We’ve just seen a short statement by the Big Brother people on channel 10 re the ‘events of the weekend’. Apparently, one man held a woman down while another rubbed his groin in her face. While the woman didn’t want to press charges, the two men were removed from the house because their actions breached the program’s rules.
The opinion in online news is that this was a case of sexual harassment.
Here’s what the Big Brother site had to say:
For legal reasons we were not able to provide you with coverage of the events following John and Ash’s removal from the House on the weekend as they happened. For the sake of clarity here is a summary of the events that followed their departure.
On Saturday night, John and Ashley were removed from the House following an incident that breached one of Big Brother’s most fundamental rules. John and Ashley left via the Diary Room unbeknownst to the other HMs who thought they had been called to the Diary Room for a standard visit.
While the surprise performance by the Rogue Traders in the garden initially distracted the HMs from the whereabouts of Ashley and John, eventually some time later they started wondering what had happened to the boys. The HMs were then called to the Diary Room where BB told them: “Last night’s incident was very serious. Camilla did not request nor want any action taken by Big Brother, however Big Brother had no option but to act and remove the two Housemates.”
The HMs were shocked at the news and several of them reacted tearfully. Camilla, who was involved in the incident, sobbed: “I feel so bad, I’m sorry.” But both BB and the HMs assured her that she had nothing to be sorry about.
Following BB’s announcement, discussion of the incident wasn’t broadcast on the live web streams or covered in the BB Diary for legal reasons. However, Camilla did speak to her HMs about the events of the previous night.
“It wasn’t the right thing to do and even though Ash meant it as a joke, it wasn’t good behaviour,” she told the group. But she added that she has no hard feelings towards the boys whatsoever. “There was no malice intended, they were doing it in a playful way and when I said very specifically to John: ‘Don’t. No,’ he didn’t do it.”
On Sunday Camilla was interviewed by the Queensland Police and she told them she didn’t wish to take the issue any further. It is no longer a police matter.
Despite the upsets of the last 48 hours, the HMs are moving on from the incident and vowing to continue enjoying their time in the House.
It’s interesting stuff because the two men, interviewed by Gretel a few minutes ago, obviously felt that they’d simply been involved in a joke that went too far. One of them said “we read [Camilla] wrong”. Camilla has been filmed saying that she felt that it was just a joke.
I missed all the media coverage over the weekend, what with my lying on the couch at the parent’s place in Tasmania, asleep. But there’ve been a few different comments, from an ALP member suggesting that the BB producers should donate their earnings from the weekend’s coverage to charity, to the PM calling for the axing of the show .
I don’t know much about the incident, but from what I’ve seen…
As someone who grew up in a society where that sort of behaviour was not only common but expected of young men, on the one hand I’m delighted to see the BB program calling attention to this sort of behaviour, suggesting that it’s simply not appropriate and will not be tolerated. And more importantly, doing this on a massively popular television program… On the other hand, I’m interested in how each of the three people may really have just considered it a joke that might have been in poor taste – they’re an example of how this sort of behaviour is so normalised in Australian culture.
It’s interesting stuff. Personally, I don’t think it’s appropriate. And I think it’s interesting the way this program, set up as ‘just filming ordinary people doing ordinary things’ has filmed this sort of behaviour and taken a clear stance on it as sexual harassment. On the other hand, I have a feeling that our Fearless Leader has read the behaviour as an example of how BB is ‘peddling pornographic/immature/stupid smut or silliness’. Simply ‘boys will be boys’.
I really want to hear some feminist comments on this – I’d like to think it’s an important opportunity for a public discussion on how patriarchy is complicated – how sexism or chauvinism or perhaps ‘gender’ is so deeply entrenched in our culture that we – men and women – do feel ok about dismissing it as a joke.
As a woman who grew up in city, in a suburb, attending a school where far worse behaviour was an everyday part of life, I can imagine how the experience could have been regarded as nothing extraordinary. As a joke. I can also see how this might have constituted a bit of homosocial ‘slumber party’ titilation – a bit of play between the boys at the woman’s expense (where she became a vehicle for the men’s ‘flirting’ with each other).
