Date: 29th August 2000

Is Big Brother Dangerous To Your (Mental) Health?


A British psychiatrist warned Monday that contestants on the country's version of Big Brother are being represented on the air as freaks and are being placed in "a psychologically stressful and even dangerous situation."

Noting that conflict is the essence of dramatic entertainment, Dr. Raj Persaud, a consultant psychiatrist at London's Maudsley Hospital, told reporters: "To entertain us it needs to be mentally damaging to them. That's the source of the drama."

His comments came as one of the contestants evicted from the Big Brother house complained that she and her fellow contestants had been "betrayed" by the show's producers and were never warned about the editing process.

Saying that she herself was "typecast" Sada Walkington told reporters at the Edinburgh International TV Festival, ""We were built up to be something we weren't. We weren't told we were going to be manipulated as personalities. We're all tough enough to cope but you get an edited view of the individual."

Source: Studio Briefing