‘Big Brother 15’ live feed spoilers: Talking punishments, Julie Chen, season 16 talk
Now, unless you want to try and analyze GinaMarie’s claims from last night that Elissa wanted to be both Jewish and Canadian, we’re going to move on to Julie Chen’s interesting comments to “Entertainment Tonight” about whether or not the casting should change for next season following the terrible people that were put on this year:
“No, because when Allison [Grodner] came on in season two, we had, purposely, picked Bunky and Kent. Remember Bunky? He was a very open, proud gay man. They also cast this older guy, Kent, who said in his interview that he didn’t approve of homosexuality. The pleasant surprise was that they came out of that house as friends. Kent had never really met anyone gay so he made a blanket judgment of huge segments of the population. That worked in everyone’s favor because Kent became a more well-rounded human being and it was, probably, beneficial to other gay people in America. So the casting hasn’t really ever changed and it shouldn’t change next year. If anything, the ignorance in this house this season was a huge headache for the producers and the network. No one wanted that. We’ve all spent way too many hours dealing with that ugliness.”
We do get what Julie is saying here in that Aaryn didn’t go into interviews making “rice” comments and GinaMarie didn’t drop the n-word during an interview as they were on their best behavior. Chen also made an interesting comment that had the mean girls probably stuck in the game longer, Aaryn would have remained the same awful person she was in the beginning, and attributed her “change” mostly to just her surroundings and desire to stay in the game.
In the end, it’s hard to blame casting for something that they could not be aware of like racism, unless they did something like follow contestants around in the real world for a week without them knowing (pretty impossible). If they had acted horribly in casting, it would have been one thing, but there is no indication that this happened in any form.
It is also important to note that Julie mentions a “next year” as though it is a given. CBS has not renewed the show, and we imagine that they if they do, they probably won’t make a big deal out of it given the backlash. But let’s be realistic here. Do they hate the racist comments? Definitely, but at the same time the show hit a season high for Wednesdays this past week, and last night drew a strong 2.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic despite being up against the NFL season opener. These are awesome numbers for summer, and there is a lot of money in this show in between advertising and the money CBS pulls in from live feed sales, especially without a middleman like SuperPass anymore. The only reason they’d cancel it is if they don’t like the backlash, and at that point someone else would surely buy the rights.
What we personally recommend for next season is bringing back all returning players who you can rely on, and getting “Big Brother” back to what it was: A fun, silly summer game that gets all gamers pumped up. We’ve been mulling cast ideas, but we’ll talk about that more in the next week or so.
As always, we want to hear your thoughts below, and be sure to click here if you want to read more news from “Big Brother 15.”
Photo: CBS
Sharon
September 8, 2013 @ 1:45 am
I love this show – hate this season! It was so boring and way to many floaters. I am not sure any of the people left in the house deserve to win the money. I hope if the show is picked up next season it has a better cast. A winter season would be great as well and maybe let America vote for the 14 house guests from seasons past to have another all star cast.
Disappointed
September 7, 2013 @ 6:50 am
This season of Big Brother had no entertainment what so ever, in fact it made me feel stressed and sad that people can be so nasty for no reason. I have watch BB for years and really looked forward for the season to begin. I understand that BB cant follow people around to see how they are in their real lives but they can do a better background search just as CBS would before hiring anyone, You also speak of the rating which makes me believe that is more important then how the show represents. This season has offended many people who struggle in their every day lives with bullying and prejudices and no matter what CBS posts they are held accountable for what is aired on their station. But once again the almighty dollar is more powerful then to do the right thing. Very sad season
Betsy
September 6, 2013 @ 9:49 pm
All remaining players along with Amanda and Aaryn should not be given any reward for their unacceptable behaviour.
I beg you to give the 2 top prizes to Charity.