"It keeps me from being someone I'm not..."

Alice 

Last Monday, as the nation cheered or wept over the news that Big Brother had finally been laid to rest, there was a scene that, in the most wonderfully timed context, led me to say; "That is Big Brother." It was perfect. It was the show, it was the people who go on it, the society who craves it, the industry that makes it... all of it. It was a seemingly simple scene that I don't think too many people would have seen into. There she sat, poor Alice, thinking she had just been evicted - thinking she had lost. The horrid moment every housemate dreads was upon her: the moment she was deemed unworthy. She thought she was being placed in the flight simulator as a kind of holding bay, before her arrival on stage - those few brief minutes where the spotlight is on solely you, at the most horrible time. The emotion - the feelings of unworthiness - flooded her, the monster every true, young BB Modern is going on the show in order to escape, once and for all, standing above her with gnashing teeth. She went on there to win, like every single one of them does, and she thought, for a while, she may actually have more significance than she secretly grieved not having - that she was none of the things the mean people told her she was, when she was growing up. Poor Alice. Go on, Alice, fight it. Smile, though your heart is breaking. In a few minutes, the spotlight will be on you. You can't let them see your defeat - you mustn't let on how destroyed you feel. Do what you've no doubt done, all your life, Alice, when you become the pain: pretend you're not in any pain, at all. 

"No.... tears.... no tears.... must not cry... must not cry..." she chanted to herself, over and over; fanning her face, as the heat rose, with the adrenalin - the anxiety - beginning to pump through her body.

It wasn't working. Time was running out. So, as if by some kind of instinct, her mind (as it does) desperately tried to find an escape. She had lived, after all, in a softer shade of this pressure, for the past three months. That's what really fuels all the dramas in the house - the extremity, the easily triggered anger and sadness - that's what the show's manipulations deliberately - and quite knowingly - torment and exploit: an environment where everyone suppresses the huge pressure and anxiety that being in the Big Brother house would, quite logically, be driven by and consist of. In the house, you reach great heights of that anxiety, because here you are, standing on the chance to "attain", navigating a fast-moving world of sometimes savage social judgement, as everyone around you naturally wants you gone, and as the people who run the whole thing basically try to fuck your head in. The content of Big Brother has never been anything else - we watched thirteen people psychologically implode. End of story. And the thing is, what made it all so much worse, was the very nature of that implosion; where they were watched and judged, 24 hours a day. That was why the anxiety was so strong - but the poor dears couldn't ever show to us that anxiety, because of that judgement. What a vicious irony is Big Brother.

And the thing is, this naturally attracted the kind of people who had no doubt lived their entire lives, both yearning and pretending - pretending to the people around them, and, mostly, pretending to themselves. I never had any problem with the show being an open manipulation. I didn't actually mind Monday's content, and when Ben eventually complained, "This is psychological torture!" my instant thought was, "Oh, shut the fuck up!" If the viewers and participants understood - fully - the nature and potential of this kind of manipulation, then I have no problem with the show. I would have gone on it, if that was the case. Because that would have been a game for really together boys and girls. That would be interesting to watch. It would be interesting to play - as a kind of true mind game, played by psychologically and emotionally intelligent people. Ah, but to dream! Because it isn't this, at all, of course. Instead, it appeals to the complete antithesis - to people who are actually quite lost - for an audience that don't actually understand the show. And it then exploits their ignorance for commercial gain. And, really, if you need to go on a reality show, in order to attain a sense of worth (let's get real, here), you're clearly someone who will walk in, already being a person who is so driven by the external, that you no doubt have little idea of who you are, in the first place. That's why you're there: so Australia can tell you that you're worthy, so that you know you truly are. Another vicious irony.

