Newsflash: the trouble in the “Celebrity” Big Brother house, which is now international news isn’t about race, it’s about class.
It’s about people who have a defiant lack of class trying to relate to people with some measure of refined class.
It’s about the sad inability of the classier party to relate to people who are from a completely separate class from her.
Ms. Shetty must appear to be a princess to people like Jade. She has some measure of poise, and in Britain, people from Jade’s class wear their lack of poise like a crown.
And Jade must appear like a racist bully to Ms. Shetty. It’s the only way she can get her head around her defiant crudity. She simple can’t relate to people from such a different class.
Jade and her mother, and the cronies they gathered in the house, are of a crude class of people (and I don’t mean that to sound as insulting as it does). They aren’t being racists. They’re just handling there inability to understand someone different incredibly crudely.
And as for bullying, I’m not even sure I know what that is. It usually requires violence. Sure, rudeness amongst school children can be a kind of violence. But amongst adults, rudeness and crudeness just makes someone an asshole, not a bully. All the people in the BB house are able adults, including Ms. Shetty. Until someone hits her, I assume she can take care of herself.
There’s another difference of class here as well. Jade is of the freakshow class of celebrities. She has no talent, and claims to have none. Jade is famous for being a fat idiot on TV.
I have not seen Ms. Shetty’s acting, but I hear that she is an actress, a person who at least has some talent-based claim to celebrity. That’s a whole other class.
I’ve got to say: this whole thing would be less likely to occur in America, where there is less general separation of classes.
And it’s interesting that there is no American equivalent to Jade that I can think of. Sincerely.
I think Jade’s lower working class status is part of what makes her a public clown. That reflects a far worse prejudice in British society than the current Big Brother “racist” fiasco, IMHO.
If a Jade-equivalent did exist in America, it would be seen as rude to laugh at someone because they are an idiot from a crude class of people. Rude enough for an outcry
BTW, these comments are made based on news reports (which I scoured in an attempt to get a clear understanding).
I would never watch a low class show like Big Brother.
