Big Brother

Big Brother

Everyone is familiar with these reality shows that have been syndicated worldwide. The format is always the same. Twenty odd people are thrown into a loft and have to compete for survival. At first it’s like a big social party. You meet decent ecclectic people from all walks of life and you have fun getting to know them. You exchange ideas, play sport, have dinners and scintillating conversations. However, reality soon sets in as the first house guest is eliminated, and week after week another one bites the dust. The goal is to have one sole man standing at the end, who usually wins some huge prize, like a million dollars or a trip around the world. Slowly but surely the people in the house start making secret alliances, lying and manipulating one another, sizing each other up as the stakes get higher and higher. Sooner or later your head will be on the block too! and you must fight for the right to stay one more blessed week in the dream house. Big Brother is constantly watching, thinking of a way to build up tensions between candidates, making them jump through hoops, breaking them down, making them cry, beg, steal, do anything to survive. Yes, survival is paramount. You mistrust everyone else as you wait and hope not to be voted out. Ok, I did get kind of hooked on the latest American version on my recent stay in the United States. I found myself tuning in to see what the latest bizarre twist would be. I laughed at the ludicrous peripetia.

Now I have realized I am actually a cast member of the real life show here in beautiful Metz, France. I’m not stupid. I’ve known for a long time there are a certain number of really cool expat Anglophones from all walks of life competing for lucrative or not so lucrative posts teaching English in schools all around the area. Secrets and one-upmanship are de rigueur here. Some rise, some fall, if you don’t like the conditions, if the kitchen is too hot, you can always quit and opt out. Yet, the prize is our livelihood. Some 20, 30, 40 or 50 dollar per hour classes that enables us to live dignified and have a rosé party together during those good times. But some rise, some fall. Someone’s head is always on the block. Some big brother manipulates us too, prefers A to B, and B to C, all for unknown reasons or really just basically because he can. Day after day there are competitions, networking, alliances, pacts, back rubbing or back stabbing, and gift giving galore. I take the conciliatory high road, refusing to play the game, treating the people as friends and enjoying their company for who they are, yet fully knowing I have no choice but be part of this crazy circus. I guess in Big Brother talk they would refer to me as the floater. In general, it has worked out pretty well for me. I’ve been on the block a few times, but I’ve been taken off at the last minute. Do I celebrate it? Yes and no. Rising on the demise of others feels dirty.

his week it is so apparent how awful this game has become, and how fake the smiles on our faces can be. First, I was put on the block with a dear alliance member, someone who has been with me through the thick and the thin. No one knows why this happened. Another Big Brother diabolic plan? The fortune teller does take delight in spewing her venom, doesn’t she? True intentions shall never be revealed. I shutter to think! My partner will have to fight to move heaven and earth to survive, but unfortunately that can only occur by taking me down. All for 40 or 50 dollars and a pitiful class anyway. I shall take the high road once more and refuse categorically to play. Either way I’m hurt. Then, tonight, I heard the second shocker. One of our house members actually was cruelly eliminated from the real game, the gift of life, succumbing to a secret battle with cancer he didn’t share with any of us. His tragic death shows us we are all mortal. There are so many little pleasures he will never again experience. However his ashes not yet cold, the house is battling for the lucrative posts he left behind. Too bad. Someone has to do it, they say. Why not me? I'm here and I'm alive!

Karl Marx once said that the tragedy of capitalism is that the capitalist having taken for himself all the world’s riches and resources maliciously forces the have nots to compete with each other for the pittance that remains. Brother against brother, cousin against cousin, friend against friend. In the rat race he who refuses to play the game, loses out anyway. It’s the survival of the fittest, they say. One burocrat, a head of a prestigious language school in Metz once said: “English professors are like apples on a tree. You don’t like them, pitch them and shake the tree. Another one is sure to fall.” So when can we evict the big brothers in the world?