Big Brother 16 (US Version)

[Sgt Pepper]

Re: Big Brother 16

Why not? Because he's a bit flamboyant? Because he's confident in himself? I swear to god.. some gay men have self hating issues. Frankie is being himself, he's real. He doesn't care that it pisses people off. And those that have a problem with it.. too bad.

BINGO. Come sit by me.

Why do you watch? It seems to annoy you, so why? Seems like you'd be better off not watching it.

Because I'm not above enjoying stupid things and stupid people. As long as I'm entertained, you know? The show itself doesn't annoy me, and in its simpler forms from BB2 to about BB7, I really enjoyed it. It's the attempt by some players (and fans) to make it more serious or important that annoys me. I will defend Jordan as a winner any day of the week not because I think she's a great mastermind (that's an example of an attempt by fans to make something more than it is that annoys me), but because of the simpler truth that you don't have to be a great mastermind to win this game. That was the beauty of Jordan's victory, that was what it confirmed. You just need good instincts, luck, and some degree of likability. And I dig that.

It's mostly the people who cry foul over things like Grodner rigging/America's Player/etc "interfering" with the game that's maddening to me. This show DID start as a glorified popularity contest after all until CBS realized it made for super boring TV and changed the first season's format.

Girl I'm not even gonna lie, I used to be one of those people. Not the crazy conspiracy theorist like a certain regular whose been mercifully absent so far this season (maybe the World Cup is distracting him?) but I used to get really butt hurt about all these stupid twists interfering with the purity of the game. Now of course I'm older and wiser and I know that using terms like "purity of the game" for something like Big Brother is like trying to find Sparknotes for Fifty Shades of Grey. That said, I still resent the stupid twists because 1) too complicated as your bf said and 2) it distracts from us getting more character moments and bitch-fights.

 

[slipintothefog]

Re: Big Brother 16

Yeah I totally understand. I was actually going to edit that second part out because it's contradictory to things I've said in the past too, and my stance still isn't entirely black or white. At this point I'm more numb to the rigging and acknowledge that it's just part of modern Big Brother (the Shapiro era which was BB2 to I think BB6 or All Stars was more credible), but it still doesn't mean I'd prefer for it to be there and it doesn't make me any less angry when people act like Dick is an amazing player despite having his entire season rigged for him. I guess it's okay if I find the beneficiary to be rootable which Dick wasn't.

Grodner should have rigged BB15 for Elissa.

 

[roadtripboy]

Re: Big Brother 16

^ I'm one of those you cried foul over the rigging. But, for a different reason. I've worked in TV and I find "rigging" to be the sign of a lazy production style. If the producers were any good at their jobs, they could produce an interesting show without having to constantly "correct" it's course.

And they should never be allowed to put their friends on these shows, like happened last year.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Re: Big Brother 16

Grodner should have rigged BB15 for Elissa.

RIGHT? I mean if you're going to manipulate the game to this extent on behalf of a Reilly, my god at least do it for the less annoying one. Elissa getting votes from Helen/Candice/Jessie/Judd and whoever else (depending on who her F2 partner was) would make WAY more sense than fucking Shelly voting for motherfucking Rachel! Yeah, still cranky over that one.

 

[slipintothefog]

Re: Big Brother 16

If the producers were any good at their jobs, they could produce an interesting show without having to constantly "correct" it's course.

I don't think it's a matter of making the show interesting. I honestly think the main reason Grodner rigs the show is to appease the fanbase who always want a happy ending i.e. quell the batshit crazy people who throw tantrums whenever their favorites don't win. People were sending Shelly Moore's DAUGHTER death threats when her mother had the audacity to vote out fan favorite Jeff in BB13. It was truly bizarro world that Shelly being the deciding vote for RACHEL to win that season was enough to put out their flames of insanity just because somebody from Jeff's alliance (who also happened to be somebody who was massively hated the previous year) won as a proxy for Jeff.

ETA: LOL at Sgt Pepper bringing up Shelly and Rachel right as I was making this post. Get out of my brain, girl.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Re: Big Brother 16

You know I take EVERY opportunity to bitch about Rachel Reilly's* win slip!

