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Big Brother (TV series)
"Big Brother" is a popular reality television format, where, over 10 weeks or so, a number of contestants (typically 10 or 12) try to avoid periodic publicly-voted evictions from a communal house and hence win a cash prize. The show, a kind of 'real life soap', was invented by John de Mol of the Netherlands and developed by his production company, Endemol. It has been a prime-time hit in nineteen different countries, earning Endemol large sums. The show's name comes from George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopia in which Big Brother is the all-seeing leader.
Format
Initially shown in the Netherlands in September 1999, and subsequently cloned across the world, the "housemates" are confined inside a specially designed house, and not permitted any contact with the outside world: no TV, radio, telephone, internet or other media are available to the housemates, not even writing materials. Private chats with a psychologist are a special exception. At weekly intervals, the public is invited to vote to evict one of the contestants. The last remaining is the winner.
It is similar to the balloon problem where a balloon is sinking and someone has to be forced to bail out in order to keep the balloon afloat.
Besides the same living together, which is the principal axis and major attraction of the contest, this one turns concerning 4 basic props: the stripped-bare back to basics environment in which they live, the evictions system, the weekly tasks set by Big Brother, and the "diary room", in which the housemates individually convey their thoughts, feelings, frustrations and their eviction nominees.
Initially, the hostel in which they had to reside for the duration of the competition was very basic. Although essential amenities such as running water, furniture and a limited ration of food were provided, luxury items were forbidden. This added an element of survival into the show, thus increasing the potential for tensions within the house. Now almost every country have a nice house for the contest, with jacuzzi, sauna, VIP suite, etc. in contraposition to other zones, or characteristics, of the house, more common, even precarious.
To fill in time, the residents have various chores to maintain the house, and are set apparently random tasks by the producers of the show, who communicate with the housemates through one (unseen) individual issuing commands, termed "Big Brother". The tasks are designed to test their team-working abilities and community spirit. The housemates have a weekly allowance with which they can buy food and other essentials. To obtain a greater allowance, they may gamble some of their initial amount on the success of the completion of tasks. Of course, their allowance is lessened if they fail to complete the weekly task.
Each week, the housemates each privately nominate a number of people who they wish to see removed from the house more than the other residents. The ones with the most nominations are then named on the television show, and viewers can call a special premium rate telephone number or send a premium rate text message to vote for whom they want to evict. The substantial profits from the calls and text messages are split between the phone companies and the producers.
After the votes are tallied, the "evictee" leaves the house and is interviewed on-camera by the host of the show, usually in front of a live studio audience. The last remaining housemate is declared the winner and receives a substantial sum in prize money, the amount of which has varied widely around the world.
The series is notable for involving the Internet. Although the main show, typically broadcast daily with a weekly roundup, is by necessity heavily edited, viewers can also watch a continuous, 24-hour feed from multiple cameras on the web. These websites were highly successful, even after some national series started charging for access to the video stream. In some countries, the Internet broadcasting was supplemented by updates via email, WAP and SMS. The house is even shown live on satellite television (with a 10-15 minute delay to permit muting of unacceptable content in the UK). Indeed, John de Mol has said: "We aren't really a television producer at all anymore. We are a content provider for multiple platforms."[1]
Despite derision from many intellectuals and other critics, the show has been a commercial success around the world. Criticisms typically are based on the ironic aspects of George Orwell's dystopic vision of Nineteen Eighty-Four being consciously aped by producers for public entertainment. More generally, the voyeuristic nature of the show, where contestants volunteer to surrender their privacy in return for minor celebrity status and a comparatively small cash prize, has attracted much scorn.
While any pretences to be a cultural experiment are dubious, reports of the different results of the show around the world have been mildly interesting from a pop-anthropology standpoint; i.e., in Spain, the competitors designed an agreement to achieve they all were nominated automaticly and annul then their power of decision inside the process of elimination in the contest. It just has happened in this occasion: since that moment, Big Brother modified its rules prohibiting this type of agreements. On the other hand, other versions have involved plotting in the vein of the most cruel soap opera. Some versions have been filled with sex-crazed housemates, whereas others decided to base the argument development of their programs on complete-strange-peculiar-difficult or inclined to live love stories personalities, like happens in Brazil, Mexico or Spain. With the passing of time, there has been demonstrated that the most successful versions are those that are alike a soap opera, whereas others where the principal attraction was the sex have been eliminated, like Hungary or Poland. The amount of sex shown on the televised versions varies from country to country depending on censorship rules, with some countries editing out all sex and nudity, and others allowing the show to verge on the pornographic.
The majority of winners have been men, although a number of countries have now had a female winner. Although a number of countries have (knowingly) included transsexual contestants, only one has won.
An interesting development in Big Brother is that German scientists have discovered that former contestants may be at risk from Post Container Stress Disorder , a condition sometimes suffered by those who leave the armed forces. Indeed, in the second Polish edition, one of housemates was taken to a psychiatric hospital.
