Now for a reality check - no one can put Big Brother in his placeBIG BROTHER may have overstepped the line but the truth is a lack of up-to-date rules means little can be done to rein in the reality show.
The media watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, cannot get its teeth into the program, whose latest breach did not occur on TV but on live internet footage that went out at 4.17am last Saturday. The authority's powers are limited to TV and radio broadcasts and stored internet content.
The live web footage that streamed out of the Big Brother house featured the alleged sexual assault of a female housemate. Acting on it was not in the watchdog's bailiwick, nor anyone else's, a spokesman for the authority conceded yesterday. And even if it had been screened on TV, disciplining Network Ten would have been "a convoluted" process requiring viewer complaints and an investigation.
As the network stood by its program, the Prime Minister, John Howard, labelled the show stupid and called for Ten to axe it. "It is just a question of good taste and I don't like heavy-handed regulation," he said.
"The business community is always saying to me 'let us self-regulate'. Well here's a great opportunity for Channel Ten to do a bit of self-regulation and get this stupid program off the air."
Ten's head of production and development, Tim Clucas, said that not only would the series continue but another was being planned for next year.
The show threw its critics into apoplexy when the internet footage appeared to show Michael Cox, 20, rubbing his crotch in the face of Camilla Halliwell, 22, while Michael Bric, 21, held her. The police were notified but decided to take no action.
Ms Halliwell told viewers: "We laughed it off. As soon as I said 'enough's enough' it stopped."
The men were booted off the show for breaching the Big Brother rule "about respecting each other", Mr Clucas said.
The footage was not aired on TV and never would be. People needed to differentiate between the show and the house. "This was a bit of fun that went too far."
Although Ten took the incident seriously enough to evict the two housemates, in a last-minute interview screened at 9.45pm, host Gretel Killeen blamed the media for beating up the story.
"It's not our intention to sensationalise," she said, before interviewing the evicted housemates. The pair told her they had not meant to hurt or offend Ms Halliwell. They had only been "mucking around". They said they were respectful of women and the incident was a practical joke gone sour.
"We only intended to have a bit of fun with Camilla," said Bric, known on the program as John. The pair said they were having a lot of mixed emotions. "If we could turn back time we obviously would do it," Bric added.
The Labor leader, Kim Beazley, has stepped up his calls for the show to be axed. "As a dad, I don't like seeing young women treated that way."
The Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, was furious that Ms Halliwell was paraded on Sunday night's episode apologising to the two men. "It is very regrettable that Camilla was made to cry and made to feel that she had done the wrong thing and somehow or other was responsible for these guys getting evicted," she said.
Senator Coonan said the show's constant sexual advances towards women "ruthlessly reinforce the kind of notion that women are objects".
The Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett was a lone voice of dissent, saying politicians had no place trying to ban a "lame television show".
"If anyone in the Big Brother house broke the law then it can be dealt with by the legal system. Attempting to force a television show off the air because of an incident that wasn't even screened is an excessive intrusion into the lives of Australians by moralising, preaching politicians."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv-.....3/1151778873551.html
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) is the way that the show appears to promote a lack of basic, decent values. It flaunts inappropriate language/behaviour and lack of manners and seems to boast to its audience "it's okay to act like this". People, especially the young, are impressionalbe and what they see on TV is often reflected in their lives. BB isn't the only show that does this, of that I am sure, but it is the only show that is so blatantly "in ya face" about it.
