Goodbye Big Brother … Good bye Big Brother Arabia

So it’s goodbye to big brother UK tonight. The coffin is out the RIP stings adorn the top of the screen and there are people dressed in black waiting for the final wake tonight but frankly tonight I’m saying good bye to Big brother in a completely other light as I’m still getting over a pervious Big Brother death that took place 6 years ago in Bahrain on a small island near the coast of Muharraq.

The ill-fated death of Big Brother Arabia, or ‘The Boss’ as it was affectionately labeled by Endomol who had previously rolled out a similar format twist successfully in Africa,  was elegantly branded by MBC’s award winning Creative department and designed with the type of care and attention to detail rarely applied to a TV show at that time.

It lived (in pre-production terms) for almost 6 months and then once delivered to TV screens across the region, it lasted only 11 days. If it’s nasty and body less death had been predicted by all those people who participated in its creation and production, perhaps it would not have been so hard to see it go in such a confused and chaotic way like an honor killing no one was prepared to take responsibility for.

Unlike UK’s big brother – that is celebrating its achievements, adventures and hours of mind numbing television with the pride of a mother watching their child pick up an achievement award, in a carnivalistic and joyful way, ‘The Boss’ died with no fan fair or learning’s. Actually it died under an invisible cloak that shamed and blamed the program & pointed to its contestants, producers and TV station for threatening Islam, with one woman quoted on the BBC for calling it ‘Television for Animals’.

Ironically, ‘Television for Animals’ was exactly what it was not , as the programs intentions were of being a program that joined the dots between region, showing young people (mostly for the first time) that it was possible to be a young person, practice your faith and have a conversation with the opposite sex without being banished to damnation. The 12 Big Brother Pan Arab contestants gave young people in the region a chance to see what other young people in other Arab countries were thinking, doing & feeling at a time when no other program in the region had. In 2010 reality shows with girls and boys from all over the Arab world living in one place all trying to win the singing, fashion, performance or even marriage competition they are part of are a dime a dozen but back in 2004, Big Brother was a trail blazer, acting as a litmus test to the world. It aimed to bridge the gap between the old and new generations to show that respect, tradition and modernity were possible if you listened or looked at the spirit of what these people in the house were up to for those 11 days. The talked about religion and explained one another’s faiths though the simple act of preparing food, they talked about family, and their aspirations for the future. If that made the program, ‘television for animals’ I am not quite sure what that lady would make of television today.

To say the death of ‘The Boss’ was a seriously missed opportunity to reach out to a planet of switched on moderate young Arabs is an understatement. With a reach of over 2 million + viewers per episode, it could have been the Facebook of its time, doing more for cross cultural communications then a peace summit. It could have offered fresh role models and public debates that would have paved the way for better co- existence between counties and generations.
Now if you will excuse me… I have a TV funeral to attend.