It's not Big Brother's fault

  • The Observer,
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It is a sad fact of human behaviour that when people are thrown together in groups, in order to bond they find a scapegoat - someone in the group who differs from the rest. Then they bully them. It happens all the time in offices, military barracks, schools - wherever there is insecurity and pressure to conform.

There are many ways to pick a scapegoat, but race is a favourite among bullies. That is what happened to Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in the Big Brother house. The ringleader of the gang that victimised her, Jade Goody, behaved like an all-too-typical playground tyrant. The racial component of her aggression was petty, no worse than is, regrettably, experienced by millions of black and Asian Britons every day. That does not excuse her, but nor does it make her a monster. Jade Goody is no white supremacist.

She in turn has now been made a scapegoat for a society that is desperate to offload its anxiety about the prejudice that rests stubbornly, but often very discreetly, in its midst. Jade has been vilified as if it is only the uneducated white working class that falls back on casual racist stereotypes in the heat of an argument; as if it were a terrible mistake to let someone so lacking in self-control and respect for liberal taboo pollute our TV screens.

The opposite is true. For all the manipulation and selective editing that goes on behind the scenes of Big Brother, the programme does us a service in holding a mirror up to British society. Perhaps that mirror distorts, but it does so in the way of good, effective caricature. By exaggerating our flaws it captures our essence.

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