Australia's Big Brother television show is unfortunately not unique. In the last three years, 36 different versions of the show have been aired around the world but while 50% of the contestants are always women, there have only been five winners who are women.
For those who've avoided Big Brother, this is how it works: 12 contestants are locked into a house and filmed 24 hours a day; Channel 10 presents a half hour summary of their doings every weeknight, and another three hours of specials each week; viewers vote at 55 cents a pop to evict a contestant every week; and the last contestant left pockets $250,000.
According to the Big Brother web site, women are less likely to win because many viewers are girls who vote for young, good looking boys. But hundreds of thousands of people vote. In the second British version of the series, more people voted in the final eviction than voted in the general election. It would be impossible for the results to be determined just by young women.
Another problem with the show's explanation is that viewers don't vote for those they like they vote for those they don't like. And the women get booted out much faster than the men. This is a rather sickening example of the sexist double standards that permeate capitalist society and are exploited by the show's producers.
In the latest Australian series, three contestants remain. Each has a two-dimensional personality largely invented by Channel 10. We have naive and easygoing farm boy Marty, boy-with-a-tragic-past Peter and manipulative bi-sexual Sahra.
Despite repeated denials, Big Brother's producers manipulate the image of each contestant, through the bits they select to screen and with the interpretive commentary provided by host Gretel Killeen. This commentary is supplemented by interviews with sexperts, psychics and psychologists who discuss the housemates' motivations and morality.
In this intense discussion of sexual and personal morality and behaviour, women tend to do badly. Some, such as Mirabai, Sahra and Jess, are condemned for their sexual behaviour (Mirabai was branded Mirabike on the show's web forums). Others, such as Shannon and Turkan, are criticised for being bossy or dominating.
Women throughout society are still expected to take responsibility for maintaining households materially through domestic work and child care, and emotionally as well. If women behave in a way that doesn't take responsibility for this having sexual relationships outside a monogamous relationship, being rude or inconsiderate, or challenging male dominance they are condemned much more harshly than men.
The image of the caring wife, loyal girlfriend and all-comforting mother permeate the mass media. It is used to justify the capitalists' employment of women at lower pay, for less hours and at slower promotion.
Reality television reinforces such double standards through encouraging the audience to make moral judgements about others' personal behaviour. Even Temptation Island, widely condemned by religious types for undermining the family, reinforces the idea that sexual fidelity is everything in a relationship and this standard is applied much more rigorously to women on that show than it is to men.
On Big Brother, despite Killeen's occasional comments about viewer's unfair double standards to the sexual antics of the contestants, the show dwells obsessively on female sexual behaviour. News releases from Channel 10 have titles such as Mirabai: repeat [sexual] offender?, Sahra's pash-fest and Jess's ex claims 'She's not a man eater!'.
In last year's show, the unexpected popularity of Sara Marie bucked the trend. Sara Marie provided an anti-role model of a large, confident, loud and lazy woman that thousands of women related to because it was at odds with the stereotype of admirable womanhood. Even the support for Sara Marie was not enough to override those who condemned her and allow her to win.
In many of the forums, viewers have argued that the failure of women to win Big Brother cannot be sexist because women contestants and viewers tend to be more critical of other women than men are. But women can, and do, reflect sexist attitudes. Competition and viciousness between women is encouraged by a society that damages women's confidence and teaches them that it is easier to compete against women than men.
Big Brother's producers did not create the sexist stereotypes that the program exploits. But the show deepens and reinforces them.
BY ALISON DELLIT
[The author is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 3, 2002.
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