Alice is one of these people. Very similar to previous housemate, Claire, Alice is a somewhat masculine girl who has thrown herself into animals (much easier to deal with, than human beings), has declared herself a product of a turbulent family environment, and who admitted she doesn't handle confrontation very well. Alice is someone who has clearly had to function within a psychologically difficult world - if we could be a fly on the wall of Alice's homelife, I think we'd all be rather surprised. The irony is, like Claire, nobody probably even stopped to consider what Alice privately dealt with. But it's clear Alice had nowhere to deal with the pain, because she, in an absolutely "text book" fashion, is a girl who is clearly familiar with the art of something called "Dissociation", a psychological phenomenon, where the human mind, when perceiving no solution to a mental crisis, can somehow "switch off" to what is happening. In extreme cases, such as with people who have sustained long periods of abuse, this can even be quite litreral, needing hardly any aid at all, whereby the person can completely detach from conscious reality (no prizes for guessing why these people would need to do that), almost like sleeping with their eyes open. Alice may not be a product of this extreme a scenario - unlike these more severe cases, she uses an aid to detach (she can't do it, by herself) - but, at very least, she is a girl who runs from the pain. Literally.

We also see the way Alice has become fixated on regiment, in order to deal with her life. Not too surprisingly, the term, "OCD", was thrown around forums quite a lot, to snarl at her "Mother Hen" ways. Apart from my utter displeasure in seeing this term become a culturally embraced slang insult (yes, it's a real condition, and many people suffer, through no fault of their own, with it), I don't think she warrants the term. Rather, I think Alice is a girl who has learned to focus on simple, repetitive, ritualised, external "things to do" - such as cooking, cleaning, organising the day, etc - in order to kind of pull her mind from emotions she harbors within, and to give her reason to be. I've seen this, over and over, with unhappy housewives, who escape the part of them that is so unhappy in their domestic prison by "becoming" those things that must be taken care of - simple, meaningless, attainable things. They're not thinking about the man who doesn't love them, the dreams they lost, the pain they feel. They're just thinking about that stain on the coffee table they're going to spend the day attacking. That way, they don't have to spend the day dealing with anything.

Because of the prevalence of this behaviour in "family unit" situations, this coping mechanism can be "passed on" (or effectively taught). Perhaps, then, Alice learned this behaviour from her mother. Who knows? Not me. She does seem young to be exhibiting such behaviours - in the beginning of the show, she did cop a lot of flack (and was quite upset by it, if we remember) for acting this way, for annoying her housemates with a mindset they associated with - perhaps, somewhat tellingly - grumpy mothers. This would suggest she may very well be adopting a behaviour she learned from the parental dynamic. But, regardless, it's there. I can't sit here and tell you what, exactly, "made" it, because we learn so little of these people, when all is said and done (which is a shame, really). But I can tell you she does clearly use her obsession with regiment and "duties" as a means to escape herself and her anxiety.

And there's just so much anxiety in the Big Brother house. There's a lot to get away from. And, much like a home where a hurt child will not show their family their pain, she cannot show her pain to Australia. And Australia, like our families, is always watching. At least, at home, you can go to the toilet, have a shower, take a breather when everyone goes to the shops, whatever the escape is you savor. Not in Big Brother! You sit on the toilet, excreting feces, knowing there's a camera watching down on you, from above. Sorry to be so blunt, but that is, after all, the reality of it.

So, is this the kind of place a girl like Alice should go, in order to find her salvation? Here comes another vicious irony, I'm afraid (the show is full of them, is it not?), because what this girl has done is, because of the nature of her damage, run into something that is actually the complete epitome of what it was that damaged her, in the first place. She's not finding another way - she's compelled to that way, it's all she's ever known. She alluded to the fact that her treadmill held the same power "on the outside", and so she may have gone into the Big Brother house, but she's still running. Nothing has changed. It's just that, this time, (if it goes to plan) she gets to succeed. She gets what she has been yearning for, all this time. She gets the resolution, the affirmation - the love - she has been missing for God knows how long. It's the same game she was no doubt always playing. Which is the point, subconsciously. Because this time, god damn it, she will be loved, and she will know she is worthy, and people will take notice of her. Well... if she wins, that is. The flipside of that is pretty harsh. And Alice isn't going to win.

