"Be a Dream Maker..."

Terrence

Looking back, Terrence's final days as a Grey Nomad didn't help him, any. With the age gap now being used by the show, conceptually, to pitt the horrible, annoying old pervert against the young moderns (how innocent they all are!), the horrible behaviour that saw Brigette and Co terrorise the Grey Nomads did not land on the audience in the same vein as the previous instances of "bullying" (such as the Nobbi incident, etc). If there was any sympathy in the public, it was for Terri - I even saw one forum thread putting forward that the real culprit was Terrence, because he made the others hate him, and poor Terri got caught up in the crossfire that surely Terrence deserves! Terri had rather cleverly bridged the age gap, by essentially backstabbing Terrence, and doing a really nice job - considering nobody seemed to pick up on it - of getting "in" with the younger housemates, which means that she effectively pleases both demographics. That's Terri's biggest card going into the final leg of this, and though Terrence also tried very hard to bridge that gap, he made the terrible - though honest - mistake of trying to cross that bridge by earning their respect. Um.... no. Terri, on the other hand, had simply conformed and learnt how to model herself as the character the group had now started to accept as "one of them". The forums, talkback and blogs had started preparing for the brutal execution of bad boy Rory, but it was never going to happen, and all along, Terrence was slowly walking towards the gallows.

By Sunday's catch-up show, it was pretty much all over, red rover, and it was during these final glimpses - by far, the most important factor in voting (the real decision is always made in the final hour) - that I finally sighed, and nodded my head, realising; "Your number's up, Terrence." Terrence's defiance against such vile treatment had now manifested into all kinds of behaviours that were only being taken by the audience - as editing intended - as the bizarre annoyances of a loopy old pervert against the young people he selfishly pushes himself onto. Regardless of how warranted it was (considering what the little bastards had done to them in the van), Terrence's wake-up call, banging on the stove pot, was really all they needed. Got 'im. The dirty old nut makes the poor little dears get out of bed and fetch him lemons and two tea cups... what a wanker?! Why won't he leave those poor young people alone?!

Following this episode that chose to show little else of Terrence other than this scene (that was followed, of course, by various shots of housemates talking about how horrible he is), cut with various shots of playful, dreamy Rory, Kyle and Jackie O took to the stage.

"Who do you think it's going to be?" Jackie asked the crowd, the lines still open for the final dash.

Following a brief pan of the audience who were, as audiences do when they realise they're on live air, screaming with such abandon and hysteria it sounded nothing more than an inaudible roar, Jackie lamented; "Oh, no! Are you saying Terrence?"

Regardless of whether this particular crowd of starstruck Queenslanders had, or not, this was, in the end, what that final card would read. He took it in stride, but you could tell that, underneath, there was a resigned kind of disappointment. He'd lost. And he knew it.

He probably wasn't expecting what would happen next, mind you, but from Terrence's stage interview, he seems reasonably savvy to the show (as it turns out, this is not Terrence's first TV appearance - though it should be noted that his other reality show was for SBS, so we can imagine it was a considerably different experience). He's naive enough to have responded, "I signed a contract saying I would", without any understanding of the implications of what he was saying (nor would he have realised the extent, to which the montages and repeated references to his naked showering would come to bite him), but once the interview turned particularly contrived - which didn't take long - Terrence seemed unfazed by what he could clearly recognise as the subreality of television land. 

"I like to treat people like that," Kyle said in defense of Brigette's behaviour.

"I know you do," Terrence smirked, firmly. "Well, she looks like she might be successful."

Meow. There was a distinct defiance coming through, now, as Terrence picked up on a slant that was indeed fishy. By now, it had nothing to do with Rory - he was safe to fend for himself for another week. There is another housemate the show wants very much to keep in there, and Terrence was now about to be used - the moment he's handed them the safety of Rory - to focus the spotlight on funny, fabulous, "tell it like it is" Brigette.

"She's one of my favourites," declared Kyle. And, as we discussed yesterday with Rebecca's "Journey of Nobbi" rubbish, it was his task to represent what the show wanted the public to think. "See, I used to be like you," he said, relating Terrence's loathing to the adverse reaction the public did initially have to her antics; "I thought she was irritating and stupid. But now, she's one of my favourites. So, I think that watching it, you find her endearing."

Terrence would, during this segment, hand them the dialogue that would be used as the showdown planned for the following night; "If that's who Brigette really is, I don't know what her parents have been doing for the last 21 years."

