BB star wants "reality" check

Former Big Brother celebrity contestant Germaine Greer has said that children should be taught how to watch reality TV so they can understand how tele

16:04 29 August 2005

Former Big Brother celebrity contestant Germaine Greer has said that children should be taught how to watch reality TV so they can understand how television producers can manipulate the "reality" it represents.

Addressing the Edinburgh TV Festival, Greer told an audience that her experience in the Big Brother house had taught her that all television imagery "can be slanted".

The feminist claimed that producers of the reality TV show had edited footage to "direct attention to particular people and present them as winners," the BBC reports.

She said that school children should be taught how to "interpret" television images and warned that viewers should be aware they were "being shown a strange reality" when watching the box.

"I am not here to blame television for anything," Greer said.

"But I am concerned that consumers of TV are not the discriminating, criticising consumers of TV they ought to be."

Greer quit the Big Brother house early after being filmed 24 hours a day for the Channel 4 series, along with other celebrities including racing pundit John McCririck and DJ Lisa I'Anson.

She accused the shows producers of using "superior bullying tactics" during the filming of the series and claimed those contestants selected as "winners" by programme editors had to "really screw up big time to tip out of the frame".

She also suggested that Big Brother's constant surveillance of the show's contestants could have a sinister effect on them and make them behave out of character, citing the example of recent housemate Kinga Karolczak performing a sex act during the latest series of the reality programme.