Emma is Gone

[Danniiboy]

Emma won't be returning to the BB house. They felt it was the best all round decision to prevent any further upset. it was kinda inevitable, but a tad unfair. She was a loose cannon but other housemates were just as much to blame as she is. I bet Jason and Victor are well pleased now...

[adam]

Its a fucking joke.

[hundredweight]

I think the decision had more to do with Emma's wellbeing than punishment. By all accounts she's had a bit of a meltdown and I interpret her behaviour on fight night as not just anger but her being unstable.

Her parents have been demanding she be removed from the house anyway, and the rumour mill suggests that the psychologists have been in with her over the past couple of days which probably led to the decision to remove her.

End of the day, I think Endemol are realising that in the interests of 'good tv' they put people - namely Emma - in the house who weren't stable enough to handle it and now that the chickens have come home to roost (oh, the high-minded punnery!) are going to do their best to save their asses from major legal hassle.

[adam]

I love how it says "gone" below her name on the BB website. Almost like it was her decision. But perhaps it was, maybe she'd had enough.

[moondial]

I can't help thinking the plan was always to evict her but they kept her in the bedsit so they could get ratings for the weekday shows without needing to do an eviction show.

Why keep her isolated from everyone for three days and then say they were getting rid of her at the end.

Anyway her eviction special is on Sunday. And Marco's harem is now down to three.

[Jen]

This is just crap. It's vile and abusive Victor who should be gone, not Emma. I wanted her to win.

[ste]

All the housemates are stupid. Emma was the stupidest, an ignorant, hyperactive girl who can't control herself when she's drunk. But from the moment she became an ignoratn, hyperactive, racist, she stopped being funny, and started being dangerous. Mainly because Victor's stupid too, and for all his playa-traits, doesn't have the sense to realise that turning the other cheek is a better game tactic than trying to attack a girl.

He is clearly a hideous, reprehensible character. But then they all are, and Emma's no better, and there's no way the two of them could live in the same house and there be alcohol again. And if you're defending Emma, I wonder if you can as easily defend what she said on Thursday night.

Besides, I would imagine she has been given some form of compensation, either financial or iin terms of assurance that what she said won't make it onto a highlights package.

[zaffra]

ste said:

All the housemates are stupid. Emma was the stupidest, an ignorant, hyperactive girl who can't control herself when she's drunk. But from the moment she became an ignoratn, hyperactive, racist, she stopped being funny, and started being dangerous. Mainly because Victor's stupid too, and for all his playa-traits, doesn't have the sense to realise that turning the other cheek is a better game tactic than trying to attack a girl.

And if you're defending Emma, I wonder if you can as easily defend what she said on Thursday night.

What did she say? I presume something considered racist? but what exactly, she did say somthing about Victor 'acting like a big black man' is that it? or did she really let fly?

She was one of the least articulate twenty year olds I've ever seen.

[Sparkle]

After her total hissy-fit when she was still in the bedsit with Michelle and started screaming, "Get me out of here, I can't stay in here any longer," I think her days were numbered.

In my Sunday splurge of reading the tabloids, I saw a little titbit of info about the fight, which said that Victor was holding a knife at some stage. Now, obviously I took this with a pinch of salt, but it would make sense of Stuart's diary room request to take all the knives out of the house. Anyone know if it's true or not?

[trollte]

"So," came Davina's final question. "What has the Big Brother experience taught you?"

"Nothing," Emma grinned, "nowt."

"Any deep inner realisations or spiritual awakening?" wondered Davina.

"No," came the reply.


And we wonder why the prison system doesn't work...

[Sparkle]

I'm not sure Emma has any depths to realise. It was desperately embarrassing just watching her try to hold a conversation with Davina.

[Robbing the Dead]

Sparkle said:

After her total hissy-fit when she was still in the bedsit with Michelle and started screaming, "Get me out of here, I can't stay in here any longer," I think her days were numbered.

In my Sunday splurge of reading the tabloids, I saw a little titbit of info about the fight, which said that Victor was holding a knife at some stage. Now, obviously I took this with a pinch of salt, but it would make sense of Stuart's diary room request to take all the knives out of the house. Anyone know if it's true or not?