The thing is, Terrence was already set up. The next morning (10am, to be exact), The Telegraph BB blog (which has rather cosy ties with the show, and has actually proved more effective than Brunero's deal) published an interview of Brigette's father by Garth Montgomery, where he revealed he had already been asked by the show to appear on that night's Big Mouth. In this interview, he had us believe he had declined, which, looking back (considering this turned out not to be the case), smells awfully much like the show was deliberately throwing people off the scent, so that Terrence would not suspect what he was about to walk into (I'm not sure what that says about Brigette's father);

Albert declined an invitation by Channel Ten to appear on tonight’s Big Mouth with Terrence.

“I have a conference in the Southern Highlands and couldn’t make it,” he said.

Albert had been duly rewarded for his co-operation, by The Telegraph, with countless plugs for his business, and even a link to his company's website. 

What's not so surprising is that this interview came after (it all moves at lighting speed - don't forget we're still talking about only the following morning, here) his interview with Terrence, where, as was going to be the decided slant, he was promptly attacked. By now, Terrence had well and truly caught on to what the nature of all this would be, and he was prepared to threaten the proceedings with more revelations of how contrived his persona had been, on the part of the show;

Terrence: I think the media have belted the Y-Generation for years. I wanted to see first hand.

Garth: That is a load of crap. You went in saying Generation Y were all lazy and spolit and you were going to teach them a lesson. It’s how you sold yourself and it’s what everyone saw.

Terrence: What you’re talking is a pile of crap. It was my belief they had been given a hard time by the media…and maybe in the promo you saw where they asked me to wear that tshirt and…that was said in the promo for sure. 

But Garth just setps it up a notch or two, and brings out the implications that Terrence was a predatory old stage-hogger, who preyed on a young girl he couldn't win over - a girl who has the right, after all, to say no. 

Garth: I can’t imagine that the strategy you employed with Brigitte would be successful with any person. As a viewer I felt like that was about you being a showpony rather than having any real desire to broaden a young persons mind about manners and respect.

Terrence: Well if you want to talk about being a show pony lets look at the situation. I wanted to have the conversation in private. That’s not wanting to be a showpony. Who decided to take it to family room? Not me. So is that fair for you to make a retraction about me being a showpony?

Garth: No. You were chasing her through the house….

Terrence: I wasn’t chasing her, I wasn’t…

Garth: You were moving from room to room relentlessly pursuing someone who did not want to have a conversation with you, and you were doing it at an elevated volume. I’d say that was being a showpony.

Terrence: She was the head of house. I have the right to ask the head of house to have a conversation about the issues I had her. I accused her of calling her a liar which has been proven. So I’m not going to sit in the bedroom. I will follow her and make my point.

Garth: Do you think respect is best earned by giving it to others?

Terrence: I gave Brigitte a lot of respect. When I first went in the house I enquired and tried to learn as much about her. I knew she didn’t have a lot of clothes and she treated me like dirt.

Garth: So she rejected you?

Terrence: What do you mean?

Oooooh, "you were moving from room to room relentlessly pursuing someone" - what a great line! What a pity you didn't get a stint on Big Mouth, yourself, out of this, Garth - surely you've paid your dues? Maybe, next year.

And so, Terrence, the disrespectful, bombastic, showpony, perverted predator of young women, moved closer to the moment, until finally, with a level of awareness we can only speculate upon, he reached the Ten studios for his inevitable dual. Everyone smiled and greeted him, and checked if there was anything he needed; and, the whole time, everyone knew. Everyone knew what was about to happen to poor old Terrence. He was the very last one to know. It's always the way, of course.

Interestingly enough, this episode of Big Mouth would begin - making the whole thing that much more bizarre and ironic - with another attempt to absolve Rory of his accused sins. To think, the whole thing begins with Rory - of all people - being excused for using nudity in a predatory - at very least, disrepsectful - manner, in the shower!? I mean, really, it's fucking insane. And who should be handed the lines to start this with?

None other than Mister Brunero! Which is awfully strange, considering he'd only just published retractions of his article, "Surely Rory's Shower Gaffe Won't Cost Him", where he had assured his readers he was just ever so humbled to be educated and changed by their knowing ways. As I said, there is no consistency, no linearity - no truth - in anything that comes out of anyone's mouth in Big Brother. It's all subject to a change, ordered down by the heads of production, trying desperately to keep one step ahead of the public trend, and to manipulate reactions and avert publicity disasters. Guess the decision had been made, and Brunero was now back to absolving Rory for "something as normal as having a shower." And he did this by assuring us that, just this very day, he had stood behind the one-way mirrors, himself, and watched Terri and Rory have a ten minute conversation, whilst Rory was naked. Apart from this ignoring that it's not simply the question of nudity in these instances, but what these people "do" with their nudity (such as helicopters, or deliberately masturbating yourself to get an erection, in order to - as Rory himself confessed - unnerve her), one has to wonder if the Big Brother staff do anything else on their visits to the house, other than watching them shower naked. Although, personally, I don't believe this happened, at all.  