It's heart-breaking, really. They've often been rather sad, the stories of Big Brother - more sad, because people couldn't really grasp them, as viewers. Not only is the situation intensified, in terms of anxiety and the potential glory, but, so too, is the price of losing. You thought it was bad, when mummy and daddy didn't love you enough? You wait til the whole country rejects you! There's just so much at stake, it's what makes the whole thing so brutal. Only one of them wins. The rest suffer that loss. And, even worse, very often, the one who wins is the one who doesn't even really need to play that game, or who doesn't. The Logans, after all, were quite different to this - so was Jamie. These arrogant men went on to experience nothing more than the thrill of having their already high and mighty egos affirmed. Jamie briefly flipped out when he realised, oh my God, maybe he wasn't so wonderful, after all. But, in the end, he won. Ego affirmed. Around these men, many others who are the antithesis in self-esteem to these men, fall. And they fall hard.

But, we're not allowed to see it. They won't let us, goddamit. They'll put on their happy faces, just like they have probably done all their life; when, inside, their heart was breaking, but they dared not let anyone around them see. The frustrating thing about this is that this always worked out so perfectly for the show. They didn't want you to see, either. They were happy to have everyone believe they were as dandy as they told us they were, because it helped them wipe their hands clean of the psychological harm they had just, quite deliberately, put these people through. Killeen was the master of eliciting this kind of behaviour on the eviction show (one of the reasons I grew to dislike her). Every now and then (long, long afterwards), someone would emerge with a tale of how horrifying the whole thing actually was - but by then, nobody cared. And even so, many held on to that public face, forever; many others too afraid to talk. It affirms the loss, after all. They want to appear as much of a "winner" as they can - you know, even though they had their heads fucked in and everyone hated them. They cling to what they have. I can't tell you how many ex housemates I have come to know, now (thanks to doing this), that have poured their hearts out to me, but who won't even begin to consider to tell their story, publicly. I've tried, as you can imagine! But I respect that they don't want to, and after having been exploited by so many people, I wouldn't dare be someone else trying to get something out of them for nothing more than a scoop that benefited my own profile. And, needless to say, the only time some of them are given a medium to speak through, in commercial media, it's under an implicit agreement to project a certain angle, so we only ever hear positive stories. We've seen the Logans skiing their money away, we've listened to Brunero tell us how great both he and the show is, but we heard nothing of the likes of poor Rachel, or any of the many others. A couple have made their stories known - such as Irena, who impressed me, immensely, with her honest article for The Age - but, all in all, lips are sealed or nobody is listening. It's always been one of the elements that has frustrated me, most of all, about the whole thing. 

And so, it was a profound moment on Monday's Big Sting special, for it showed us a side of them that we have never seen, before - not in 8 years. We saw the reality of one of them. We saw one of the most crucial moments for them - right before they face a huge crowd (or so she thought) in the fenzy of their loss - we have never had a picture painted of this whole thing, as vividly as it was in that moment, where Alice fell to pieces, trying desperately to pull her conrtrived public self together and hide, from us, her pain. "I am happy," she kept telling herself. But we could see that she clearly was not. Usually, we would have only seen her walk onto the stage, grinning ear to ear, and then desperately convince Kyle (and us) how happy she is, and how great it was, and how she didn't mind that she was just rejected. Most of the audience would have taken it on face value. But that's all we pretty much ever get - thirteen people, at a face value that is only interrupted when Big Brother fucks their heads in so hard, they actually start to let their real emotions slip through. But, even then, the public don't understand or sympathise. They end up completely misunderstanding why all the emotion has come out, over something they see as so trivial. Sometimes, they crack over the symbolic; sometimes it's just completely misplaced and has nothing to do with the subject of the argument or meltdown; or sometimes, it's that they have deliberately had something of great psychological importance taken away from them... something like, say... a treadmill. Most of the time, the public respond by evicting these people - which goes, then, to simply affirm their belief that showing your true emotion is a no-no. See? Vicious ironies, no matter where you look. 

