Friday, January 19, 2007

What was she expecting?

There have been news articles all over the place, all lamenting about the poor Indian woman who was subjected to racist comments during her time on a British Version of Big Brother.

Well all I've got to say is boo fuckin' hoo. What was she expecting? Those shows are built on the premise of jamming strangers into uncomfortable situations and then watching as people crack. I've seen some of the Big Brother shows. People have called other people: fat, lazy, and ugly. They've mocked some women's overly generous bosoms, they've mocked their underly generous bosoms. They've pretty much attacked anything personal about their fellow contestants that they can.

Now, I can recall no great fall out when people's weight, or genetic predisposition to big hooters was talked about but OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO you bring race into it and everybody freaks. If you're going to make yourself vulnerable to the slings and arrows of other people's insults DON'T GO ON REALITY TV SHOWS THAT ARE ALL ABOUT PEOPLE BACKSTABBING, LYING, AND MENTALLY MANIPULATING OTHERS SO THEY CAN WIN. Try, say, auditioning for Jeopardy. They're much nicer there.

I don't advocate racism, I don't think people have the right to just walk up to someone on the street and say "hey, I don't think your culture cooks vegetables right". I don't think people should be excluded from job rights, access to universal services, or any other basic rights under the law based on their culture/race/background. That is NOT what is going on during that show.
She voluntarily put herself into a position of vulnerability for the sake of: money and 15 minutes of fame. Now she's gonna play the sympathy card and probably "poor me" her way into winning, which is total bullshit. If it WAS Jeopardy and Alex Trebek started saying things like "hey, you're from India, can you phone me later and help me with my computer problems?", then maybe she'd have a case.

Admittedly, I haven't seen the show, but the only comments that I can find quoted on-line are:

"Your culture doesn't cook it's vegetables enough" (her response shouldn't have been tears, it should have been, "My God, coming from a Brit known for boiling the SHIT out of EVERY vegetable they get their hands on, I humbly thank you for the compliment"

"Your voice is screetchy". How is THAT racist? Maybe it is? Lots of people, in lots of cultures have screetchy voices, and they are ANNOYING as HELL.

They've also mocked her accent. They mocked Southern accents on Big Brother in the states, I don't remember any moves to re-open the Civil War over it.

And the world is all up in arms, the Indian Government is investigating, all 'cuz she cried a bit? THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE FREAKIN' SHOW PEOPLE! Get over it, and get onto REAL issues of racism, not the phoney, (non)reality show trumped up fake situations.

If she'd been denied access to appear on the show due to her background, that would be a problem. Her tears shouldn't be the trigger to international scandal, they should trigger her gettin' voted off as a weakling.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think that made my top 30 pet peeves.