But perhaps, more worryingly, I can imagine how she might have felt: Trying to play it cool, to behave in a way which the ‘viewers’ would value, so as to secure her place on the program/in the house. Trying to pay it cool so as to maintain her status with her fellow housemates. Perhaps trying to play it cool as a woman who has been very doubtful of her own sex-appeal, in the company of two conventionally attractive and popular men.
But a the same time, her own, less intellectual response might have been anything from a little erotic tension to that kind of deep-stomach panic, where you’re held down and can’t get away, by two men who are obviously interested in a little power-play, sexual play, and you simply can’t get free physically, or muster the words to persuade them to let you go.
I mean, what was she to do? What is she to do? Would she be voted off the show if she did take the matter further?
I really want to see what happens from here. I’m excited to think that the program has so clearly made the point that this is NOT appropriate behaviour. A point that is perhaps even more relevant to an audience which is dominated by young women.
And now I want to see how the response is handled. Will there be clearer discussions of sexual harassment in the media generally? On the program?
BB in itself encourages this sort of sexually charged behaviour, to attract viewers and sell advertising dollars. How will it now manage this aspect of its program?
And perhaps, even more interesting, why is it that I have such a problem with this aspect of sexual ‘play’, yet I haven’t previously found the more risque Late Night BB difficult? I think that it is because of the element of violence or coersion, the way this event emphasises the issues of power at work in sexual relationships, or more importantly, in sexualised ‘play’ or other social interaction.
The thought of a woman coerced in this setting upets me. Angers me.
But at the same time, I’m also worried by the way these men might have only been able to engage in homosocial/homosexual play via the coersion of a woman. That they could only secure their masculinity (their masculine/phallic power) in homosexual play by supplying a woman as the object/passive/victim/disempowered vehicle.
And of course, when you add the issue of voyeurism and exhibitionism at work in BB…
The issue of performances of masculinity and feminity is immediately more complex.
I am interested in other people’s comments. And I’ll have a bit more of a think and perhaps post again when I’ve managed to put together a more coherent, thought-out response.
Can I just add: that this woman is asked to comment on the issue, really, really makes me uncomfortable. Like I said, I’d like to read some feminist comment on this issue.
And what makes me REALLY FUCKING ANGRY is that The Age has posted pictures of the incident online (you’ll have to go look – I’m not hotlinking to that). Can they not understand how that might perhaps be even worse than the original event?
—EDIT—
You might also be interested in reading Galaxy’s post on Sarsaparilla.
I posted Helen Noonan’s Press Release from July 2nd on the ‘incident’ over at Sarsaparilla because I couldn’t gather my thoughts about the issue in any coherent way, but I wanted to start a discussion, one that didn’t involve condemning people for their responses in all the confusion.
I started composing my own blog post which I titled ‘Mixed Up Confusion’, but I’ve decided not to go ahead with it on my blog. I hope you don’t mind if I have a rant here?
I think Camilla did what young women who find themselves in these frightening situations do every day. She laughed it off, because that’s the only way to retain a sense of self and dignity when you’ve been put in such a humiliating position.
John and Ashley may see it as a joke now (although they were kicked out of the house, so they can’t be laughing too hard), when they’re under the carefully managed protection of Big Brother and Gretel’s scripted interview questions, but that may well change as they get out into the world and feel the force of a somewhat less mediated response to their behaviour. I look at the interview last night as a face saving exercise for all involved. There’s an interesting comment over at Sarsaparilla by Jessica who has friends in common with one of the removed housemates.
I’ve read some things out there in the blogosphere that condemn Krystal for ‘trying to negotiate’ with Big Brother for the return of John and Ashley. My take on that is that Krystal and everyone else in the house have known John and Ashley as friends, good blokes. Their first response was to the loss of their friends. At that point they didn’t know anything of the alleged assault. To my mind the logical conclusion of condemning Krystal, using the most pejorative language and being completely judgemental about her plastic surgery etc, is to dehumanise her in the way that many seem up in arms about when responding to comments about how Camilla ‘deserved it’. I think the silences of David and Jamie are telling. What do you do when you discover one of your friends has allegedly assaulted another? David has said in the past that he respected John. Yet we know from his very strong moral stance on a range of other things that he would be completely appalled at John and Ash’s behaviour.
