India: Big Brother and Racism

The racism controversy surrounding the reality TV show in UK – Big Brother finds a lot of blogs picking up the issue. Pickled Politics has a thriving comments thread with reflections on racism and bullying, and Shoefiend says “While they’re definitely being ignorant, stupid and mean, the fact that the person on the receiving end of all this is brown adds a racial undertone to the entire thing.”

2 comments

  • Jag

    Neha, A lot of people in UK thought “Shilpa who?” when she first turned up on the show. Now the bookies are rating her favourite to win. I listen to Club Asia on the radio when I’m in the car. As most Brit Asians know, this is a *very* Brit Asian radio show, popular with youth, and they were running a “Shilpa don’t be Shetty” campaign in the beginning. The idea being (and this is entirely my own opinion) that Shilpa shouln’t let the Brit desis down by being “boring” Indian. Now the campaign has changed to “Stop being Shetty to Shilpa”, i.e. she is a hero and can do nothing wrong! I never watched BB in my life until this became such a big new item so sucker that I am I decided to watch it last night. And all I saw was two people sleeping, for over 1 hour! What rubbish. Racism and bullying is everywhere, in every class. Wars, killings, riots, deaths, they all remind us of it. Being reminded of it by a few people locked up in a house having bitchy arguments about chicken cubes and shopping lists is a far safer way in my opinion. Channel 4 and Big Brother should be congratulated for it.

  • Vishal

    I am deeply affected with such cheap and racist comments on behalf of those so called “superior” ethnic belonging actors of Big Brother who insulted Shilpa Shetty. In fact the reality show is not to blame, but those actors and actresses who made racist comments.

    Had these racist actors been degree holders from a university from Cambridge or Oxford they would have definitely behaved like human beings. It seems that they are have no education at all! How come a country like UK, a place having such prestigiuos universities, a country where Shakespeare was born, have such silly and “barbarous” inhabitants like the racist actors of Big Brother? Its a shame for UK…

    I strongly believe the racist actors should be sued by law for breach of human and equal opportunities act (etc), they should be sentenced as well. They have made a violation of human rights. Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela were victims of racism. As long as racists do exist on this planet, there will be no peace.

    I request the Law Authoroties to intervene in this matter as soon as possible.

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