Not amused: Bobby Brown in court for non-payment of fines in February. Photograph Nancy Lane/AP
No stranger to controversy, Bobby Brown the thinking man's Mark Morrison) once again appears as a blip on our scandal radar. His insane outburst at Jamie Campbell during the making of 24 Hours With appeared on the internet at the weekend and demonstrates that the wife-beating, coke-snorting jailbird's relationship with reality is becoming increasingly strained. Enraged at an innocuous prison love joke, Brown twice threatens to "fuck [Campbell] up". While there's undoubted comic value in watching Campbell attempting to Louis Theroux his way out of the situation as Brown seethes (apparently believing he has signed up for an inter-racial remake of Brokeback Mountain), it makes for uncomfortable viewing.
To me, it's a further warning sign that somebody is going to get seriously hurt as reality TV shows become ever more irresponsible in the mix of volatile personalities and high-pressure situations they engineer. While producers pay lip-service to ideas of morality and responsibility their actions have never backed this up. The excerpts from Narinder Kaur's Big Brother book in Sunday's News of the World confirm this. Former housemates testify to depression, suicide attempts and abuse from the public, while lamenting the useless after-care from Endemol. It was plain to everyone that Lea from BB7 was too frail to appear on the show - everyone except the bozos who threw her in there of course.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for fame hungry idiots being put through the mill for our entertainment. And I'm the first to shout "dance, monkey, dance!" at the talent vacuums inhabiting the Big Brother house every summer. But there have to be certain lines we don't cross. These nitwits are people, of a kind, and the way the reality TV industry chews them up and spits them out is making the Hollywood star machine look quite compassionate in comparison. With Big Brother barely a fortnight away and the Shilpa race storm still fresh in the memory it would be nice to think that reality TV could see a cliff-edge without driving over it. But it seems determined to be the thrill-seeking hellcat of broadcasting, regardless of consequences. It debases viewer and participant alike and if it carries on like this I shall stop watching. Just, you know, not yet.
