Of Entertainers and Celebrities

To the saying “sex sales” we should add “voyeur sales too”. I mean what better example of voyeur would anyone come up with than an entire continent huddled in front of their television sets watching sixteen strangers in some house that is fitted with twenty four hour surveillance. Paying good money for that I might add and for an extra fee being able to watch the housemates shower.

I will side-step the moral arguments for or against Big Brother as they would constitute a whole column on their own.

I don’t get Big Brother, many reality shows and by extension soap operas. To me they constitute at best a time-wasting indulgence by its religious followers and at worst an unhealthy obsession to the extent of it being a psychological disease.

Frankly my idea of fun or a pastime is more creative than drooling at sixteen housemates, following their every sigh and word. Honestly I would rather take a jog than tune in to watch the housemates shower, fart, crap and analyse their every statement intended or accidental, real or perceived.

John De Mol, whose brainchild Big Brother is would certainly disagree with me, having created a multi-million dollar franchise out of it. He obviously correctly calculated the insatiable voyeurism of the human race. You only have to count the number of beauty pageants and the number of hours people spend hooked to soap operas to realize that they are willing to pay in order to engage in voyeur.

A trip to my regular barber last week had me seething with anger when I realized the telly had Big Brother on. I endured my forty five minutes of having my haircut being subjected to watching a couple of guys sleep their hangover away. My polite request to change the channel to BBC was swiftly ignored. I probably am too dumb to get it, but watching people sleep has never ever qualified for entertainment in my book.

I kind of empathise with Maureen Nkandu Mundeya when upon Cherise Makubale (Zambia’s BBA winner) being given a diplomatic passport, she remarked that in spite of her years of diligent service to the journalistic profession culminating in her being the first Zambian to anchor a News and current affairs programme on BBC she had never been awarded a diplomatic passport, let alone been invited to State House for dinner. Maureen got a lot of flack for her comments with some claiming she was just bitter and should let Cherise enjoy her moment.

 No one was trying to steal Cherise’s moment except to note the lack of a proper criterion our world has for assigning celebrity status. At times all you need is to spend thirteen or less weeks in some house in South Africa, allow cameras to follow you twenty four seven and walla! You are a celebrity.

I read something on Sulu, one of the two Zambian BBA contestants (Although he since been evicted).  The article referred to him as an “entertainer”. The BBA bio indicated that he was a taxi- driver. I suspect the article was trying to justify Sulu’s celebrity and the hundreds of fans that greeted his arrival at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport. And therein lies the problem.

To me, being a celebrity is supposed to answer one basic question. That question is: “What have you done?”. To which question Wole Soyinka would reply “I was the first African to win a Nobel Prize for literature” or Steve Jobs would say “I founded Apple”. The question would elicit a response from Professor Lameck Goma saying “I was the first guy to dissect a mosquito”. I am sure you get the point.

Ask the same question to Sulu, Cleo or Cherise and they will most likely answer, “I was in the Big Brother House”. Which answer does not answer the question. The question is “what have you done?” and not “Where have you been”. 

Now trust me, I have nothing against people who participate in BBA. I actually hear from my sister that Sulu was quite hilarious during his time in the house. I just don’t think they have earned their celebrity status like some of the examples I have given above. And if truth be told, that is not their problem. Who is to dispute society’s criteria for bestowing celebrity status? Individually I have my own criterion which entails answering the question I posed above, and answering it well. However if society has decreed, I have no choice but to live with it.

That said, it is difficult to imagine a parent advising their child to grow up and one day become a contestant in the Big Brother House.

I suspect we collectively are so thirsty for celebrity that we go to extreme lengths to fill that void. It is a pity that those that go to university and excel, those that are excelling at their vocations, those that are re-defining their sphere of operation rarely get to be in this realm. Those who spend endless nights solving mathematical problems, those that have been putting an honest shift writing books, making real music and filling newspaper columns rarely get the adulation that their hard work deserves.

Instead we have “entertainers” whose only claim to entertainment is spending a few weeks in a house under twenty four hour surveillance.