The question of BB encouraging this sexually charged behaviour is an interesting one. Some have commented on the task the producers gave Camilla earlier that day, to go around and kiss every housemate. At the same time Ash was charged with having to avoid being kissed. Is there any relationship between the events? Perhaps the challenges weren’t thought through enough? Maybe BB didn’t give enough credit to the sexual tensions in the house? I certainly don’t think the producers would have anticipated the actions, especially in view of their preparation before entering the house (sexual harrassment awareness etc).
The fact that other media outlets–I saw some footage on Channel 7–are showing the footage is insupportable. All of those arguments about the voyeurism and exhibitionism of BB are equally applicable to The Age, Channel 7 etc etc. There is no moral highground. In fact what the other outlets are doing is far worse, because they’re couching it as ‘news’ which allows them to distance themselves from the apparent paucity of taste inherent in a reality programme such as Big Brother. There are questions of genre, judgement and value that need to be explored in the calls by politicians to remove the programme.
I think that woman you refer to is a consultant to the show on these issues, so in that sense she is a particularly appropriate person to comment in this case. Although perhaps not for her feminist credentials.
There’s so much more to say. But I’m not being very coherent myself (although you certainly are). To some extent I feel the only way I could be properly coherent would to be work out a reasoned argument. And I can’t do that quickly enough for my liking.
sure – get in there, Galaxy. Comment-on.
I did note that the woman asked to comment is a consultant on BB, so an obvious choice. But, you know…
I’m just not sure how I feel about the whole thing. On the one hand, I have all my own, personal responses (and I can’t help but remember all the times those sorts of stupid things happened to me when I was a teenager – and how my immediate, visceral response is fierce, burning anger. At the same time, that this is such a familiar scenario for me makes it easier for me to understand the ‘laugh it off’/’it was a joke’ reasoning.
Frankly, I want to see the issue taken up not as a ‘BB is smut’ deal, but perhaps as a ‘BB took an admirable stance’ in dealing with the matter: zero tolerance. What might perhaps be most useful now is a discussion about about _why_ this is not to be tolerated. Accusing BB of pedalling smut doesn’t seem terribly useful or productive. It certainly ignores all those issues of erotica v pornography that are lurking in the back of my mind, at least.
Galaxy’s right – excellent post, DP, one of the best I’ve read on this woeful subject. (Kate’s at Moment to Moment is on the money too.)
Poor Camilla. Not a good situation to be in.
I’m not a good judge of anything CL says so keep that in mind, but I think she seems to approach BB as a creator of community debate – as if debate is an end in itself and always a good thing. Personally I can’t really understand how this penis-in-face act is debatable! It worries me that it might be considered up for debate, as in, there might be some viewpoint from which it looks like an excusable, acceptable piece of behaviour.
I agree with what you say here about an occurrence of sexual assault fitting with the logic of the house as a microcosm of the Australian community and as displaying generally accepted norms, but for myself I still need to think about where that observation is left when I factor in that the show actually excluded that footage. I have a feeling it might lead to the conclusion that the BB = sociology trope is rather flimsy. Whether that means it’s entirely fictitious is another interesting question.
Thanks for the kind words, Laura.
So far as the social microcosm thingy goes… I wonder if it’s not so much that the BB program reproduce the ‘real world’ or ‘real situations’ in any sensible way, but rather, in this particular situation, we see ‘normal’ people responding to what is, essentially, a high-stress or at the very least unusual situation, in ways which are ‘normal’.
So we see ‘normal people’ doing ‘normal things’ in an extra-ordinary situation. Though it doesn’t seem all that extraordinary – it’s almost exactly like my undergrad days, when I shared a house with a bunch of other people who had no money, so we had to stay home and ‘make our own fun’ in the teeedious suburbs where we could affort to rent a house.