The (albeit, temporary) consistency, here, is that Brunero was also about to offer his "leftie" view that there was nothing wrong with Terrence's showering or treatment of Brigette. He was the only one allowed to go against the grain of what was to follow - which he'd have to do, if he was to stay ideologically aligned for a whole hour of the show (which is almost impressive, in BB land) - which he would have to do, anyway, in order to sell to us that Rory is just wonderful, thanks very much (which, by now - considering that Rory had been, yet again, placed up for eviction - would be needed to save him for this coming Sunday). This position gave the whole thing a surreal kind of legitimacy - the illusion of ideological integrity - that would have fooled many viewers into not realising how completely contradictory it was for the show (as a whole, here) putting forward that one housemate was allowed to be intentionally sexually overt in the shower (who just happens to be their teenybopper ochre stud, who the show has presented, in smutty slow-mo packages, in full frontal glory, on many occasions), whilst also striking out viciously at another for... well.... being sexually overt in the showers (who just happens to be the guy threatening our perception of the female equivalent to this demographic necessity of Big Brother). If more of the show's viewers were actually thinking - instead of blindly feeling through the show, with impulsive reactions and emotions (which is what partly allows them to be so manipulated) - they'd join the dots. But many didn't. As much as it pains me to say it, many never could.

And then, it happened. You know this bit, off by heart, I suspect - you don't need me to retell it, nor was that my intention. There's not too much else to say about it, frankly, and, if you've followed me to this point (I guess if you're reading this sentence, you have!), then one and one make two, and you're a smart enough little camper. Out comes Albert, followed by Rebecca's carefully rehearsed tirade, with the only alternative view offered by Brunero (Brunero was to be handed Terrence, the next day, for an "exclusive" interview in his LiveNews blog). Never mind that Brunero was the first one on the panel, the week before, to call for the public to evict Terrence. And never mind that his line about Brigette's Treatment of Terrence being "undeserved" was actually a hand-over piece that set up Wilson's garbage - garbage that, combined with Albert's atrocious assault, completely overpowered anything contrary offered by Brunero. "I think it was richly deserved," Wilson chimed in. And that was pretty much it, from that point - let's bang that final nail into that cross, shall we? 

If only someone had have asked Albert what he thought of a daughter who aspires to be a porn model for masturbating 50 year olds, the nation over? Or maybe how he reconciles his moral crusade with a daughter who openly admits, on national television, that she had sex, in broad daylight, on the streets of Kings Cross? Must have slipped their minds. 

And for all that we could say about the audacity of the show to imply this man was a horrible pervert who chased young women around with his ugly bare body, what really struck me was the final bullet Wilson fired - a bullet that, for me, largely defines, in comparison, what would become of all that initial branding and pomp we began this year by analysing. 

"What were you were doing even going on that show?" asked Albert. "I don't understand why a 51 year old would have to do that."

Wilosn agreed. "I'm with Albert... I guess it comes down to why would you want to do that... what were you going on there to achieve? I don't understand why you went on the show, in the first place."

Wasn't this the series of "older, diverse housemates", bla, bla, fucking bla? Wasn't that the entire agenda you sold to us, at one point? Haven't we been sitting watching you design your show largely around this concept, as you craft a narrative of Generation Y versus The Old Farts?

To think that the show came to this: to treat someone who turned up to the auditions - someone who was everything it was looking for; who has only, after all, been someone who has happily bought into the Dream™ it sells, the one they want the public to buy into - with such contempt and complete disrespect for the consequences. To think this show now actually crucifies someone for... well.... "going on the show, in the first place"! The show carries on about how Different™ it all is, and how it's all for older housemates... and look at how it treats them! By Brunero's interview, Terrence was left to admit that the whole thing had now "traumatised" his wife and kids (young boys who now have to deal with this at school). And all for a bit of good old Kaching™. There's nothing different about this year's Big Brother™. It's still as vile as ever.

Terrence went looking for the realisation of his dreams - for a few weeks, he floated on the power of feeling like they had come true. He believed. Goddammit, he believed. "Don't be a Dreamer," he told us, "Be a Dream Maker."

Terrence, my dear man, this one was someone else's Dream™ to make.