There have been many personally unsatisfying wins for me (Drew, Maggie, Boogie, Adam, Hayden, Ian and Andy), but the only two truly illegitimate wins in my eyes are Dick and Rachel, because they literally could not have gotten to the end without major production help. I've explained why I think this in literally every other BB thread so I won't repeat it again here. As much as I loathe Boogie and wanted Dan to win over Ian, I can't say that either of those wins weren't legit.

*I refuse to recognize her by Brendan's last name.

 

[sokker]

Re: Big Brother 16

Cute

 

[joesman]

Re: Big Brother 16

On AD the guys (Cody, Zach, Derrick, Hayden) were discussing getting Zach back in the game and suggestions on what to do and not do. Frankie comes out and puts his arm over Zach's shoulder and leans against him for a moment. Discussion goes on as fFrankie gets up and lies down on the hammock with Cody. He nods at some suggestions and just looks blankly at the guys. A little while later he is in a room with Jocasta, Amber and he is saying that Zach doesn't respect women. He says that the man side of him shuddered and the female side shuddered harder (something to that effect). I did not hear any of that from Zach. So Frankie is throwing his female side with the girls and try to get Zach out. He is on a mission for some reason and I think it is because he is so aligned with Caleb and Devin. Cody said he would not vote Zach out and he told Devin and said Devin was cool with that but told Cody not to tell anyone else. Cody wisely has told Derrick, Hayden and Zach.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Re: Big Brother 16

I'm pretty sure Frankie is just playing all sides. I don't think he really wants Zach to go.

 

[sokker]

Re: Big Brother 16

I'm pretty sure Frankie is just playing all sides. I don't think he really wants Zach to go.

THIS. I also think he feels guilty, because he tried so hard to get Zach out after the blow up. There's a lot of people he talked to that he now feels like he's abandoning.. if that makes any sense.

 

[joesman]

Re: Big Brother 16

I have read over at Jokers that Derrick is furious with Devin for exposing the Bomb Squad to Jocasta and Brittany. I don't think Zach exposed as much as was talked about in his blow up at the veto meeting.

 

[sokker]

Re: Big Brother 16

What I find pathetic is Frankie lying about his age. I'd say fuck everyone if they have anything against it. Fucking own it. I'm closing in on 30 too. Sometimes I feel old, but you just have to deal with it. Lying about it isn't a solution.

 

[rysmiley88]

Re: Big Brother 16

Seriously. We FINALLY get some adorable guy-on-guy bonding on this shit show and it couldn't last longer than such timeless showmances as Ollie/April and Lydia/Jessie?



Thank you. I think I said this before but I'll say it again: THIS IS A STUPID SHOW. And that's fine. I watch Big Brother not just despite its stupidity but partly because of it. And all these recent attempts to add twist on top of twist just complicates what should be a very simple premise. Honestly, when I try to explain this show to friends who don't watch it, even the rules of the POV seem too complicated to them. One of my friends said, "All these rules for a show where dumb people sit around a fake house all summer doing nothing and occasionally talking to Julie Chen?" Seriously. It's just an embarrassing attempt to legitimize the "game" aspect of the show, but THIS IS NOT A SHOW THAT CAN BE LEGITIMIZED. I cringe every time one of these fools refers to "BB history" or players like Dan and Dr. Will as "the greats." For fuck's sake people, you're trying to win Big Brother, not a Nobel Prize.

They just need to go back to a simple-minded but entertaining presence an cast simple-minded but entertaining people.

I heart you.

 

[joesman]

Re: Big Brother 16

Sgt Pepper, aren't you one of the people who tout Dr. Will and Dan as great players? How about June and others? I think I have read some of your thoughts about great players.

I personally think you have to have a lot of lay low, ass kissing, act non-threatening, or just play dumber than a stack of Bible readers to win this game. It is a cluster fuck and the more jerks there are playing the more entertaining it is and the more we love to love and hate and it changes all the time. And here we are again going at it as they go at it and make permanent enemies or life long friends.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Re: Big Brother 16

Sgt Pepper, aren't you one of the people who tout Dr. Will and Dan as great players? How about June and others? I think I have read some of your thoughts about great players.

Of course! I think Will, Dan and Jun are easily the smartest/best players to have ever played this game. But that doesn't mean I think being good at this game counts as some great achievement in real life.

