Socialist Party Australia - Big Brother: ''We'll be back after this message''

Good article on the issues surrounding Mervin Luck's refugee protest after his eviction from Big Brother last Sunday. The author Dean Bertram is an independent film-maker, reality-TV junkie and PhD candidate in the department of history at the University of Sydney. First printed in The Australian, 15th June.

THE 1 million or so viewers who tuned in to Sunday night's Big Brother live eviction show got a little more reality with their television than they expected. Merlin Luck, the show's fifth evictee, shocked home and studio audiences as he covered his mouth with gaffer tape and unveiled a fabric sign that read "FREE TH[E] REFUGEES".

Merlin's silent protest seemed a bizarre if somewhat fitting end to his tempestuous run in the Big Brother house. His most memorable emotional outburst resulted when fellow housemate and resident pot-stirrer Paul criticised him for not taking up Australian citizenship; apparently Merlin has lived in Australia since childhood but prefers to remain a German national.

Many other controversial discussions have been televised during this series. Housemates have voiced their opinions and often displayed their ignorance regarding several issues ranging from the Vietnam War to the Union Jack's presence on the Australian flag. Last week the legitimacy of US and Australian involvement in Iraq was the topic of a rather passionate discussion in the Big Brother kitchen.

Housemate Bree stated that George W. Bush's motivation for sending troops to Iraq was driven by a personal vendetta. According to the attractive Queenslander, Saddam Hussein had killed George Bush Sr during the first Gulf conflict and now George Jr was out for some good old-fashioned Texas-style payback.

Another bimbo in residence, dizzy brunette Ashalea, had previously asked: "Where's the Berlin Wall?" This display of ignorance was only compounded by pretty-boy Wesley, a housemate who has vocalised his desire to be Australian PM. The budding politico sagaciously put his arm around Ashalea and explained that the Berlin Wall ran down the middle of a "communist country" known as Berlin. It was erected by the "rich" communists of the east side of the country to "keep out" their "poor" comrades from the west.

These rather warped interpretations of history are no less distorted than the "reality" of televised life in the Big Brother house, where housemates constantly check their looks in its many mirrors, have conversations about close-up camera angles and wonder aloud how they are being portrayed to the TV audience.

What we see on Big Brother is a simulation, a copy of something that does not really exist. Not only is the house unlike any actual environment but the housemates also regularly express their awareness that each day's footage is edited down for a 30-minute timeslot.

What we watch is not real but what critics Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco have termed "hyperreal". It is reality reimagined as a perfectly marketable program that can be billed as "the real thing". The genius of Big Brother is that it demands audience engagement extend into active participation. Viewers at home may be unable to physically enter the Big Brother house but they enter its hyperreal universe just by watching "the real thing" and phone voting out their least favourite housemate.

Merlin obtained the most phone votes last week and his eviction from the house was planned to follow the program's well-established formula: tearful goodbyes with the remaining housemates, then an inane Q&A session with host Gretel Killeen in front of hundreds of screaming fans.

This Sunday, the screams of adulation transformed into frustrated booing as Merlin sat in silent protest. Gretel explained to viewers that the rambunctious studio audience was "a little disappointed because they came to see a show". Ironically, what was most shocking about Merlin's protest was not the message that it carried but that it was delivered within the medium of a reality TV show; a place where the audience apparently neither expected nor desired to see the unfolding of a real, uncontrolled event.

Regardless of Merlin's intentions, the insight that his protest offered was just how lacking in reality reality TV usually is. His unscripted actions appeared in sharp contrast to our expectations of this kind of programming. Of course, the event was hurriedly appropriated back into the reality TV format. The official Big Brother website soon posted photos and commentary of the protest and launched a poll asking viewers if they agreed with Merlin's actions.

No doubt the remaining housemates, who were immediately informed about the protest, will be talking about it for days. Sound bites from these conversations should make good TV. Along with the controversy surrounding Merlin, they will be fully exploited to increase the program's ratings.

On reflection, the most enlightening moment of the whole kerfuffle came when, despite Merlin's silent protest, Gretel continued in her programmed act of announcing the prizes that he had won for being on the show. It would seem that contra the radical black poet Gil Scott-Heron, the revolution will not only be televised, it also will have corporate sponsorship.