Big Brother 2020: Skye Wheatley, Farmer Dave Graham, Lisa Clark beg for ‘real’ people
Former Big Brother housemates have come out of the woodwork ahead of the launch of the new-look season to say what they hope for the upcoming show and what kind of people they want to watch in the house.
Confidential
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Big Brother is coming and former contestants are begging showrunners to televise real people in real situations rather than the over-produced “reality” that has become the norm.
The show is set to make its comeback on Channel 7 soon after vastly different stints at both Channel 10 (2001-08) and Channel 9 (2012-14).
Skye Wheatley, from the final season of the show in 2014, said she doesn’t want to watch fake people, boring people or people just in it for Instagram followers.
“I’m really over seeing people go on those shows purely for Instagram followers,” she told Confidential.
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“I just don’t want to watch any fake people, I want to see genuine people.
“You can totally tell with all those Love Island contestants, no shade, good on them, but I think it’s super obvious that the young people just want an easy career afterwards.
“So it would be good if it’s mixed ages and everyday people that people can relate to.
“And I don’t want to see people who are scared to say certain things. I want to see people being themselves and not be scared to say shit that will offend people.”
Tamarama woman Lisa Clark, also from season 11, said she didn’t want the fake drama reality shows that are more about producers’ manipulation than human interactions.
“A lot of the reason it becomes trash TV is that there would be producers saying ‘If you do this you’ll never have to work again’ or any of that sort of stuff,” she said.
“Big Brother is different in that way because you don’t have feedback from anybody.
“They don’t tell you what to do or say ‘We want you to blow up on screen’.
“You’re just in there living.”
Dave Graham, aka Farmer Dave, made history when he came out as gay on season six of the show (2006) and said it was real life situations that became a conversation all over Australia that made the show so influential.
The other situation that “held a mirror to Australian society”, he said, was the “turkey slapping” incident in his season where two male housemates were evicted for inappropriate sexual conduct.
“That really created a conversation, which I think evolved later into the Me Too movement,” he said.
“The people involved said it was tomfoolery but as a nation we said ‘that’s not OK’ and a lot of people joined that conversation.
“There is a game show attitude that has taken over with reality TV now and it’s about the drama, whereas the reality of a show like Big Brother was enough.
“It was enough to create real conversations around real issues that really impacted in everyday Aussies.
“There was nothing created or drama that was forced.”
Big Brother premieres on Channel 7 soon.