It’s still just a game for Channel 4
More Big Brother racism, and this time some action was taken. But I’m not sure Channel 4 and Endemol have quite learnt:
Big Brother contestant Emily Parr was removed from the show early this morning after calling fellow housemate Charley Uchea a racially offensive name.
[...]
Angela Jain, who heads the Big Brother commissioning team at Channel 4, said: “In the wake of Celebrity Big Brother, we must consider the potential offence to viewers regardless of Emily’s intentions and her housemates’ response.
“The word ‘nigger’ is clearly racially offensive and there was no justification for its use.”
Channel 4 and Endemol have clearly learnt something from the Celebrity Big Brother debacle. But perhaps they have still not fully understood what the problem was. This time
Endemol consulted with senior executives at Channel 4 and the decision was taken to remove Parr from the house on the grounds that she “had broken the rules governing contestant behaviour”.
So the contestant was ejected because she had broken the rules of the game, not because she’d broken the rules of common decency. Oh well. One step at a time, I suppose.