For example, BB players and podcasters have referred to players like Ian and Janelle (who were avid BB fans before they came on the show) as "BB historians" which...WTF? As if knowing a lot about Big Brother is the same as knowing a lot about the American Civil War or the Israel/Palestine conflict. It's just embarrassing to hear these people talk and not be self-aware of their own irrelevance in the grand scheme of things. To his credit, Dr. Will is very much aware of this which is why he does so little press for the show, whereas conversely as much as I love Dan, I think he thinks winning this show means more than it does.

I enjoy BB and Survivor, but I'm under no delusions that either one represents anything important.

 

[slipintothefog]

Re: Big Brother 16

Eh, I just view it as all relative. Like yeah Survivor and Big Brother aren't changing the world and maybe some people take the shows a little bit seriously but I can understand using terms like "Survivor history" or "one of the best players ever" etc. just as a point of reference.

Viewers are also real people and can be drawn to winners and hold them in hushed reverence for various reasons. Similar backgrounds, similar geographical locations, similar demographics, etc. Richard Hatch for example was one of the first, if not the first, gay men I ever saw on TV as a kid at the time that I really didn't know any gay people in real life so I kind of view him as more important than I would otherwise.

 

[Sgt Pepper]

Re: Big Brother 16

That's interesting slip. I guess I just never looked at the people on these shows that way. For me as a kid, Ellen coming out and the popularity of Will & Grace were way more seminal in terms of gay representation in media than Richard Hatch. But your point is a good one and I'm probably just being super snobby about this so I'll drop it.

On a related note, have there been any other openly* gay contestants on Survivor or BB that you really liked and wished they'd won? Before Andy the closest BB came to a gay winner was Ivette which...blech. Had Kevin won BB11, I would've been happy with that. And I liked Will on BB5. If Frankie won this year, he'd easily be my favorite gay contestant to win or come close to winning on this show or Survivor. I can't remember others on Survivor right now. I mean Todd won but, I'd like to forget that even happened.

*In other words, I'm not counting Drew.

 

[roadtripboy]

Re: Big Brother 16

My favorite gay winners weren't on BB or Survivor. They were on The Amazing Race. Brent & Josh, The Beekman Boys. Underdogs for the entire show, with everyone else plotting against them. They still won. And their on screen kiss when the won was an Amazing Race first.

 

[slipintothefog]

Re: Big Brother 16

I did forget that Will and Grace was around back then but I'm not sure how much I knew of the show at the time -- I was 12 when Survivor premiered and I think I started getting into Will and Grace a little bit after that. And of course there was Ellen like you mentioned but she was a woman so it wasn't quite the same to me. Gay male representation that I knew about at the time was so slim that one of the reasons I loved Three's Company so much at age 13 was because Jack was pretending to be gay.

Kevin is my favorite gay guy on BB US and I thought he was a pretty good player on top of that so I would have been really happy if he won. I also would have been happier if Ivette beat Maggie because Ivette is the kind of villain that you can laugh at it for being loud and ridiculous whereas Maggie was a quiet ring leader.

Survivor? Um... I think the only openly gay guys who won or got really close were Hatch, Todd and Rafe from Guatemala. I might be forgetting someone. I love Richard and I don't hate Todd as much as you do -- he had a good FTC, had excellent taste in allies and was one of the reasons Courtney stuck around for so long -- but I don't really like him either, and I barely even remember Guatemala. The gay guys I've liked on Survivor recently (Papa Bear and Brice) were early boots unfortunately. Caleb might have won if his side didn't draw the white rock but it probably would have been Hayden (BARF).

 

[slipintothefog]

Re: Big Brother 16

Oh and I didn't mention that BACK THEN I loved pretty much every gay guy on Survivor/BB no matter how vile or amazing they were as people or how good or bad they were at the game. Hatch from Survivor 1 (I hated him then because he was the "villain" and was so angry that he won... but by All Stars, I did love him), Brandon from Survivor 3, John from Survivor 4, Marcellas from BB3 and Will from BB5 were all my top favorites. I think it was around BB6 that time I stopped rooting for people just for being gay. Probably because Beau was opposing Janelle and obviously Janelle was life.

These "last edited by" stamps are so ugly and annoying.