Marmite, ménages and Big Brother

Big Brother is like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. The programme works out a matrix of three players: housemates, TV audience and the programme’s production team. It is a media ménage à trois. Each of us tries to stay one step ahead of ‘the game’. For some of the housemates this means the mistaken belief that there is no game or at least that they are not playing one. Anyone who cannot be all things to all people is quickly nominated by fellow housemates. Insincerity (aka gossiping) is unforgivable in the eyes of the public. Eviction ensues. Those who manage to survive guarantee themselves further time in which their public persona will be gradually eroded. Just like a good game of cricket the shine gets knocked off. In this case it is not by willow on leather but by constant multiple camera attention on any and all residual practised polish. As viewers we bray for sincerity. If we don’t get it then the many suggestion boxes littered around the back of set of Big Brother will ensure that the various tasks push the housemates further and further into a seemingly endless combination of hunger and drunken exhaustion. The shine wears off. You are more than the three seconds it takes to make instant attraction in a nanosecond's first impression. Love it or hate it we are reminded we are real. Ruthless manipulation it may be but it is also an antidote to celebrity gloss – no matter how much store the participants put by hair straighteners.