Big Brother show 'like a fascist prison': Greer
Celebrity Big Brother quitter Germaine Greer likened the show to a fascist prison and suggested it might be responsible for encouraging playground bullying, in a scathing attack after her shock departure.
The feminist icon said she had been prepared for the way Big Brother brought about a “state of abjection” in the housemates, but not for the taunting of racing pundit John McCririck nor the “complete irresponsibility” of bringing in Brigitte Nielsen’s former mother-in-law, Jackie Stallone.
Greer, who left the house yesterday after just five days, also laid into her fellow housemates, saying DJ Lisa I’Anson was no Greta Garbo. Nielsen behaved like “a cat with an electrode up its arse” and model Caprice was “sweet, innocent and badly educated”.
Greer said it was “good” that she sounded angry with the Channel Four programme’s makers but said she was mainly feeling embarrassment, annoyance with herself and “an extent of humiliation”.
“What I wasn’t prepared for was the taunting of John,” Greer told a press conference at the Elstree film and TV studios.
“Because I am a teacher, I deal with bullying in schools. I would quite like to have a look at the epidemiology of bullying to see if the rise and rise of Big Brother and the rise and rise of bullying have anything to do with each other.”
Greer said she had left the show partly because of the way McCririck was taunted when he was denied a drink of diet cola when all the other housemates were offered one.
She continued: “What really threw me was the complete irresponsibility of introducing Brigitte’s first mother-in-law.”
Greer said Nielsen had panicked when Sylvester Stallone’s mother, Jackie, arrived because she could see that, if she reacted in the wrong way, the media would use it against her and it might harm her access to her children.
She said she had gone into the house, much to the surprise of those around her, because she wanted to raise money for her 125 acres of rainforest in Australia.
Talking about the techniques used by Big Brother, she said the bedroom was freezing cold and blinds were drawn to make it appear that it was night time, as in “fascist prisons”.
Greer’s chosen charity, Buglife, will still get its proportion of money earned through the voting phonelines.
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I never knew Germaine was a teacher.
