A ‘play’ on words, in my belief rightly so. OK, so now I’m joining the debate or should I say essential discussion regarding what has now become a global point of notice.

Last week the world’s media talked about nothing else but the apparent viewing of hate and bullying in the UK edition of Celebrity Big Brother. However, maybe over time that is all it will be perceived to have been. As Shilpa (or quote Jade’s mother ‘whatever her name is’) Shetty said recently, ‘Today’s news is tomorrows garbage’ – or words to that effect.

Many of you know my views on reality TV but on this occasion I have also been dragged into the obsession of watching fellow humans inside their artificial cage.The other day I considered Big Brother as similar to what the Apes set-up in Planet of the Apes (book and movie one). They considered putting their ancestors, humans in this case into ages (a parody on what a zoo is today). This was in an effort to learn more about themselves, forgetting for an instance that they themselves were mutants.What is the fascination of watching and analysing each other? Some argue that the extremes can lead to a closer analysis of how we all ‘tick’. A separate discussion is yet to take place about why such behaviour was allowed to go on, against channel 4’s broadcast charter.

The current debate sparked off by Celebrity Big Brother regarding:

* Racism Vs Ignorance
* Upbringing Vs Upbringing
* Cultural non-awareness Vs Racism
* Pack mentality Vs natural grouping
* Racism within races
* Mutual respect Vs victimisation
* Bullying Vs Hunter and Prey mentality
* Anger management Vs Jealousy
* Positioning Vs boundaries of acceptable behaviour
* Manners Vs plain and simple rudeness. suggests that a polarisation of views.

During the early days of the allegations of racism, by a pack against one contestant, hosts of the various spin of BB programmes suggested a lack of understanding someone’s culture as the possible cause – or should we collectively view this as just an excuse or running away from the real issue of what actually exists in today’s society.The hard fact is that if you have ever faced racism in the UK, whatever your background you can absolutely identify with what took place in the BB household.

From a personal perspective I was a victim of bullying at school and with little support from the teachers I had to overcome it through a physical battle in Year 9. I’m not suggesting that this the answer but one of the issues that does arise from what happened is the lack of effort or initiative to resolve the issue.

We can all read the papers and discuss / state that what happened was wrong but who is championing the cause that such behaviour is both unacceptable and requires proactive measures in society to stop the cause.

Categories: 2007, Justice, Multiculturalism