By the end of tonight's show, that treadmill would come back to haunt Alice, and she will, we may safely presume, probably be evicted for her tantrum over something as "crazy" as a piece of gym equipment. She looked like a monster, who was so selfish, she actually reacted with extreme anger at the expense of poor old Terri's "care pack". The vicious irony, there, is that this is actually what Alice's treadmill has been, the whole time - her care.  

"What is the go with that treadmill?" everyone asked, including nearly all her fellow housemates and most of the Big Mouth panel.  

The "go" with the treadmill is that this, like her duties and regiment, is also how Alice escapes the anxiety. She puts it, instead, into the exercise - something that always suits these people when they find it, because the act of repetition (which Alice admitted to being an element of her love for the treadmill) is something we know helps facilitate dissociation. When the mind is focusing only on the task of repeating a basic mechanical action, it creates a space where these people can completely disconnect from what troubles them, going into a kind of trance. It's why exercise appeals to many people, in fact, and many of us have no doubt experienced something - if not to the same degree - as Alice. Ever heard someone say they like swimming, because it calms them and allows them to "escape their worries", etc, etc? Of course, you have. It's because our "worries" are internal, our mind is conscious of the deep and complex emotional reality that lies within us all; but, repetitive physical routines focus our mind only on performing these meaningless acts. That's the point - they're meaningless - and that meaninglessness can be a perfect escape, much like thinking about the day's "things to do" list is.

It made her happy. It felt good to get away from that anxiety, in an environment like the Big Brother house. On top of the general anxieties of the game and the larger ones of the life that led to being there, there's also the environment to consider. You can't watch a movie, you can't go anywhere, you can't express yourself through any form like writing, can't find solace in music. You're trapped and stripped of all the distractions and coping mechanisms we have in our lives. So, here you are, in this intense experience that is playing on every insecurity you have, whilst not being able to show it, in an environment where everything is uncertain (which would have very much played on her sense of ritual, which is largely about control), and where there's very few ways to escape your own head, or, for that matter, anybody else's. In this setting, Alice found a place that was all her own; a place where those troubles drifted away and she just... well.... put one foot in front of the other, over and over, for hours on end. Don't wonder why Alice would feel so confronted by the removal of that equipment. That equipment wasn't keeping her thighs nice. It was keeping her sane. It was keeping her happy.

So happy, she eventually associated contentment and comfort in that act, subconsciously, to the point where in the most intense moment in the flight simulator, she did something quite extraordinary to watch. It is in these moments where we truly are not thinking, not contriving, and it is very hard not to get carried away in the rush (what she was trying to do). It was quite telling that in that moment, when she couldn't seem to make her reality - her pain - listen to her demands of "do not cry... you are happy..." that she stood up, and began simulating the treadmill. She simulated a treadmill on a flight simulator! And a miracle happened.

"This is making me happy!" she beamed. Pain averted. She was ready to go out and face her crowd and tell them how happy she was.

Except, of course, that part never happened. They were just being screwed with, because without such manipulations - particularly in the final few days - nothing much happens, and we're left watching Travis scrape garlic bread for ten minutes. She was going back inside. Then, she was really, really happy. 

Sadly, that happiness was to be short lived. As I said, the problem with this "do not show thy true self" mentality is not only that this is a particularly unhealthy mentality, but one that is affirmed by the Big Brother experience. If the show reflects society in this way - and I hate to say it, but it does - then we see something most unpleasant in the voting trends of Big Brother. Rachel confesses her abuse. We evict her. Kate tells us the trauma of having a dead baby. We evict her (even after that baby task!). We are not a sympathetic people, truth be told, because we find, in the honesty of these people, something quite confronting. We find the idea that we should be true to ourselves. Truth be told, most people have a treadmill, of some description. The thought of their own emotional reality terrifies them. And... drumroll... another vicious irony: most Big Brother fans watch the show in order to escape their own reality, by crucifying and focusing in, instead, on someone else's. The Big Brother audience were a brutal thing. But they were also gutless. That's why they were so brutal.