The format has also spawned novels, in particular Ben Elton's book Dead Famous about the televised death of a housemate.
Special Versions
- In France and Canada, the format is developed by couples. 6 bachelors and 6 bachelorettes coexist in the same house up to forming the winning couple.
- Big Brother USA currently uses different rules than other countries' versions of the show, as it has starting with its second season. (The first season followed the traditional format.) In the US version, viewers do not vote for eviction; all voting is done by houseguests. The US version also introduced the Power of veto, with a houseguest having power to save a housemate from the nominations. It's been adapted in Brazil and since then some countries modified their nominations rules.
- The third Dutch edition introduced the notion of "The Battle", in which the house is separated into a luxurious and a poor half, with two teams of housemates constantly fighting for time in the luxurious half. We also have seen separated houses in Spain, Australia, Poland, Denmark, Greece, UK, Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Germany. Italy and Mexico added punishment zones to their houses.
- The fifth UK edition had the "Evil" touch, where the Big Brother voice became almost a villain. He was establishing punishments and was proposing hard tasks.
- The fifth German edition, running for a full year, separated the contestants into three teams (rich, regular, survivor) and equivalent living areas. The sixth version (currently airing in RTL II) is running in a small artificial town denominated "Das Dorf". This version doesn't have a definite ending, reminding Hollywood movie "The Truman Show".
- There are five special panregional versions of Big Brother. All these follow the normal Big Brother rules with the exception contestants come from different countries in the region it airs:
- Africa: Angola, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- Central America (planned for the end of the year): Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.
- Middle East: United Arab Emirates, Arabia, Bahrein, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Somalia and Tunisia.
- Pacific: Chile, Ecuador and Peru.
- Scandinavia: Sweden and Norway.
- Other special versions:
- Teen Big Brother (United Kingdom). Teenagers houseguests not competing, just living together.
- Big Brother, All Star (Belgium). Housemates from the different BB Belgium seasons living together.
- Big Brother, Reality All Star (Denmark). Contestants from different reality shows living together at the BB house.
- Big Brother, 100 Days After (Norway). The BB1 Norway housemates living again together after 100 days since the contest's ending. They also welcome 4 new housemates.
Big Brother around the world
- (1) Previously was "Big Brother South Africa" but became panregional before the SA's trird season.
- (2) In 2004 edition, this was the first version to run for 365 days consecutively. The ultimate winner got a prize of 1,000,000 €. Inmediattly after, BB VI started. This is the first show in television history which has no time limit. The producers of the show say that when the ratings are too low, the show will be cancelled. The show is called "Big Brother: Das Dorf", lit. "Big Brother: The Village". The set includes a church, a market place, four houses, ...
- (3) Filmed in Amwaj Island. Discontinued after 10 days because of religious protests.
- (4) For the 2005 edition see also Big Brother Sweden.
- (5) Made in Colombia, this is a panregional version with contestants from Chile, Ecuador and Peru. It's name came because all of the participating countries are in the border of the Pacific.
- (6) Became the panregional Big Brother Africa after the 2002 season.
Big Brother Facts
- First Big Brother Winner: Bart Spring, Netherlands, 1999
- First Female Winner: Angelica Freij, Sweden, 2000
- First Gay Winner: Brian Dowling, UK, 2001
- First Black Winner: Cherise Makubale, Africa, 2003
- First Transsexual Winner: Nadia Almada, UK, 2004
Near copies of Big Brother
There are three specially important formats around the globe that attach to rules kind of similar with Big Brother:
- The Farm, created by the Swedish producer house Strix, creators of Survivor. It's the third bigger 'people-living-together' reality show on Earth, only defeated by Star Academy (Spain, 2001, Endemol) broadcasted in 48 countries and Big Brother (Holland, 1999, Endemol) emitted in 63.
- Countries Airing: Algeria, Bahrein, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Comoros Islands, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Lybia, Mauritania, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Palestine, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, UK, Yemen.
- The Bar , another format from Strix.
- Countries Airing: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Argentina, Germany, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland, Turkey, Greece, Venezuela, Netherlands, Romania, Lithuania, etc.
- Protagonistas..., a format from the Spanish producer house GloboMedia, developed by its subsidiary in America, Promofilm. It's a mixture among Big Brother and Star Academy and has had a huge success in different latin countries, as Chile, Venezuela, Colombia or Mexico. It also had its own version in USA for the latin market airing in Telemundo.
- There are also some local formats that in one or other way are pretty similar with Endemol's Big Brother:
- Albania, Syri Magjik
- Austria, Taxi Orange
- Bolivia, Uno Busca
- Bosnia, 60 Sati
- France, Nice People
- Israel, Project Y
- Israel, The Yacht
- Latvia, Fabrika
- Macedonia, Tom Sam Ja
- Norway, Singel 24-7
- Peru, La Casa De Gisela
- Puerto Rico, 360 Estudio
- Russia, 12 Negrityat
- Russia, Golod
- Russia, Za Steklom
- Turkey, Biri Bizi Gözetliyor
External links
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