[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Elliot

The show didn’t really tackle the issues tho, it was the people watching that sparked the conversations. Iirc most of it was around India, but non of it was actually discussed critically on the show outside of ginuwine saying he wouldn’t date a trans girl. There were a lot of debates on social media but the most that happened in the house was Andrew and Courtney bitching about Ann’s opinions behind her back.

The first week in particular had a lot of discussion about sexual harassment (mostly between John, Rachel, Ann, Amanda and Maggie), marriage rights (obviously between Courtney and Ann), trans identity, misgendering and the differences between types of feminism (obviously between India, Rachel, Courtney, Ginuwine, and pretty much the whole house), drag and gender vs. sex (Courtney/Ann/Andrew/India), Brexit (Jess, Ann), football's dealings with homophobia (John), the whole Yewtree thing (Maggie)...

To write off the whole series as more "talked about than having any discussion inside it" seems weirdly ignorant of the multiple occasions where India was referred to as 'he' (by mistake, by Ann/Rachel), the extent of her surgery, Courtney discussing the difference between sex and gender (whilst patiently putting the dragphobia thing to the side)... etc.

The series still had rabid attention seekers. Andrew Brady is one of the more fame hungry people to ever come on Cbb. The issue was there were like 3 people desperate for camera time and everyone else just wanted an easy paycheck. People were only quieter because they didn’t want to be there, not because they were having intelligent conversation. People were also quieter because they wanted to clear their name after their manager told them how bad their rep is. Dapper laughs is the biggest example of this. Actively did **** all so he could show he’s some changed person or whatever. Even Ashley tried some showmance but because of how uninteresting the pair were it was swiftly forgotten. If you watch the debate task back production were trying so hard to get them to have intelligent discussions but it never happened outside of a few tedious monologues from Courtney. The first week was far better and more promising imo, like day 1 they had that que card task where they were all sharing their opinions about gender related stuff and sharing experiences and it was genuinely interesting. You can watch it back, this never happened again.

As I said, I remember otherwise. There was a live feed in particular that was pretty enlightening - they were playing some form of (obviously prompted, lol) drinking game that involved talking about topics out of a hat and, whilst it might have been coerced by production, it was actually interesting to watch. Wayne, Amanda, Ann, Maggie, John, Rachel, Shane, Malika, Courtney and even Dapper/Jonny all had a pretty healthy input into discussion and the house just felt like an actual community with layers.

Sure, there were the duds (Ashley, Jonny, Jess, Dapper) and Andrew was excruciatingly try-hard, but I'll take 5 out of 16 any day.

This series had the same vapid soulless desperate fame seekers, but without any of the zest that has made for good tv for the past like 18 years. The only housemate that ever came close to anything classic big brother was India. A genuinely involved, layered, intriguing character. That lasted for what, 10 days? She could’ve been the catalyst for a lot of interesting **** for this series, yet instead 14 or so housemates managed to coast to a toasty paycheck doing **** all and giving us one of the most dull series ever. I rmemeber Rachel, John and malika saying in interviews that they’re told to say it was a life changing experience ect but secretly they couldn’t stand it and just wanted the money. It’s kinda annoying this absolute snooze fest was misconstrued as an intelligent, reserved, back to basics series. An absolute INSULT to the prime of this fantastic show.

I wouldn't describe any of: Ann, Amanda, Wayne, Maggie, Rachel, John, Courtney or Shane L as "vapid or soulless", to be honest, and not many of them "desperate fame seekers" either. To complain of fame-seeking on...Celebrity Big Brother seems an odd battle to pick, anyway, but this was one of the casts with a far better ratio of "actual talent vs. wannabes" than most.

You seem pretty unreasonable so I'll just leave it there. I liked it and you didn't.