And, as usual, nobody will stop to remember that the entire episode was, again, Big Brother's doing (a day after that humiliating dance, as part of the speed dating dinner she "won", following that painful performance she gave, associating her many charming qualities with each letter of her name). Tonight, she lost her charms. But she had them taken from her, deliberately. Most won't really get that. I mean, people "know" it, but they can't comprehend the reality of it. Not really. And that's partly, I must say, because one of the problems with the phenomenon of Big Brother (and all reality TV - but, in particular, this one) is that it delivers its content to a public who are actually largely incapable of understanding the emotional reality of what they're watching, and then not only makes no attempt to illuminate it (originally proposed as an idea of the function of Big Mouth, before it became nothing more than Uncut with a new name), but actually happily offers it up to be crucified without a drop of understanding. They would have loved tonight, because it actually would have helped the woman they want to win this last season, Terri. Most people would have felt sorry for the "Nanna".

But not me. I felt sorry for Alice. I was moved by that scene, the other night - a young, lost, modern woman, trying desperately to compose herself for this beast of a TV show she had unfortunately wandered onto, so that everyone may still love her and give her just a drop - any - of the affirmation she needs badly enough to wander onto this beast of a TV show. I felt just as bad for her, tonight. She'd been fucked over - and she knew it - but she was trapped. She was trapped by the self-consciousness, she was trapped by the pain that couldn't help but react and basically cost her any chance of advancing. And I felt bad for her. On top of this, it had cleverly amplified what they know plagues her, as she perceives it destroying not only her sense of self, but her chances of the public's love, in the tension and rejection she feels with the others - which is only a result of them being forced to outcast someone, last Monday, which ended up being her. We saw her hold back the tears, as she wallowed in their rejection - we even heard her try to console herself, by remembering that this was just their rejection, and that ultimately it was the public's rejection that is the true monster. She walked back into that house, like a true Big Brother housemate, and smiled and told them she loved them. But she doesn't. And they don't love her, either. 48 hours later, she gets her head fucked in again by the show, because the silly girl not only gave the country that scene of her true nature and fears - she handed them to the actual show, on a silver platter. They knew just what to do. And they did it. No more treadmill for Alice. And watch her explode! Just like they hoped she would. Watch the housemates turn on her (compounding the emotion, because that then plays into something so central to it) - just like they hoped she would. Rory came to the rescue with his tres manly practicality and condemnation - just like they hoped he would. Terri looked like an angel - just like they hoped she would. And I felt bad for poor Alice. No doubt as they'd expect me to. But they don't expect you to, heavens no.

I have only, today, reaffirmed that I would prefer for Travis to win - largely because I think he is the only chance to take out Terri and Rory (of whom, I want neither to be crowned), as well as being too oblivious and fragile for me to sometimes stomach watching being on a show he probably should never have gone on. But I can't help it; if it was up to me, I'd probably give it to Alice. She, unlike Travis, is not so oblivious - and that, I think, makes it worse. She's been sneaky, on a few occasions, herself; I found her immensely irritating, quite often; I don't personally relate to her, too much. However, I feel for her. Because she showed me her truth - even if she wasn't intending me to see it - and I can't not respond to it. She is everything so awful about Big Brother, but she is, after all, just a broken young woman, trying to find what she only knows to hope for. In a series where I have struggled so much to connect to any of them, Alice moved me, whilst she no doubt sparked the urge to crucify in others. If the show was one where we actually saw more of the reality of these people - where it had that context - perhaps it would have moved many more. Perhaps, we'd still be watching it, next year.