Celebrity Big Brother, Human Rights and Popular Culture

Abstract

The British reality show Celebrity Big Brother caused great controversy in January 2007 when remarks made by a few contestants, most notably the reality TV star Jade Goody, and targeted at a fellow Indian contestant, were widely read as racist. In this paper, I analyse the race incident against the backdrop of a progressively expansive legal framework offering recognition for human dignity, equality and cultural diversity, most importantly through the Human Rights Act 1998. The Act aims to promote a comprehensive human rights ‘culture’ in public life, but it would be hard to ignore the extremely negative coverage of the legislation in large sections of the British press. However, the strong public reaction to the Celebrity Big Brother race incident seems to suggest that while public opinion on existing human rights legislation is divided, the core principles on which the law is founded may enjoy much greater support. Thus, politicians and media commentators were quick to read the Celebrity Big Brother furore as an encouraging sign of how inclusive British society had become. I am inclined to take a more sceptical stance, especially in light of the way in which Jade Goody’s class background was relentlessly targeted in press criticism of her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, while sympathy for her victim, the glamorous Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, appeared to have been motivated largely by the fact that she fitted the media template of the deserving victim.