If he was holding it in a threatening way (like "I'm gonna slice you up one time" I think they'd have kicked him out. It would be been wicked if he knifed someone! Like Dan. We overreact in this country too much. I'm sure if the same has happened in any other country they wouldn't have had the pO-lice involved. I blame the Daily Mail. They are alwasy trashing BB and looking down their noses at it, but every week they still have a little artilce about who was evicted. Wankers.

[Floss]

I am reliably informed by the Daily Mirror that it was a butter knife, and that Emma was not scared by it.

Also reliably informed by the same paper that Emma didn't mean to say "Black man" she meant to say gangster.

[zaffra]

Floss said:

Also reliably informed by the same paper that Emma didn't mean to say "Black man" she meant to say gangster.

But what's wrong with sayng 'Black man'? or even saying someone is 'acting like a big black man'? This isn't racism.

[ste]

zaffra said:

But what's wrong with sayng 'Black man'? or even saying someone is 'acting like a big black man'? This isn't racism.

yes it is. the implication is that there's a specific way big black men act.

[zaffra]

ste said:

yes it is. the implication is that there's a specific way big black men act.

Okay I'm wrong

but if she said Gangster it would be okay? what about Gangsta?

[stormy]

ste said:

yes it is. the implication is that there's a specific way big black men act.

That's not racist! I'm a black man, and if someone said that to me, I wouldn't be offended. We all know what she meant - that he was acting like a 'stereotypical' image of a black man. That's like saying somebody was acting 'gay' is homophobic.

At the end of the day he is acting like some twisted stereotype of what black men in certain areas of London are like.

[hundredweight]

Well, given that the word gangster connotes certain actions and characteristics and one makes a concious choice to become a gangster, it's fine.

[ste]

Stormy said:

That's not racist! I'm a black man, and if someone said that to me, I wouldn't be offended. We all know what she meant - that he was acting like a 'stereotypical' image of a black man. That's like saying somebody was acting 'gay' is homophobic.

At the end of the day he is acting like some twisted stereotype of what black men in certain areas of London are like.

Dictionary.com: "The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others."

Whether you think it's offensive racism* or not... well, that's different. But racism means discriminating between races, which is what she was doing.

The homophobia thing is interesting, actually, because there's a subtle difference between a -phobia and an -ism. I'm not saying Emma loathes black people - I don't think for a second she does. But her sentence implies there's some difference between big black men and big white men, which is dictionary-defined racism.

*and now we're into jim davidson territory.

[Floss]

ste said:

Dictionary.com: "The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others."

The key word in that definition is "and." Racism, just like other -isms, is the belief that race or sex or whatever accounts for differences in the way humans behave (that bit's the stereotype bit) AND that a particular race is superior to others.

Emma didn't say you're behaving like a big black man and that's worse than behaving like a big white man, she just said you're behaving like a stereotype. Which isn't racist.

Isn't this fun, we could argue this for months...

[moondial]

I like the way the thread has turned into a debate on whether a comment someone made in Big Brother is racist or not but has does so in a language the person who made the original comment couldn't even begin to understand.

[ste]

Floss said:

The key word in that definition is "and."

Good point. You could argue the superiority was implicit in the way Emma said it, though. It was meant as an insult, right?

[adam]

Has anyone seen the footage of Emma making this comment?

Moving on.. she appeared a bit more normal on todays big brother, except for when she was dancing around and making stupid faces for no apparant reason.

Has anyone else heard the way some of her words get jumped up and become a complete blur, like some kind of whale noise. V odd.

[Floss]

ste said:

Good point. You could argue the superiority was implicit in the way Emma said it, though. It was meant as an insult, right?

I don't think so - I did see the footage of Emma making the comment, and while it made me gasp, we immediately realised that what she meant was stop behaving like a stereotypical gangster. I don't think she meant because that's bad, or inferior, but just that it's bloody hard to understand at the best of times, but especially in an argument.

I guess we'll never know why she said it, nor is it particularly fair of us to be judging whether or not she's racist, but I am enjoying the debate. And loving the picture in the "Emma's no Racist" thread!