The hits just keep coming for Big Brother 15 as the racist comments made by some houseguests are snowballing. I’ve written about the comments made by Aaryn and others (most notably Jeremy, Kaitlin, GinaMarie, and Spencer) as well as my thoughts on a petition to have Aaryn expelled from the house (which I also find somewhat arbitrary since she’s NOT the only offender).
Now Aaryn is getting the Paula Deen treatment as the modeling agency she works for has dropped her over her racist comments.
Aaryn was represented as a model by Zephyr Talent in Austin, Texas prior to entering the Big Brother 15 house, and on the live feeds, she’s talked about how she hopes the show can launch her career. That’s going to be hard since Zephyr has released a statement that they are dropping her as a client due to the racist comments she’s made in the house about blacks, Asians, and gays.
The part that makes it almost funny is that, since she’s locked inside the house and cut off from the outside world, she has no idea that she’s been let go. Whenever she gets evicted, it’s going to be a very rude awakening.
UPDATE: In addition to Aaryn, GinaMarie Zimmerman will also find herself out of a job when she leaves the Big Brother 15 house. East Coast USA Pageant Inc., a company the brass 32-year-old Staten Island woman has worked 5 years for, has announced that they have fired her over comments she’s made in the house. GinaMarie has referred to welfare as “n***** insurance” on the live feeds.
While I certainly agree that the comments she and many others have made are offensive, I’m just as annoyed by the fact that all of this is distracting fans from the game itself. I truly love Big Brother and want to focus on the strategy and game (because there’s a lot of good stuff going on), but the racist comments have seemed to hijack the conversation. I’ll be curious to see if it affects the weekly MVP vote, where America gets to give the power to name a third nominate to whoever they think is playing the best game.
It’s going to be hard to believe that people will actually vote for the best strategist if all anyone cares about is who’s being a racist and who’s being mean.
Aside from racism, there have also been a lot of mean-spirited insults about other people in the house unrelated to race or sexual orientation. Elissa, Rachel Reilly’s sister, is the primary target of most of the hate, with Jeremy, Kaitlin, Aaryn, and others repeatedly making comments about how ugly she is and how they hope her husband is having an affair.
Again, while I find the comments tasteless, I fear fans will miss the complexities or shades of gray involved. I’m on record as not liking Elissa. I find it unfair that she gets a massive advantage in the MVP vote because her sister is Rachel Reilly and, quite frankly, if you watch the live feeds, she’s definitely trying to push buttons and bait people into playing emotionally. It’s the same strategy Rachel had, being confrontational, getting people angry, and then playing the victim, acting like she has no idea why everyone is being so mean to her.
So while I don’t think it’s nice to say cruel things about her, it doesn’t mean I now love her or defend her or want her to stick around, and I’m worried that’s exactly how some people will react. Elissa doesn’t become a saint just because people are mean to her, especially since everyone in the house (including the large group of seven who are actively working to keep her safe in week 1) also have no respect for her as a player and talk about how much they want her to go. They are only using her as a tool because they assume she’ll keep winning MVP because of her sister and they want to be able to control that third nomination.
Things continued to get messy on Tuesday as Jeremy even took Elissa’s hat and wiped his butt with it. The producers called him into the diary room where apparently he was chastised. They took the hat to be cleaned and he has since apologized to Elissa. Some HGs think he should be expelled for this, but since they didn’t expel Shannon in season 2 for sticking Hardy’s toothbrush in the toilet, I hardly think it’s necessary.
I’m sure Aaryn being dropped from her agency and Jeremy wiping Elissa’s hat on his butt won’t be the last distractions of Big Brother 15, but I wish they would be. It’s a game, a social experiment, and whether you like it or not, this is part of society. People say these kinds of things and do these kinds of things. If you don’t like it, maybe you shouldn’t be watching a 24/7 live feed of 16 people trapped in a house together for the summer.
(Image courtesy of CBS)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
