Original scientific paper

PERFORMATIVE ELEMENTS IN "BIG BROTHER" (Summary)

Korana Radman

Abstract

This paper tries to shed a different light on the "Big Brother" phenomenon as it tries to
imply some of the ideas which have inspired performance theories. Up until now from
the academic point of view the "Big Brother" phenomenon was mostly frowned upon,
considered generally a bad influence or yet another product of late capitalism. Emphasising its connections to the economic and political forces which are trying to
control the innocent auditorium through the media, "Big Brother" has been presented as a none dimensional field of research with only one possible model. The idea of this paper was to introduce performance theory into the study of "Big Brother" in hope that it would induce different points of view not just for the phenomenon itself but for the postmodern media in general. The article is based on the understanding that the performances are symbolic acts which can be considered as texts because they convey meanings to their public. Taking that into consideration, this paper tried to recognise some of the communicative strategies through the performances of "Big Brother" housemates. Three levels of performance were recognised in the fourth season of "Big Brother" on the Croatian RTL TV station. On the first, most general level, the author emphasises the performative attributes of the series as well as the postmodern media itself. On the second level the performance of gender in "Big Brother" is underlined, which is especially important since it includes the appearance of the first homosexual person in the Croatian series. The performative aspect of gender is used to explain how and why the non-dominant gender performance is unacceptable to others, primary male housemates. Finally, on the third level it is shown how individual performance is interpreted as part of a wider strategy to fit amongst others in the "Big Brother" house and potentially to win the sympathies of the viewers.

Keywords

performance theories; "Big Brother"; reality TV

Hrčak ID:

34635

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/34635

Publication date:

15.2.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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