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Celebrity Big Brother: setting the world on fire

I know it was a month or so ago, but Jade Goody was back on Big Brother, this time as a celebrity. A few words later and we all knew about it.

When James wrote those famous words about the effect that a little tiny tongue might have, could he ever have envisaged a world in which a few insulting little words could be broadcast around the world and commented on instantly and publicly by politicians, journalists, not to mention many ordinary people. When Channel 4 broadcast the moment that Jade Goody called Shilpa Shetty, her fellow Celebrity Big Brother housemate, ‘Shilpa Poppadom’, it seemed as though everybody knew something about it, particularly if they hadn’t seen it on TV. In fact, those who had seen it on TV were the ones who found it difficult to separate out the acceptable shocking behaviour from the unacceptable and were consequently a bit flummoxed as to what they were meant to be appalled by. It was a ‘media event’, at which everybody wished to be present. The little tiny tongue had indeed worked its evil and created a massive forest fire of controversy.

Comments

The comments that were made were sufficiently inflammatory to haul in over 40,000 complaints from the public whose main issue was with the production company, Endemol, for failing to edit out Jade Goody’s racist name-calling. This puts all those Jerry Springer — the Opera complaints into the shade and, this time, no email campaign had been necessary.

Three little tiny tongues were responsible for a minor diplomatic incident between Britain and India where the visiting Gordon Brown was besieged by questions on the UK’s racist reputation. It was also responsible for the public collapse of the girls’ careers, hate mail, death threats and unilateral disgust. Famous names with links to the show and its disgraced contestants fled the scene immediately. The Carphone Warehouse withdrew its sponsorship and Teddy Sheringham declared his relationship with Danielle over.

Serene beauty

Throughout all this, the victim in the matter, Shilpa Shetty, the serene Bollywood beauty, refused to get drawn in to the tongue wagging. Despite being visibly troubled and distressed by her treatment, both during the show and afterwards when it was played back for her, her expressed opinion was that the girls had not been ‘racist’ and her country’s tourist board has even been magnanimous enough to invite Jade on a trip to experience the ‘healing influences’ of India.

Web chat

There has been much chattering on the web about the whole affair. Many contributors to discussions such as the one on the http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk blog site have identified a problem with the moral one-upmanship typical of responses to this sort of furore. They quote Jesusâ meeting with the woman caught in adultery: ‘Don’t be a bully and join in with the hate Jade, Jo and Danielle campaign. Be bigger than that. However if you are without sin (unlike me) go for it and throw your stone!’. Or, from a blogger who called herself ‘Baroness’: ‘As Jesus said “Let he who is without sin”. Can any of you claim you are without sin? I can’t.’ James himself says, ‘If anyone is able to control the tongue, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check’. It seems that when we measure ourselves up to God’s perfect standards, we are always going to fall short.

So when we post insightful blogs, rage against the broadcasting companies and write articles for Christian newspapers, we need to be more careful than ever when we pass judgement. Perhaps we should simply hold our tongues.

Eleanor Margesson

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