London Calling Freaks, lunatics, and Labour MPs.
by Greg Gutfeld 10/02/2006, Volume 012, Issue 03
London The British are funny people, and the funniest thing about them is how seriously they take being British.
The Brits still see themselves as somewhat valuable to civilization: a sophisticated bastion of intelligence and wit, home of those programs recycled on Masterpiece Theater, Dame Judi Dench reciting passages from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Jeremy Paxman sneering at anything that isn't actually Jeremy Paxman. The fact that most Brits think they sound smart somehow allows them to judge Americans, their bastard offspring, as idiots. And racist.
"It's good to see an American show with a black hero," observes the Observer's Andrew Anthony, upon observing the show Sleeper Cell--without apparently observing the last three decades of American television. But we can forgive him, for he lives in a land where Yanks are seen as rank, racist, and selfish--un-British qualities exemplified in thought and deed by George W., the dumbest man alive since Ronald Reagan, another knucklehead somehow responsible for upending the cruelest ideological machine known to man.
But come spend some time in England, and you realize that England's reputation for high culture is, in their own words, crap. England may pretend to be the posh hotel, but once inside, you find it to be nothing more than a bilious brothel teeming with pop-star pervs, park-bench fiddlers, and frantic finger-sniffers. And that's just on my block.
England is a country as delusional as a 35-year-old stripper--everyone in the room but her sees that her powers of attraction have faded. Her life is a loose coalition of press-on nails, fake tan, hair extensions, and implants, all held together by the duct tape of delusion. Which is not at all unlike Lea, a star of my favorite U.K. show, Big Brother.
I love Lea because I used to draw her when I was 12. Lea is shaped like a puberty-stricken boy's feeble sketch of a desirable female: A large clump of blonde hair, big curves, bulbous lips, massive breasts. Proportionally--it's the only thing a hormone could draw. But Lea is nothing special. For if I described her as a bimbo with implants, regular Big Brother viewers would need more specifics. Because, on the top-rated U.K. reality show, implants are as common as pimples at Pizza Hut.
I start with Lea--a divorced, leathery sex performer with a teenage daughter--not because of the appeal of the "oilys," the nickname for two slippery and massive artificially enhanced missiles, but because both are individually bigger than her head. A latecomer to the porn industry, Lea's harrowing hardcore movie has already made the email rounds (to repulse, not to titillate). It wasn't pretty, even by the fourth viewing. Lea came on BB, she said, to simultaneously flaunt her giant breasts, and to prove she is more than a woman who flaunts her giant breasts. On the floor of the BB house, you could see her hair, falling out. In clumps.
I loved Lea, but I loved all the characters. I am a hopeless addict, infatuated with a program that caters to the British need for ridiculing anyone who attempts to rise above their station with the hope of becoming famous. These "housemates" exemplify the new British entertainer: grotesque but often likable failures, willing to do almost anything to get their name in print. My favorites so far: The family comic linked to a horrible sex crime; a manic-depressive gay cruiser; a crotch-fondling date rapist; a self-pronounced "sexual terrorist" currently serving time as a Canadian waiter; two sickly she-males (one Scottish); a high-priced female escort; an aging housewife/dancer from the Robert Palmer video "Addicted to Love"; and the Rt. Hon. George Galloway, MP.
And then there's the lady who did that thing with the bottle. (More later.) Big Brother is wildly successful in the U.K. Like Dallas during the who-shot-JR period, but without Mary Crosby. BB's enjoyable hysteria is fatigue-resistant, knocking major stories off the front of the tabloids as it effortlessly builds toward a frenzied finale when an audience comprising 60 percent of the entire British viewing public tunes in. Banner-waving crowds turn up, jeering and cheering. I watched it twice--in case I missed anything. I also voted to evict housemates every single week (at roughly 50 pence a pop). And yes, I am still married. The series is so popular that it has spawned three companion shows, including Big Brother's Little Brother, Big Brother's Big Brain, and Big Brother's Big Mouth. I record and watch them all, even on beautiful days, which are rare in London. I can no longer fit into my trousers.
As for the American version of Big Brother, there can be no comparison. The U.S. version is crass, formulaic, and dull. The U.K. version is crass, inventive, and smart. Its story lines are as ingenious as those for a scripted show, and the producers treat the characters with the same disdain and affection as viewers do, toying with them the way a cat does a crippled baby bird. Housemates veer from jittery excitement to abject misery (based on assigned tasks) and Big Brother is everywhere, characterized by an emotionless voice--sometimes male, sometimes female, and once or twice Welsh.
