Racism as Entertainment on British Television - 19th January 2007...

People are referring to it as “car crash TV”. People are outraged all over the world. There are mass protests in India over this. A hardcore number of supporters are behind the racists and bullies. One thing is for sure; celebrity big brother is getting a lot of publicity right now. And there’s no such thing as bad advertising - is there?

If you are unaware of the story then you’ve probably been hiding under a rock somewhere these past few days. In honesty, I feel like hiding under a rock myself as I am so utterly ashamed to belong to a country that has allowed this racist farce to continue. But the racist bullying of the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty by fellow “house mates” within the Big Brother house has been the most disturbing thing I have ever witnessed on my television. I have been involved in racist struggles before in my personal life. And let me tell you that its never a stand up fight. Its a sneaky, insidious and denied attitude and hostility that should be given zero tolerance by society - yet is currently running rampant on British television for all to tune in and see.

The fact that a few contemptible individuals have decided to gang up against and bully the Indian actress, using racial slurs and ganging up tactics is unsurprising of that sad and utterly predictable part of society. But the unforgivable thing in all this is the fact that this has continued to air for many days now, despite tens of thousands of complaints of Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries.

Of course, the show makers are in no danger of removing this show from the air. After all, you could not buy this kind of publicity. So nothing like the law of decency and morality is going to make this awful disgrace go away any time soon. So where are we left?

RWF Talking Software has decided to boycott Celebrity Big Brother and all the sponsors associated with it. We’ll never tune in to Channel Four again, besides to record the show this evening (during Jade’s inevitable eviction) so we can take note of the sponsors during the commercial endorsements and raise awareness about boycotting those too.

The Sponsors - 19th January 2007
Who paid for advertising during the ratings busting eviction of Jade Goody and the run up to it. Some of the sponsors will surprise you - it certainly surprised us.