Entertainment

'Big Brother' sinks to a new low

by Aly Semigran

Feeling sick to your stomach while watching the fascinating, unnervingly timely, but often repulsive Season 15 of Big Brother is almost to be expected at this point. Jeremy's eye-rolling Alpha Male ego and Aaryn's all-around nasty attitude (including spouting all that rampant racism that seems to be so popular in the house this year, along with sexism and homophobia) has left even the most devoted viewers queasy.

Sunday night's episode of BB was a surprisingly dull one with a lot of the same old "drama" we've already seen. (We get it, GinaMarie — you are auditioning for the remake of Misery and Nick is unwillingly going to be the Paul Sheldon to your Annie Wilkes, oh god run Nick run now!)

Thankfully, there seemed to be no overt racism during the new episode (though, I'd argue that Spencer, who wants a revolt against the girls was being his reliable ol' sexist self), but there was still something entirely nauseating to watch: that horrific Have-Not competition.

Now, the past week in the U.S. has been a particularly uncomfortable one for most of its sweaty citizens. Temperatures ranged somewhere between Fire and Brimstone and for so many of us, frozen, tasty treats was one of the few things that actually made it possible to cope and cool off. So I'm grateful that CBS showed this episode after the humidity in the Northeast broke, as it unceremoniously ruined FroYo forever. Oh no.

This week's Have-Not competition forced its contestants to binge eat frozen yogurt right out of a machine. The teams to gain the most weight in the allotted time "won" and avoided being a Have-Nots. Barf. (Quite literally, in poor McCrae's case.)

More Fear Factor than Big Brother, this gluttonous, stomach-turning challenge force-fed the housemates to alternate between a chocolate and vanilla swirl flavor... along with an anchovy and habanero blend. Never mind that this is dangerous and long-dormant nightmare fuel and a damning argument that shows like Big Brother are everything that is wrong with this country (there's actual starving people out there in the world), but, above all, it was just plain revolting to watch. Or, in the words of the great wordsmith GinaMarie, it was "disguising."

Image: CBS