Since my last proper post on the subject Rachel, Govan and Sunshine have all left the house. Also some of the more controversial housemates have had their persona's either changed or severely toned down in order to not offend me and other specific viewers. So here is my updated guide to the 2010 Big Brother housemates;
- Steve. 40, white, straight. This legless ex-solider doesn't actually snore that loudly. His "snoring" is a code for the fact he has a personal care nurse who comes into the house to help with his disability. This involves things like helping him in and out of bed, treating his amputation stumps and providing bed pans all of which makes the other housemates very uncomfortable. I swear I worked this out early on but disregarded it after convincing myself that I must have been very, very drunk when I noticed.
- David. 39, white, straight. This tubby Welshman has dropped most of his quasi-religious nonsense and has changed the style and colour of his hair. As a result he no longer looks like me but has morphed into a double for my grandmother's cleaner/nurse. Considering the massive differences in both race and gender this is quite an achievement but is annoying me and annoying her.
- Nathan. 25, white, straight. This joiner from Manchester looks nothing like Wigan Mike from the EDL. He does though look a bit like another member of the EDL whose name I will remember once he learns how to spell it. This however is not at all important because Nathan is there to represent a broad sociological group as a whole rather then the EDL or any specific member. Nathan is also starting to look like a character called Mickey Maguire from the Channel 4 comedy drama called "Shameless" which is set in Manchester. The main joke about that character is that he is constantly and often unsuccessfully trying to hide his homosexuality from his mobster family often with hilarious consequences. The character has also appeared in some of the most explicit gay sex scenes shown on British television making him something of a pin-up amongst gay men. Nathan is choosing to play up to that image partly to make himself popular with the viewers/voters but mainly to antagonise Ben.
- Ben. 30, white, gay. Despite clearly been told all his life to hide his homosexuality due to the endemic homophobia of the British upper classes Ben is fast emerging as the gayest gay man in the entire history of gaydom. He now has major crushes on both Mario and Nathan. These are being displayed in an amazingly repressed way.
- Corin. 29, white, straight. Having been stripped of the Katie Price and gypsy elements of her persona and with the bisexual element of her persona being openly questioned by the actions of the other housemates the crazy element of Corin's personality is really being pushed to the fore. That's because it's really the only element left and trust me there's a lot of crazy there. I'm sure quite a few people would like me to expand on that.
- Ife. 25, black, straight. Having lost her double, Govan and been separated from the social circle she began the show with Ife is fast emerging as the shrewdest housemate. She has managed to disappear into the background only popping up, sniper like, when trying to make herself look good, another housemate look bad or to make the show more dramatic. Sometimes she even manages to do all three at once.
- Shabby. 24, white, lesbian. After changing her style of dress and hairstyle to avoid looking like Faruiza Balk Shabby has become a mirror for hundreds of generic lesbians. This includes several that I have specifically known and annoyed but that's not important because she's representing the sociological subset rather then any specific individual. Shabby has fallen madly and deeply in lust with the painfully straight Caoimhe.
- Caoimhe. 23, white, straight. A definite effort has been made to make Caoimhe look less like BBC Radio 1's Annie Mac but with little success because the physical resemblance is so strong. With the new image she now looks quite a bit like a younger version of one of my aunts. I think I've explained the whole kicking in the head thing.
Mario, Josie and Jon-James were never particularly controversial housemates to begin with so have hardly changed. The only development there is that Josie has decided that she will be making Jon-James her boyfriend no matter what. Jon-James is interested in Josie but is nowhere near as keen on the whole idea. He's also revealed a rather nasty streak to his personality which is creating a sometimes spiteful "will they, won't they and if they do will Jon-James survive?" drama.
The big drama in the house though stems from Shabby's unrequited lust for Caoimhe. Back when they were a gang of three friends at the start of the show Shabby confessed this secret to Ife. Ife then went and clumsily told this secret to Caoimhe and also managed to let everybody else in the house in on the secret. This broke the gang up with Ife going off on her own while Shabby and Caoimhe were pushed closer together and into some serious lesbian flirting that makes everyone else, especially the men, in the house really uncomfortable. Although I sure that deep down there is some basic need for human friendship going on Caoimhe is blatantly just stringing Shabby along toying with Shabby's emotions while calculating that a lesbian storyline will make her more popular with the viewers/voters. Over the weekend Ife again clumsily and publicly called Caoimhe out on this. Apart from spreading drama by making everyone else in the house uncomfortable this forced Caoimhe and Shabby into a long, deep and soul searching conversation. That conversation will strike an emotional cord with both lesbian viewers and straight female viewers who pretend to be bisexual in order to get attention. It struck a particular cord with Corin because it made her focus on the questionable lesbian relationship that she was in before entering the Big Brother house. To make matters worse the only other woman and therefore person in the house Corin can try and make sense of the situation with is Josie. Corin has clearly has problems with eating disorders like anorexia in the past. Conversely Josie is slightly over-weight and clearly finds comfort in food by over-eating. So rather then finding comfort in each other's company Josie and Corin ask a lot of questions about each other and the viewer.
The most worrying development in the house though is the relationship between Dave and Steve. Dave is actually being a really nice guy by helping Steve deal with the problems his disability present. Sometimes he goes so far as to act as a substitute nurse but mainly he is acting as a barrier to shield Steve from the embarrassment that his bed pans etc cause him and the other housemates. The problem is that now Dave resembles my grandmother's cleaner/nurse that relationship is starting to look like a fishing expedition to find out what level of care my grandmother needs/receives for this Court of Protection business. This doesn't really matter much because they can ask the question as much as they like it's still never going to be relevant to the matter in front of the Court.
Most depressingly though the relationship seems to be an attempt to soften up the public for the cuts to Disability Living Allowance that was announced in June's emergency budget and a reduction in care provided to Afghan veterans that will inevitably be announced in the autumns strategic defence review. It is doing this by establishing the narrative that Steve doesn't really need all this care so he should stop asking for it because it's upsetting the others. That narrative is of course nonsense but that's typical of the Brits. They notice there's chance of a disabled ex-solider winning a £100,000 prize and trying and screw it up by making him look like the bad guy.
Edited to add @22:46. Nathan has a bit of an alpha male problem with Steve. After all it is hard for a skinny joiner to play the tough guy when he's stood next to a solider. So instead Nathan is playing the old working class hero routine while having constant little digs at Steve. This helps drive along the Steve is a scrounger narrative especially amongst viewers on team Nathan. This means that the core group that the Brits are working on to view wounded soldiers as scroungers is the exact same group they've spent two years working on to support British troops and the war in Afghanistan. That sort of hypocrisy makes me think this support the troops nonsense has nothing to do with a concern for the troops welfare and a lot to do with teaching people to hate Muslims.
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