By banning books, television, and cell phones, the cast members are forced to deal with each other, creating a magnetic mini-hell that is both riveting and tedious, if that's possible. Because the noncelebrity version lasts three months, it self-selects for volunteers who have three months to spare. Meaning the unemployed and incompetent. I laugh at their uselessness; but then again, I watch every episode (90 plus) as well as the live, overnight feed. And yes, I don't bathe much anymore.
I first became hooked on BB during its sixth series, which featured a group of housemates so perverse and obsessive I felt like I was back in Los Angeles. This crew included a leggy transvestite named Kemal, an obsessive gay stalker, a psycho nurse, a gay black Tory, and something called Kinga, a fat blonde monstrosity. Celebrity Big Brother 4 followed, featuring an awesome selection of troubled, egocentric, and mildly insane C-listers, all verging on breakdown. The housemates included an aging television presenter named Michael Barrymore, who had run off to New Zealand after a man was found dead in his swimming pool. On the show, Barrymore wept like a child, but possessing the soul of a true entertainer, still attempted to rouse housemates by performing a dance number dressed as Hitler. It wasn't half bad.
The cast also included Pete Burns, the former singer of Dead or Alive (known for the addictive but aggravating "You Spin Me Round") who stole the show as an increasingly spiteful she-male, an alien destroyed and then rebuilt by cosmetic surgeons. Dressed in little more than a piece of fabric and heels, with a face full of collagen injections and implants, Burns appeared like a sci-fi hooker from another galaxy--one you'd never visit sober. He bragged that his favorite coat was made of gorilla skin, prompting the police to storm the house to confiscate the jacket. It turned out it was not gorilla at all but Colobus monkey! Animal rights activists hated him, which made him even more endearing.
There was also Dennis Rodman. An unknown in London, his newfound obscurity forced him to act out, scaring housemates by soliciting sex from them at every opportunity. Rodman injected lurid overtones into every conversation, and in a press conference following the end of BB, told a reporter that he would be up "in his ass." And George Galloway, the left-wing politician and Respect party member of Parliament, who still laments the loss of the Soviet Union. George thought that joining BB would help gain him a "younger audience."
Instead it destroyed his career. And for that BB deserves its greatest praise. In one stellar episode, housemates had to place themselves in order of fame from most famous to least famous. George put himself near the top, explaining that over a billion Muslims know him, so technically he's more famous than everyone. Later, he pretended to be a cat, prowling on all floors, lapping up make-believe milk from the willing hands of faded stage star Rula Lenska. He also danced like a robot in red spandex. At his eviction, when host Davina McCall revealed the staggering amount of horrible press headlines he received, George looked like he was going to cry. I hate the guy, but even I felt bad for him.
And now, sadly, the most recent BB (7) series has ended, the winner of the show being Tourette's Syndrome sufferer Pete Bennett. He beat out Nikki, the anorexic former escort, a gay waiter named Richard, and an 18-year-old Welsh lifeguard. Among the other housemates waiting to greet him at the end were Shahbaz, a psychopath who admits to being arrested for cruising in parks for anonymous sex. Shahbaz was forced off the show after experiencing as close to a mental breakdown you can have without swallowing your tongue. Who wasn't there? Sezer, for legal reasons. A housemate evicted early on, he's already been under investigation for rape.
I, like everyone else, really liked Pete Bennett. And his appearance on the show revealed an interesting truth: Whenever anyone with a disability goes on a reality TV show, there are initial complaints that they are being exploited. These pass only when everyone realizes (quickly) that the disability in question isn't that funny: If no one is laughing, it's not exploitation. But once you realize that the exposure of the disability is seen as "raising awareness," you can laugh all you want, and imitate the verbal tics and twitches, which was happening all over Britain, due to Pete's manic outbursts and grimaces. Oh yeah, he also exposed himself in the pool. But I think we've had enough.
Not everyone watches Big Brother, of course. You do get your share of pseudo-intellectuals who make a point of telling you they never watch it--much like their same counterparts in America who say they never watch TV in general, as if they've been spending all that saved time knocking out cures for cancer or inventing a flying toaster.
But I don't watch BB to make myself feel smarter. I watch it to remind myself that I'm not British. And not being British means I don't need a TV show to express my disdain for idiots. BB gives Britain--a country paralyzed by multiculturalism--the chance to stare at the freaks and judge them, laugh at them, berate them. Contrast this with the real lives of Brits: Living in a culture that must tolerate chavs, criminals, lager louts, benefit fraudsters, hooligans, and Islamic nut-bags, often at their own peril. This is a country that allows mullahs to preach the demise of their own country, all in the name of tolerance.
Still, the good news is that Celebrity Big Brother 5 is practically upon us. I predict the cast will include Boy George, the guitarist from Status Quo, Cindy Sheehan, Siamese Twins, and a four-pound bag of brine shrimp. I put my money on the shrimp.
