Being a fly on Big Brother’s wall
I could never quite figure out the charms of Big Brother.
Compared with other reality shows such as The Amazing Race and Survivor, Big Brother left me flat.
Toss a bunch of spoiled frat-house brats in a living room for a couple of months. Make them do dumb stuff. Turn cameras on. How is this good television?
There is also Big Brother After Dark, a real-life Truman Show, where for three hours a day, seven days a week, you can watch an uncut and uncensored feed of the house guests. So you get to watch scintillating footage of people making toast, cutting their toenails and shaving. But obviously I’m in the minority. Big Brother Canada is a big hit for the Slice Network, where it airs Wednesdays and Sundays at 9 p.m., and Thursdays at 10 p.m.
On Thursdays there is an elimination before a studio audience. Not surprisingly, the live evictions are a hot ticket for many Big Brother fans.
In the interests of quality investigative journalism, the Star takes you behind the scenes of the April 4 taping: Thursday, 6 p.m. There is a massive lineup at Orbitor Studios in Mississauga. The squat concrete building that houses the Big Brother house is a massive structure in an industrial neighbourhood west of Toronto.
I take my niece Melissa Lee with me to explain the vagaries of the Big Brother series.
We stand outside in the cold for half an hour, surrounded by a group of mostly twentysomethings, the show’s key demographic. There is also a shorter lineup for rush tickets on the other side of the building. I am afraid to meet the hungry, expectant eyes of fans who have travelled to the land of Hazel McCallion only to be turned away.
Outside there is a noisy generator feeding fresh air through huge yellow tubes into the studio.
“It’s crazy they’re stuck in there for months. What happens if someone unplugs the generator?” asks Melissa. 6:30 p.m.
Thank God there’s a coat check. And a washroom after that rushhour drive.
The staff are inordinately nice, especially considering that this is a working studio, not the Keg.
Before we walk in, one of the guards tells us to turn off cellphones and don’t bring any food into the studio.
“We had one woman eating while the cameras were on last week,” he admonished. 6:45 p.m.
The studio is large by TV standards. There are three sections of seats jammed together facing the 11,000-square-foot Big Brother house.
Host Arisa Cox enters to do a promo. There is applause.
Cox is awesome. And boy, can she dance. She also has a “glam squad” of hair fluffers that are called in to tame her magnificent Afro in between takes. 7 p.m.
The audience is warmed up by executive producer Sue Brophy, who instructs us to clap like insane baboons when the show starts.
“Also, if you’re with someone you’re not supposed to be tonight, maybe you should sit apart for the cameras,” she says.
Brophy has to keep the audience entertained while staff rush around madly trying to move furniture and cables. But she is probably having a little too much fun in her moonlighting job.
“I was wearing black all winter. But I’m tired of black. It’s spring. Now I’m wearing all white,” she tells the audience.
Big Brother fan Jamie Hastings, who is sitting beside me and is a veteran of tapings, winces.
“I had to listen to her for six hours during the premiere,” says Hastings.
“It was murder trying to use the washroom and there wasn’t any food.” 7:08 p.m.
The show starts. Cue the music. A giant crane with a teleprompter is positioned for Cox.
It is an elimination between two popular contestants, Gary “Glitter” Levy and Topaz Brady. The wall of the Big Brother house acts as a screen. It is strangely silent in the studio.
Instead of watching the show, Melissa and I spend more time mugging for the moving cameras to see if we will be on TV. I resist the urge to break out the Crunchie bar in my coat pocket. 7:23 p.m. Commercial break. More hair fluffing for Cox. She asks the audience: “Who’s your money on to win?”
The consensus seems to be Peter, a bespectacled video editor whose main talent seems to be a penchant for shouting at the TV screen all the time. “Yeah, everyone seems to think Peter,” says Cox. 7:32 p.m. Watching more TV on the side of the house. (How cool is it to watch Big Brother on the side of the actual Big Brother house?) Cox announces that it’s “really hot up here. Does someone have a fan?” That’s a cue for the glam squad, who quickly rush to fluff her hair. Note to self: must hire own glam squad. 7:40 p.m. Producer Brophy asks trivia questions that only hard core fans can answer, “Before Slop, what food did house guests eat as punishment?” The audience member she has asked is stumped: “I didn’t know there was anything before Slop,” she grimaces, revealing herself to be a pathetic newbie. The question is answered by a nearby fan: it’s peanut butter and jelly. She earns a Big Brother Tshirt. Brophy also reveals that the contestants are normally woken up from around 8 to 9 a.m. And “Topaz slept in for the first two weeks.” We are also told that when the contestants aren’t in the house she likes to go in and change the clocks to screw them up. 7:45 p.m. We are waiting for Gary Glitter, who has just been eliminated. “I’m sad because I won’t be seeing him on the show, but it’s great that we get to actually see him live,” says Melissa. Cox stalls while Gary says his goodbyes. This takes all of 10 seconds in TV time, but it is actually more like 15 minutes. Cox shows the audience how to dance the Bus Stop. But not before busting some moves with the Run- ning Man and Roger Rabbit.
“If you went to any black wedding in the United States, everyone, kids, grandparents, would be doing this,” she says shaking her hair.
Glitter finally comes out to huge applause and a standing ovation. Many in the audience are decked out with glitter dust on their clothing in tribute.
His first words to Cox are, “You’re so pretty” and “Hi Mom.”
He then leaves the audience waving like the reality star royalty he has become. If only the Pope were as popular. 8 p.m.
Show’s over, time to go home. It is dawning on my pea-sized brain that the “live” eviction Thursdays aren’t live since they’re being filmed earlier and edited for the 10 p.m. show.
Before we leave, there is a final warning from Brophy: “Remember, don’t tell anyone who got eliminated. It’s a secret!”