Big Brother is showing just how effortless tolerance can be

When the first episode of Big Brother aired in the summer of 2000, it was met with an audience of around 3.7 million viewers, and a kind of unsettled curiosity. It wasn’t the first example of reality television —the genre encompasses 1964’s Seven Up! as well as long-popular programmes such as Candid Camera and Antiques Roadshow. But the notion, then, of 11 ordinary people sharing a house under the constant, watchful eye of television cameras seemed both terrifying and deeply compelling. Across the 64 days of its airing, it would become Channel 4’s most successful programme.

Big Brother returned this week for its 20th series, drawing a crowd of 2.5 million viewers – all of them, I would imagine, considerably more attuned to the customs of reality TV than we were back in 2000. But what was noticeable in its opening nights was how much this show, perhaps more than any other, holds a mirror up to our points of national debate and discussion – not least to the current conversation around gender.

Over the past 23 years, our appetite for reality has deepened. We have gorged ourselves on singing contests and dancing competitions, interior design battles, hotel makeovers, shows that focus on dating, baking, pottery, nudity, dinner parties, drag queens and more. We have been introduced to “scripted reality” soap operas, following the lives of people in Essex and Chelsea and Newcastle. We have even taken to reality shows in which we watch other people watching television.

Since it began, reality TV has shown that it thrives on conflict – from the Machiavellian plotting of “Nasty Nick” in that first season of Big Brother, to the legendary “Sad Little Life, Jane” episode of Come Dine With Me, via judging panel squabbles, contestant put-downs, the indignity of repeated Bushtucker Trials in the I’m a Celebrity jungle and the seemingly endless rounds of bickering on Love Island.

When Big Brother returned this week on ITV, its 16 housemates seemed determined to avoid the kind of clashes that have fired so many previous seasons. On Monday night, 18-year-old contestant Hallie told her housemates that she was transgender, and not only did the group greet the information warmly, but they also decided it was the perfect moment to share their pronouns, to avoid causing offence to one another during their stay.

It was a striking moment for many reasons. For those who might feel discombobulated by the notion of anyone choosing pronouns, it served as a consummate example of how straightforward and normal the process can be – a small question, alongside “What’s your name?” and “Where d’you come from?” that costs you nothing and can make others feel vastly more at ease.

The effect was also to make those who drag their feet on this matter seem a little contemptible. After all, in the light of such effortless tolerance, it seems rather petty for certain publications to sneer that Big Brother is “going woke” and “ticking boxes” simply because this series includes the show’s first-ever wheelchair user, not to mention a 50-year-old Muslim woman and a disabled DJ.

Big Brother has always offered a pretty diverse range of contestants, including a lesbian ex-nun, a man with Tourette’s, a blind man, a deaf man, and a stockbroker from Kent. Across 20 seasons, it has served as a portrait of contemporary Britain considerably more realistic than most soap operas.

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It has not always been flattering. Series five of Celebrity Big Brother, for instance, saw five white British contestants make racist comments towards an Indian contestant. Other series have seen incidents of racism, bullying and violent arguments. They aren’t pretty, but to see them played out on our screens – analysed, examined, issues explored, has been a way for us to publicly address these subjects, and come to understand how casual racism can be, how easily we can make another feel unwelcome, or targeted, or small.

I have no doubt that over the coming weeks the housemates will find many things to argue about. There will be misunderstandings, drunken rows, the predictable cohabiting frustrations surrounding kitchen hygiene, toilet seat positions and general tidiness. There will likely be romances, rivalries and uninformed remarks. And how they are addressed will say as much about us, and the country we live in, as the disputes themselves.

Already there have been flashpoints. In the opening days of the current series, Glaswegian Olivia attempted to teach her housemates the song “Donald Where’s Your Trousers”, to the broad incomprehension of her fellow contestants. Olivia, who was surprised by their failure to understand her accent, pointed at Yinrun, who was born in Shanghai but lives in Harrogate. “If you didn’t understand me, she’s not going to have no clue what the f*** I just said,” she told them. Even if we’re mastering pronouns, it seems we still have a little further to go before we’re a fully tolerant society.