Greg Gutfeld is a writer in London.
© Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
London The British are funny people, and the funniest thing about them is how seriously they take being British.
The Brits still see themselves as somewhat valuable to civilization: a sophisticated bastion of intelligence and wit, home of those programs recycled on Masterpiece Theater, Dame Judi Dench reciting passages from Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Jeremy Paxman sneering at anything that isn't actually Jeremy Paxman. The fact that most Brits think they sound smart somehow allows them to judge Americans, their bastard offspring, as idiots. And racist.
"It's good to see an American show with a black hero," observes the Observer's Andrew Anthony, upon observing the show Sleeper Cell--without apparently observing the last three decades of American television. But we can forgive him, for he lives in a land where Yanks are seen as rank, racist, and selfish--un-British qualities exemplified in thought and deed by George W., the dumbest man alive since Ronald Reagan, another knucklehead somehow responsible for upending the cruelest ideological machine known to man.
But come spend some time in England, and you realize that England's reputation for high culture is, in their own words, crap. England may pretend to be the posh hotel, but once inside, you find it to be nothing more than a bilious brothel teeming with pop-star pervs, park-bench fiddlers, and frantic finger-sniffers. And that's just on my block.
England is a country as delusional as a 35-year-old stripper--everyone in the room but her sees that her powers of attraction have faded. Her life is a loose coalition of press-on nails, fake tan, hair extensions, and implants, all held together by the duct tape of delusion. Which is not at all unlike Lea, a star of my favorite U.K. show, Big Brother.
I love Lea because I used to draw her when I was 12. Lea is shaped like a puberty-stricken boy's feeble sketch of a desirable female: A large clump of blonde hair, big curves, bulbous lips, massive breasts. Proportionally--it's the only thing a hormone could draw. But Lea is nothing special. For if I described her as a bimbo with implants, regular Big Brother viewers would need more specifics. Because, on the top-rated U.K. reality show, implants are as common as pimples at Pizza Hut.
I start with Lea--a divorced, leathery sex performer with a teenage daughter--not because of the appeal of the "oilys," the nickname for two slippery and massive artificially enhanced missiles, but because both are individually bigger than her head. A latecomer to the porn industry, Lea's harrowing hardcore movie has already made the email rounds (to repulse, not to titillate). It wasn't pretty, even by the fourth viewing. Lea came on BB, she said, to simultaneously flaunt her giant breasts, and to prove she is more than a woman who flaunts her giant breasts. On the floor of the BB house, you could see her hair, falling out. In clumps.
I loved Lea, but I loved all the characters. I am a hopeless addict, infatuated with a program that caters to the British need for ridiculing anyone who attempts to rise above their station with the hope of becoming famous. These "housemates" exemplify the new British entertainer: grotesque but often likable failures, willing to do almost anything to get their name in print. My favorites so far: The family comic linked to a horrible sex crime; a manic-depressive gay cruiser; a crotch-fondling date rapist; a self-pronounced "sexual terrorist" currently serving time as a Canadian waiter; two sickly she-males (one Scottish); a high-priced female escort; an aging housewife/dancer from the Robert Palmer video "Addicted to Love"; and the Rt. Hon. George Galloway, MP.
And then there's the lady who did that thing with the bottle. (More later.) Big Brother is wildly successful in the U.K. Like Dallas during the who-shot-JR period, but without Mary Crosby. BB's enjoyable hysteria is fatigue-resistant, knocking major stories off the front of the tabloids as it effortlessly builds toward a frenzied finale when an audience comprising 60 percent of the entire British viewing public tunes in. Banner-waving crowds turn up, jeering and cheering. I watched it twice--in case I missed anything. I also voted to evict housemates every single week (at roughly 50 pence a pop). And yes, I am still married. The series is so popular that it has spawned three companion shows, including Big Brother's Little Brother, Big Brother's Big Brain, and Big Brother's Big Mouth. I record and watch them all, even on beautiful days, which are rare in London. I can no longer fit into my trousers.
As for the American version of Big Brother, there can be no comparison. The U.S. version is crass, formulaic, and dull. The U.K. version is crass, inventive, and smart. Its story lines are as ingenious as those for a scripted show, and the producers treat the characters with the same disdain and affection as viewers do, toying with them the way a cat does a crippled baby bird. Housemates veer from jittery excitement to abject misery (based on assigned tasks) and Big Brother is everywhere, characterized by an emotionless voice--sometimes male, sometimes female, and once or twice Welsh.
By banning books, television, and cell phones, the cast members are forced to deal with each other, creating a magnetic mini-hell that is both riveting and tedious, if that's possible. Because the noncelebrity version lasts three months, it self-selects for volunteers who have three months to spare. Meaning the unemployed and incompetent. I laugh at their uselessness; but then again, I watch every episode (90 plus) as well as the live, overnight feed. And yes, I don't bathe much anymore.
