Big Brother; hot air about nothing

By Oyunga Pala

I will start with the good stuff about the Big Brother Africa (BBA) reality show. Television is about popularity rating and BBA has without a doubt, established a cult following and a distinctive brand image since its debut in 2003.

The housemates are drawn from 14 African countries. They are detained in a house for 91 days, subjected to a round the clock surveillance in a game of elimination, and the winner takes it all; a bleeding $300 000 (Sh24 million)!

After three months of mucking about on live TV, even the president notices anyone who walks out with that kind of money. Prezzo, Kenya’s 2012 representative in the house, much to my surprise came close, scored big and came back floating on cloud nine. Now, I have a hard time convincing my ten-year-old nephew that being a star in game show is not a sound career prospect.

Office gossip

For the next three months, I have to put up with all the hype about BBA, The Chase. It will be a welcome break from the salary-whining session that we call parliament. I won’t even have to watch the show to know what’s going on. People old enough to know better will keep me up to date dropping references from the show as fodder for office gossip in morning.

Team Kenya has two representatives, Annabel Mbaru and Huddah Monroe. Annabel is less well known because she has not done a ‘nude’. I read her profile online and she is quoted as saying she loves attention. I guess she will have to get frisky with her housemates and show more flesh if she hopes to win attention.

Huddah ‘Empress’ Monroe is a rising socialite formerly known as Alhuddah Njoroge famous for her risqué personality.  The fancy name is derived from Marliyn Monroe, who inspires her in a quest to become a sexy, popular siren. Huddah seems to stand a better chance of winning because she is already known for choice quotes like, “Addis Ababa is a country” and previously released a nude photo set that is a sight for sore eyes.

An appearance in shows like BBA is now the ultimate launch pad in a career as an attention seeker. Housemates are egged on to misbehave to push their ratings. For instance, Geatano Kagwa, the BBA 1 contestant from Uganda, is famed for having sex on the set. Amazingly, that propelled him to a career as a well-known media personality.

Fame

We live in a society that has proven that one’s importance increases once people start to pay attention to us. In the instant fame culture, forsaking privacy, enduring ridicule in public to entice addicted voyeurs seems a little price to pay for overnight status and fame.

Nonetheless, off camera and after the glitz, a different reality plays out. For every BBA star that emerges, tens of crushed contestants leave the house used, humiliated and discarded. Fame is a drug and the withdrawal symptoms are nasty. The fascination over their mundane lives disappears quickly once the cameras are turned off, and they wake up to horror of ordinary life.

This is the untold story of the grand delusion of importance that BBA is selling to African youth. Reality TV stars are disposable characters of the media mill. Big today, forgotten tomorrow. Remember Alex Holi?

 

Is vetting this useless?

The vetting of the nominees for Cabinet Secretary positions was concluded without a hitch. Even nominees thought to be controversial or ill-suited to be assigned certain critical roles jumped over the vetting hurdle without too much sweat.

The parliamentary committees tasked with the responsibility were obviously more preoccupied with the issue of their pay. These are the same MPs that have taken to complaining about the eligibility of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, now that their excesses have been vetoed. Hardly three months since they were sworn in, MPs are proving to be an impediment to progress.

When the term vetting first became a public office requirement, many Kenyans really expected it to be more than PR sham. It has degenerated into the kind of exercise that one can poke so many holes it would only be useful for sieving tea.

Those expecting a rigorous scrutiny process that would separate the sheep from the wolves will be disappointed. The same old games of mass manipulation using synonyms of political change like ‘vetting’, ‘integrity’, ‘transparency’ among many others are back in play.

Ultimately, we end up with the leaders we ‘deserve’; a bunch of sycophantic opportunists who have no qualms looking the other way for short-term gain.

 

Idiocy of blaming mannequins for rape

Mannequins in Mumbai are under siege. They cannot wear what they want. Shopkeepers have been asked not to put on display any mannequin that is scantily dressed.  

This unusual directive was initiated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s richest municipal organisiation, which is running out of ideas shaping policy on ‘indecent exposure’.  The BMC has approved a proposal to ban the use bikini-clad mannequins in lingerie shop displays, in a crackdown aimed at reducing sex crimes, news reports state.

Civic officials are expected to attain the legal right to make shopkeepers remove any skimpily clad mannequins on display. BMC has ordered an ultimatum to all mannequins: Dress up or be banned.

Rape in India is a hot button issue since the tragic New Dehli bus gang rape of a female medical student, and the authorities are taking no chances. There is precedence to this sort of extreme prudery by today’s liberal standards.  In Victorian age, some accounts have it that they would cover the legs (or limbs as proper ladies say) of a piano in modest little trousers with frills at the bottom. However rape is complex. 

In our efforts to encourage sexual restraint and enforce a code of conduct, sometimes the authorities trivialise a serious matter. Such as shifting the blame to mannequins standing suggestively in shop displays for inciting sexual offences.

The prevailing stereotype is that men are weak willed and think of having sex with women all the time.  There is a notion that if girls look sexy, men will want to rape them. So it is often thought that sexual violence is an act of passion, peer pressure or an expression of power.

If it were that simple, there would hardly any incidences of men raping men, or the sexual abuse of minors and elderly women.