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One of our favorite summer tv shows is CBS's "Big Brother", a reality show where they put a bunch of people together in a house and make them live together in the valley and vote each other out until there's just one winner. Cameras are everywhere, and almost every move is documented 24/7 and broadcast via the Internet. CBS broadcasts edited versions of the progress twice a week, and Showtime airs live footage from the house three hours a night every night.
Recently booted Amber, a single-mom cocktail waitress from Vegas who dreams of being on "America's Next Top Model", should have been known as the Girl Who Cries At Anything, but now she's just going to be known as America's Next Ignorant Anti-Semite, in part because CBS has refused to allow Amber to answer questions from the press or even talk to the show's worthless host, Julie Chen.
Entertainment Weekly, other journalists and bloggers usually are allowed access to the former houseguests and Chen usually interviews the evictees on her CBS This Morning show, but because of the fact that Amber's comments surfaced on YouTube, the Eye blinked (h/t tv tattle).
You should know right off the bat that EW.com won't be talking to Amber today. First, CBS tried to place huge restrictions on our weekly Q&A by forbidding us to ask Amber questions about her anti-Semitic rant. (Up until this week, anything that occurred inside the house was generally fair game for questioning as long as it wouldn't potentially influence votes in the jury house.) Then, late Thursday, CBS decided that it just wasn't going to make Amber -- or any other future evictee, for that matter -- available for interviews until after the finale. Of course we hoped that if the nation's trusty reporters and bloggers couldn't ask the hard questions to Amber, then at least Julie ''the journalist'' would -- that is, until we remembered that moment during BB4 when Julie allowed Erika to walk away without holding her accountable for her little ''fresh off the boat'' comment about Jee. Sure enough, BB missed a rare opportunity to play the grownup and discuss what we've all been wondering about. - EW
When CBS laid down the new rules for the press talking with Amber, the Associated Press wrote a nice big piece questioning the network. Now that CBS won't even let their own Julie Chen sit down with the waitress it not only reflects poorly on the suits over there, but it only adds fuel to the fire that Chen is not the quasi-journalist that she pretends to be, and every bit the trophy wife to Les Moonvies that some view her as.In regards to reality shows, CBS should simply keep it real and embrace the monster that they've helped create.
After the jump, more of Amber's ignorance.
