LINDY McDOWELL ON ROXANNE PALLETT’S FALL FROM GRACE
She’s referred to herself as “the most hated girl in Britain”. And it would be fair to say that former soap star Roxanne Pallett has had a difficult week. Miss Pallett — no relation to our local Bonfire Pallets — has been in the sights of Outraged of Social Media in recent days after she made incendiary remarks about a fellow contestant, Ryan Thomas on Celebrity Big Brother.
She accused Thomas of punching her repeatedly, claiming this was assault and, as someone who’d previously fronted a campaign to raise awareness of domestic abuse, she suggested this “punching” was on a par. Except...
CBB viewers (and now the entire world) have since been able to view the incident for them/ourselves. And from the footage it is blatantly obvious that Thomas was only what we’d call “gyping” around.
In other words, play-fighting.
If he’d made contact with her at all it was fleeting. There was certainly no indication that this was anything other than high spirits.
In the immediate aftermath Pallett herself made light of what’s now being called “punchgate”.
This, however, being Celebrity Big Brother, which commands higher audiences and is taken more seriously than televised parliamentary debate, viewers were quick to point out that Ms Pallett’s baseless claims could, were it not for the video evidence to the contrary, have destroyed Mr Thomas’s reputation and with it, his career.
Which explains why subsequently la Pallett has been subject to a tsunami of (several thousand) complaints to OFCOM plus a scathing exit interrogation/ interview where she eventually admitted, yes, she’d “got it wrong”.
Actually she didn’t get it wrong. She made it up. To put it bluntly, she lied.
This unfortunate episode raises many big questions... about how television plays with ‘contestants’, and to some extent their mental health, for all our entertainment.
But central to it is also a question with wider significance for our society. The question of whether we tend to be more likely to believe girls just because... well... they’re girls.
Roxanne Pallett was unfrocked as a liar quite by chance. Since her wild exaggerations have been laid bare, others who’ve worked with her — including our own Zoe Salmon — have piled in to report other incidents of her manipulative behaviour and outlandish claims.
So how, why, did she previously get off with it?
Is it because that, in some circumstances, we all have difficulty getting our heads around the idea that a girl too can lie. A pretty girl like Roxanne Pallett. A plausible girl. And maybe not so much of the ‘girl’ at that... at 35, Roxanne is hardly an ingenue.
I fervently, absolutely believe in gender equality. I also believe that women too can lie.
And that in any clash between he said/she said it is vital not to rush to judgment but to first look to the hard evidence before deciding right from wrong. We live in a world in which verdicts can be passed, vitriol spewed and lives ruined in less than 140 characters. I don’t agree with the backlash that Roxanne Pallett is now facing which is vicious and merciless and out of all proportion.
But I also believe in fairness. No matter the gender of those involved.
If that clip of film showing Ryan Thomas obviously larking around hadn’t been available, doubtless he would now be the most hated man in Britain. If not worse...
Girls too can lie. And unusually in this instance the guilty party was exposed for all the world to see.
In how many cases hasn’t it been?