COMMENTARY: Ordinary people?

Age has not withered the Finnish Big Brother reality show

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By Ville Blåfield
     
      There are two types of reality-TV format.
      One sort are best enjoyed fresh, surprising, and bubbly straight out of the bottle: after its impressive opening series Idols [Pop Idol in the UK, American Idol in the USA] has gone progressively flatter with each new incarnation, not to mention what has happened with the umpteen series of Survivor, both in its American version and in Finnish localisations.
      Then there are those programmes that only improve with age and repetition: the extreme reality show Big Brother falls firmly in that category.
      The Finnish BB, now in its fourth series, is wilder and has more viewers than ever before.
     
In the course of their first two weeks in the Big Brother household, the contestant residents have managed to engage in sexual activities of one kind or another in at least four different line-ups, to square up and squabble, couple up, and swap partners with some zeal.
      The production team has apparently been slack-jawed in amazement. "Wow, what a bunch we have here, and Boy, are they getting it on!"
     
Of course, a part of the gonzo goings-on can be put down to the actions of the production team itself.
      The selection of housemates clearly now favours shamelessly uninhibited types, and in order to ramp up the uninhibited behaviour the Big Brother house in Espoo has had renovations in the shape of a “VIP suite” with a double bed, in addition to the common dormitory area, plus a new glass-walled sauna, and two adjoining jacuzzis to frolic in.
     
All the same, the object is not to generate reality-porn, producer Mikko Räisänen recently assured the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.
      “The housemates are ordinary people. Comparing them with the stars of late-night adult entertainment would be the same as describing the fox-girls* as eco-terrorists”.
      One is tempted to respond to this deathless quote by saying: Pardon? What do you mean 'ordinary people' ?
      The BB contestants are more than a little extraordinary by nature, simply for wishing to lock themselves up for three months in a live TV-show environment.
      Quite apart from the fact that they apparently see no problem in having sex or going to the loo during that same live transmission, with all of us looking on from our sofas.
     
Another reason why Big Brother improves with age is that with each passing year we have less reason to feel any pity for the housemates.
      After three previous series, none of the contestants can seriously protest that they did not know what they were getting themselves into.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.9.2008
     
     
*A reference to a celebrated Finnish case from 1995 in which three 19-year-old young female animal welfare activists let farmed foxes out of their cages. They received suspended sentences and huge claims for compensation from the four fur-farms that were hit.


Links:
  Big Brother Suomi 2008 (Wikipedia)

VILLE BLÅFIELD / Helsingin Sanomat
ville.blafield@hs.fi