a competition. That person holds the HoH position for a week and gets to nominate two people for possible eviction at the end of the week. The rest of the household will vote to decide which of the two nominees will be evicted.
** Not getting to know the evictees is a common reason given for nomination/eviction on this and similar reality shows. Humans really are a separatist, exclusionary breed. It’s no wonder that people over here can’t find common ground with people over there, and vice versa. When that common ground cannot be found between two flesh-and-blood people living under the same roof, it doesn’t bode well for people who exist in the abstract.
Which brings me to another tangent. In high school, I read an essay speculating that human language developed as a way to name and classify things: specifically, us vs. them. It’s much easier to attack another person/group if you can create a distinction between yourself and them. I’ll try to dig it out, as it was fascinating reading. In light of current events, I think it might be good to reread it.
red paper boat 