I first became hooked on BB during its sixth series, which featured a group of housemates so perverse and obsessive I felt like I was back in Los Angeles. This crew included a leggy transvestite named Kemal, an obsessive gay stalker, a psycho nurse, a gay black Tory, and something called Kinga, a fat blonde monstrosity. Celebrity Big Brother 4 followed, featuring an awesome selection of troubled, egocentric, and mildly insane C-listers, all verging on breakdown. The housemates included an aging television presenter named Michael Barrymore, who had run off to New Zealand after a man was found dead in his swimming pool. On the show, Barrymore wept like a child, but possessing the soul of a true entertainer, still attempted to rouse housemates by performing a dance number dressed as Hitler. It wasn't half bad.
The cast also included Pete Burns, the former singer of Dead or Alive (known for the addictive but aggravating "You Spin Me Round") who stole the show as an increasingly spiteful she-male, an alien destroyed and then rebuilt by cosmetic surgeons. Dressed in little more than a piece of fabric and heels, with a face full of collagen injections and implants, Burns appeared like a sci-fi hooker from another galaxy--one you'd never visit sober. He bragged that his favorite coat was made of gorilla skin, prompting the police to storm the house to confiscate the jacket. It turned out it was not gorilla at all but Colobus monkey! Animal rights activists hated him, which made him even more endearing.
There was also Dennis Rodman. An unknown in London, his newfound obscurity forced him to act out, scaring housemates by soliciting sex from them at every opportunity. Rodman injected lurid overtones into every conversation, and in a press conference following the end of BB, told a reporter that he would be up "in his ass." And George Galloway, the left-wing politician and Respect party member of Parliament, who still laments the loss of the Soviet Union. George thought that joining BB would help gain him a "younger audience."
Instead it destroyed his career. And for that BB deserves its greatest praise. In one stellar episode, housemates had to place themselves in order of fame from most famous to least famous. George put himself near the top, explaining that over a billion Muslims know him, so technically he's more famous than everyone. Later, he pretended to be a cat, prowling on all floors, lapping up make-believe milk from the willing hands of faded stage star Rula Lenska. He also danced like a robot in red spandex. At his eviction, when host Davina McCall revealed the staggering amount of horrible press headlines he received, George looked like he was going to cry. I hate the guy, but even I felt bad for him.
And now, sadly, the most recent BB (7) series has ended, the winner of the show being Tourette's Syndrome sufferer Pete Bennett. He beat out Nikki, the anorexic former escort, a gay waiter named Richard, and an 18-year-old Welsh lifeguard. Among the other housemates waiting to greet him at the end were Shahbaz, a psychopath who admits to being arrested for cruising in parks for anonymous sex. Shahbaz was forced off the show after experiencing as close to a mental breakdown you can have without swallowing your tongue. Who wasn't there? Sezer, for legal reasons. A housemate evicted early on, he's already been under investigation for rape.
I, like everyone else, really liked Pete Bennett. And his appearance on the show revealed an interesting truth: Whenever anyone with a disability goes on a reality TV show, there are initial complaints that they are being exploited. These pass only when everyone realizes (quickly) that the disability in question isn't that funny: If no one is laughing, it's not exploitation. But once you realize that the exposure of the disability is seen as "raising awareness," you can laugh all you want, and imitate the verbal tics and twitches, which was happening all over Britain, due to Pete's manic outbursts and grimaces. Oh yeah, he also exposed himself in the pool. But I think we've had enough.
Not everyone watches Big Brother, of course. You do get your share of pseudo-intellectuals who make a point of telling you they never watch it--much like their same counterparts in America who say they never watch TV in general, as if they've been spending all that saved time knocking out cures for cancer or inventing a flying toaster.
But I don't watch BB to make myself feel smarter. I watch it to remind myself that I'm not British. And not being British means I don't need a TV show to express my disdain for idiots. BB gives Britain--a country paralyzed by multiculturalism--the chance to stare at the freaks and judge them, laugh at them, berate them. Contrast this with the real lives of Brits: Living in a culture that must tolerate chavs, criminals, lager louts, benefit fraudsters, hooligans, and Islamic nut-bags, often at their own peril. This is a country that allows mullahs to preach the demise of their own country, all in the name of tolerance.
Still, the good news is that Celebrity Big Brother 5 is practically upon us. I predict the cast will include Boy George, the guitarist from Status Quo, Cindy Sheehan, Siamese Twins, and a four-pound bag of brine shrimp. I put my money on the shrimp.
Greg Gutfeld is a writer in London.
© Copyright 2006, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
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