PRINTNude and lewd vs. prude
Big Brother succeeds abroad but tanks stateside
October 26, 2006 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Americans show a great interest in reality TV. So why have couch potatoes turned off CBS’ Big Brother as viewers across the globe embrace the surveillance show? Vox might have the one-word answer: sex.
When Big Brother premiered in the U.S. in 2000, it brought with it a 27 share of the Nielsen ratings for its time slot. That means of the overall audience watching television at the time, including the 100-plus cable channels, 27 percent tuned in. But within the first week, ratings for the show dwindled to only 10 shares.
Die-hard fans continued to tune in because of the show’s distinctive qualities.
“Big Brother is different,” says Helen Matteer, a student at Canada’s McMaster University who created the global Facebook group, “Big Brother Addicts.” “It forces us to look at human interaction and how it changes in a confined situation.”
Jerrica Madden, a member of Matteer’s Facebook group, has been a self-proclaimed addict of the U.S. version since season one.
“My entire family watches Big Brother, so we always have something fun to watch together and talk about,” Madden says.
Yet America’s Big Brother lacks the sex appeal flaunted in versions across the globe. U.S. audiences see a tamer show due to FCC enforcements prohibiting obscene material from making it on air. Audiences worldwide, in comparison, watch a veritable peep show.
Big Brother’s dirty little secrets
The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the UK’s communications regulator, has a duty to protect consumers from harmful or offensive material by licensing, creating codes and policies and addressing consumer complaints. Unlike the FCC, Ofcom is more lenient with its regulations. On the UK’s Big Brother, various stages of nudity and sexual dialogue are permitted.
Meet the 14 contestants who competed this summer in Big Brother: All-Stars on CBS. Each house member had previously been evicted on various seasons of the U.S. version of the show. COURTESY OF CBS BROADCASTING INC.
Controversial clips from the UK and Australian versions are showcased on late-night, uncut shows. On these episodes, contestants are shown having sex and masturbating in the “privacy” of their own beds.
“They are more permissive overseas than we are here in the U.S.,” says Lee Gordon, programming director of Columbia’s CBS affiliate, KRCG, which airs Big Brother in Columbia. “Although there may be an audience for that type of content, in my mind, we’re not ready for it yet.”
The show’s UK success is mirrored in the millions of nightly viewers. The latest season brought an estimated 8.1 million viewers with its premiere, and that number jumped close to 12 million during its finale in August — that’s one-sixth of the UK population.
We aren’t the only prudes
America’s version might be tame, but the Arab version is prudish in comparison. When the show was filmed in 2004 in Bahrain, protests arose over the lack of respect for Muslim traditions, and the show was cancelled after only two episodes. Although producers modified the show to ban members of the opposite sex from one another’s sleeping quarters, provided a prayer area and women’s-only lounge, the changes were not enough to accommodate Arab viewers.
“Communal living is certainly frowned upon and deemed inappropriate outside of the confines of a familial relationship,” says Dr. William Young, a professor of religious studies at Westminster College. “The whole idea of the show is considered offensive. Unfortunately, the Arab perception of Western culture is based on popular television, which basically reinforces the notion of an immoral culture that doesn’t care about traditional values.”
Everybody’s doin’ it
“[The] show’s participants should be proud of their honesty,” says Wesley Metham in an article from On Line Opinion, an Australian e-journal of social and political debate. Metham is working toward a Ph.D. in cultural studies at the University of Sydney. “Public discussion of sex and sexuality is entirely healthy, and those who seek to censor sexuality attempt to repress the public’s honest sexual expression.”
If the FCC continues to regulate and heavily edit what we see on TV, Big Brother will remain a footnote in American reality TV history.
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