Perhaps, though, it’s helpful to remember that while BB is selling us ‘ordinary people’ (where ‘ordinary’ is signalled by things like class or sexual preference), it is in fact offering us a fairly careful version of ‘normal’. We see a pretty dang homogenous group of young people on BB. That queerness is now lumped in with ‘normal’ is interesting, but that we don’t see any particularly serious deviations from what is perhaps an accurate image of the program’s market/audience… or more likely, an image of those types of people which are most marketable to that audience…
And of course, this makes it all the more interesting: I’m not surprised to see this sort of behaviour in this group of people. And I’m fascinated by the way this BB structure has highlighted the way sexual harassment and demonstrations of gendered power are embodied in sexual ‘play’. In ‘normal people’ doing ‘normal things’.
And on the point of ‘debate’ and its necessity… I simply don’t accept that it’s at all ok that a woman is harassed, even if it results in ‘open debate’. In fact, I think we should take that as one of the most important parts of our discussion: why is it that it’s acceptable that a woman is harassed, and that images of this are then reproduced and disseminated across the mediasphere?
On a slightly different tack, what if it had been three men involved, rather than two men and a woman? What if one of those men had been gay? What if it had been three women? Or two women and a man?
I think it’s important not to lose sight of the way gender is working here. Without getting into a nasty First Stone type argument, why is Camilla’s own response so interesting? Why am I interested by her insisting that it _was_ just a joke? And that I can understand this?
Why _does_ Camilla feel guilty for the men being ejected from the house?
And why is it that it’s so easy to understand her response, as a viewer myself, when part of me really, really wants to yell out that it’s not _her_ fault she was harassed.
What is with our culture, that we have done such a thorough job of convincing women and girls that they are responsible for men’s sexual (mis)behaviour, particularly when it is the woman who is harassed?
It infuriates me that _I_, as a politically motivated viewer – a pretty hardcore feminist – can still fall into this nasty habit of blaming myself/herself/her for the things that men do! Or at the very least, for colluding with her harassment – with my own harassment. Because, in accepting what happened to Camilla as ‘just a joke’ I am accepting that sort of crap as harmless. When – as every woman of us knows – it’s _not_ inconsquential to feel afraid or threatened or bullied or guilty or dirty or distressed when men sexually harass us! _Particularly_ when it’s intended as a joke!!
Yes and yes. That Camilla is so worked up about it being her fault is awful, and yet her reaction is like a train wreck. Anyway, great post and excellent discussion.
As an aside, I think BB is interesting because of the discussion it generates, though I don’t watch it. It’s a shame this sort of thing has to happen before people actually look at the Australian male culture of doing this sort of thing: as you say, it’s commonplace, which is what I was trying to get at with my post as well.
Thanks for the comment, Kate.
Yes, I read your post as well and was interested in this bit: “Can you really, as an individual, give full and knowledgable consent to be in a situation like the Big Brother house?” where you make reference to the issue of ‘consent’.
…the more I think about this, the more complicated my feelings become.
Excellent post, DP. The issue of sexual harassment as “normal” “playful” behaviour is what our politicians should be highlighting as a target for social education instead of just expressing a prudish concern over sex itself.
(Trackback: http://tigtogblog.blogspot.com/2006/07/joke-of-sexual-harassment.html“)
Trackback:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/07/04/discuss-not-dismiss/
Top post and comments.
dogpossum you said at Kate’s that you wished the discussion boards were still up. They are at Behind Big Brother, an unofficial fansite (http://www.behindbigbrother.com/) You need to register to read the forums, but if you want to see what the real BB tragic diehards are saying, that’s where you’ll find it.
If you’re keen and they’re not registering new people for some reason, send me an email and we can sort something out.
Thanks for the nice comments, tigtog and Zoe (and Mark, over at LP).
I could _so_ get into the BB stuff hardcore… BUT I _have_ to edit this chapter _right now_! So I can’t really afford the time (and distraction), Zoe. Thanks though.