Orangesanlemons said:
Oooh, just watching the 'Oxo' argument. Another 'shit' reference from Jade to back up Louloubelle's arguments about subconcious racism/references to faeces. Interesting, I've been hearing this since BB5 and I'm starting to come round to the theory... it really does seem to surface in every race-related argument.
The thing is that references to dirt / filth / faeces / contamination / vermin are common features of racist propaganda / attacks and also of (usually unconsious)
envious attacks.
I just want to say a bit more about the envious attacks and my understanding of their features
The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein worked with very troubled very young children and used play technique to understand the children's anxieties and unconscious phantasies. Play technique is a variation of the free association used in adult phsycoanalysis in which very young children who have a very limited vocabulary are left to express themselves freely using a variety of toys. Klein hypothesised that envy features very powerfully in the unconscious minds of very disturbed young children and also of adults.
The envy is usually directed towards a phantsy* object. The most common objects are
a) a withholding breast which is the source of all goodness but which keeps its milky wonderfulness for itself, inducing envious rage in the infant
b) a combined parent figure which may be experienced as enjoying an exlusive and exciting orally gratifying milky goodness from which the infant is excluded, inducing envious rage
The infant uses his or her only weapons to attack the envied object. The infant uses an oral attack, biting with teeth, and also uses their faeces and urine, which are experienced as being powerful weapons.
You often see this in adults. People will join together to viciously attack and bully someone who they envy. You can't underestimate the malice of these attacks. They will agree that the person is shit, scum, dirty, rubbish, they talk shit, their art/ music/ work / whatever is shit. The metaphors and references are to do with shit and filth. You can identify envious attacks by the metaphots and language that people use.
Now with Shilpa things are complicated because the shitty metaphors are very well known for being associated with racist attacks and IMO there are definite racist overtones to the bullying.
There is another, I think, reason why Shilpa is being bullied, and that is that she has the ability to think and to speak eloquently.
Now, why might Shilpa's eloquence and capacity to think enrage people? Well Klein would have said that this eloquence and capacity to think can invoke envious attacks because it resonates
at an unconscious level with oedipal rage relating to the infant being exluded from the parent's intercourse.
The person who can think and speak (and let's face it the bullies in BB are not renowned for their ability to, think / reflect / speak knowledgably) can be experienced unconsciously as representing all that is desired for yet that which is withheld and from which the infant is excluded.
A person with the ability to think, reflect and speak knowledgably can be subjected to vicious envious attacks by those whose capacity to think and speak is limited.
If you think about the language we use to describe thinking, the words are those we use to describe intercourse and procreation and sometimes also food. To "concieve of", a "conception", "I cannot bear to think about" "a cross-fertilisation of ideas" "food for thought", etc.
The analysts Wilfred Bion and Ronald Britton have written extensively about this. One of Britton's patients famously shouted at him "Stop that fucking thinking!", which helped him to understand that his ability to think during the session was perceived as threatening by the patient as it triggered the patien't oedipal rage at being excluded from the parental intercourse.
To conclude, are tha tracks on Shilpa racist?
I think they are, but I aslo think that they are linked to envy, not just of her beauty, fame, wealth, etc, but to her intellect and eloquence.
*an
unconscious internal object existing only in the mind but experienced as existing in reality in the external world
I saw her on the tube once and she beamed at me and I went 'Teeheehee!' because she is so lovely.
