I’ve never been a fan of reality TV shows. Before Big Brother first aired in the UK 20+ years ago I went to visit my sister in Spain, accompanied by my daughter and a two year old Granddaughter Number One, at that time the only grandchild. My Spanish nephew, maybe eight years old, was getting very excited about acquiring a Gran Hermano hat, a copy of the hat worn by the winner of the Spanish reality show. His wasn’t an official copy of the winner’s hat, but one similar that my sister had managed to buy from the gipsy market down by the port. She explained to me the format of the Gran Hermano (Big Brother for non-Spanish speakers) show and I huffed and puffed and declared you would never get such rubbish on UK television. “They’re about to start Big Brother in the UK, Mum,” my daughter declared.
And the rest is history. Reality TV shows of all sorts have followed on since then, not an improvement in light entertainment in my opinion, but that might be a generational snobbery sort of thing. Mind you, I know a host of people my age who might well turn their noses up at Big Brother but wouldn’t miss an episode of Strictly Come Dancing! Maybe they’re all nostalgic for the original Come Dancing from long ago, with all the delightful commentary about the female dancers who in some cases had stitched their own thousands of sequins on their fabulous dresses!
And now we have Matt Hancock on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins. It’s not the first time he’s done this sort of thing so he must get some kind of thrill out of it. But, surely, if you want your ideas and opinions to be taken seriously, would you really volunteer to go on such a show? And he’s not the only one. They must be very hungry for fame! (By the way, I understand that the reboot of Big Brother will air this autumn on ITV2 - so it goes.)
Then there are those men like the recently dismissed Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton who seem to think that the correct way to respond to women’s views on political matters is make derogatory comments about their appearance and whether or not they would care to take those women to bed! Bad enough that Laurence Fox referred to her as a “little woman” without all the sexual nastiness. Its not the first time his sort of thing has happened. Rod Little was very nasty about the attractiveness or otherwise of Harriet Harman when she was Labour’s deputy leader. Donald Trump also has form, being very rude about the looks of female politicians. And, of course, there was Silvio Berlusconi was heard calling the German chancellor Angela Merkel, who made the professional mistake of not being a teenaged escort, “an unf***able lard arse”. And it seems to have been going on forever: the suffragettes were ridiculed, women with opinions were regarded as unmarriageable “blue stockings”, doomed to the worst thing in the world - spinsterhood.
I’m pretty sure that most women have their opinions about the attractiveness, or otherwise, of male politicians but fortunately most of us have the sense to keep quiet about it. Imagine the reaction if we women started to comment on how we would never hop into bed with well-known male political figures!
Thinking of women’s appearance and expectations of the same, here is a link to a cartoon about giving in to adverts for beauty products: From frizzy to fabulous: Edith Pritchett on her hair destiny.
How true to life that she ends up bombarded by adverts for hats: Big Brother Internet watches us constantly and sends us adverts for all sorts of stuff.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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