User: etfb Date: 2008-05-31 23:29 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Dang! If only they had video evidence of a crime in progress, they'd be able to use it to proceed with a prosecution!

Oh, wait a minute...!

That's getting seriously stupid. One of the things about BB is that the participants have volunteered for the social equivalent of a speed camera on every corner (something I don't recall volunteering for when I'm out driving, as it happens). So the participants ought to be behaving as if obeying the law is no longer just a matter of not doing the wrong thing when there's a chance of being caught, because there's now a permanent 100% chance of being caught. And the authorities ought to be changing how they respond to match: no more taking people's statements, considering their motivations and so on; all that detective work that The Law has to do to get to the truth. They have the perfect tool for getting at the truth; they should be using it.

You know all this, obviously; I just felt it had to be ranted...

User: lauredhel Date: 2008-06-01 03:09 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Yes.

What this says to me is that not only are these particular housemates nasty little shits, but that they really don't have a good idea of what is right/wrong, legal/illegal. It's another big example of the "Can't you take a joke?" bravado, excusing this sort of assault as a "prank gone wrong" in their own minds. I suspect that if they think they did anything wrong at all, it wasn't the bullying in the first place, it was just "not being careful enough" to avoid serious injury.

I'm also pissed off at the women who were complicit in it all by standing by and laughing uproariously. Dominant men trying to gain status with each other and with women by attacking the less dominant man in the house. Gee, we've never seen that before.

User: purrdence Date: 2008-06-01 03:48 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

And people wonder why I don't watch it anymore...

User: tigtog Date: 2008-06-01 06:03 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

That does look more like the sort of container used for cleaning products rather than a body product.

That "accidentally squirted in the eye" statement is a masterpiece of truthiness. There was nothing accidental about the squirting, the only "accidental" part was that I'm sure that they didn't intend for it to damage his eye. I very much doubt whether they'd thought or cared about whether what they were squirting was caustic and could foreseeably damage the eyes if sprayed towards the face, and that's negligence and reckless indifference.

These sort of nongs bullying each other is what BB has chosen to be the character of the house in the idea that conflict drives ratings. No, conflict only drives ratings if it's between people the audience cares about. Who could care about anyone involved in this particular situation except for Travis? Watching one person we care about being bullied is not enjoyable, it makes us feel complicit, therefore again people won't want to watch it. BB has got the mix of housemates dangerously wrong, and Travis has paid the price.

Best wishes to Travis for his recovery, especially for the full recovery of his sight in the damaged eye.

User: lauredhel Date: 2008-06-01 06:12 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Truthiness - that's exactly the word I was looking for. The eye-spraying was a readily foreseeable consequence of the assault, not a freak accident.

What makes this all so much worse is that the guy, who was also already ill, was just trying to have a crap at the time. You might foresake "rights to privacy" in the usual sense by going into the Big Brother house, but that doesn't give the other housemates the right to give up on normal human courtesy.

I wonder whether there will be any fallout tonight, or whether it will all be swept under the rug to fester like they tried to do with the other assault? It's a bit more difficult this time, with Travis actually being in hospital.

User: babalon_93 Date: 2008-06-01 08:58 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Edit: Looking at the video again, I'm wondering if the "shower gel" being referred to in forums was not, in fact, body wash, but a shower cleaning product. Ben is shown holding a squirt-gun type bottle in his hands immediately afterwards. What do you think?

shower gel in a trigger spray bottle? looks very suspect to me. I really hate the way the BB team seem to be assault apologists, I was so very disappointed with the way Gretel responded to the past assault, basically saying that the perpetrators had broken the rules and thus they were forced to let them go, but they were sad about it and they wished them well in the future. I lost a lot of respect for Gretel after I saw that--even saying nothing would have been better than that, still crap, but at least not as insulting.

User: lauredhel Date: 2008-06-01 09:13 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Absolutely, that was when I lost respect for Gretel, too. I suspected her approach was caused by network pressure (can't help wondering if that was a component in her leaving?), as she had usually been one to stand against misogyny before that.

User: bardiegrub Date: 2008-06-01 10:26 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

This is all just too disgusting for words.

User: lauredhel Date: 2008-06-02 11:41 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

Annnnd the double standard rears its ugly head. Renee and Bianca were just given strikes by Big Brother for arguing with each other and "making threats of physical violence". This is Renee's second strike - one more and she's out.

Yet when men assault another man, premeditated, three-on-one, causing him to be hospitalised, it is shrugged off as an "accident", just high-spirited boys blowing off steam. As far as I know they haven't had so much as a talking-to.