American Big Brother In A Flap About Autistic ‘Retards’

Doesn't matter where you're from, Big Brother always manages to recruit some heavy-duty arsehandles.

In the UK, Big Brother mainly comes undone whenever racism is brought up - sometimes to the extent where entire South Asian subcontinents communally burn little wicker Jade Goodys.

Not in America, though - mental illness is their thing. The latest season of Big Brother there has come under fire because a housemate called Adam decided to reveal that he thinks all autistic people are 'retards' who have bad haircuts. Which is remarkably insensitive, given that up to 85% of all Big Brother housemates worldwide are probably a little bit retarded themselves.

What? It's true.

As much as Big Brother is a colossal parade for attention-seeking dickwipes who'd stab their own parents to death with a dildo if it meant that they'd get just one picture in a magazine for it, you have to admit that it's pretty good at focusing people on issues.

As we've said, in Britain Big Brother helped to raise awareness of racism thanks to Jade Goody's chronic bullying of Shilpa Shetty, while Australian Big Brother made sure that people stopped and thought twice before they rammed their balls into womens' faces.

But generally mental illness is an issue avoided for the most part, partly because no housemate would ever be stupid enough to air their controversial views on such a thorny subject in front of millions of viewers, and secondly because to even want to go on Big Brother in the first place you'd need to have a fairly hefty case of some low-level personality disorder yourself. 

In America, though, Big Brother has wound up in trouble with an Autism charity thanks to a weird little outburst by a housemate called Adam, who apparently works with mentally disadvantaged children. The Associated Press reports that, when asked what he'd spend his potential Big Brother-winning cash on, Adam replied that:

he would spend his winnings on a hair salon for people with developmental disabilities "so retards can get it together and get their hair done." His partner, Sheila, told him: "Don't call them that." Adam responded: "Disabled kids. I can call them whatever I want. I work with them all day, OK?"

Which is fair - it's your right as a worker to call stuff whatever you like. For example, when we worked in a pet shop we used to call kittens 'Furry Little Tossers' and it was OK because we worked there. Similarly, nobody batted an eyelid at the nursing home when we'd refer to the guests as 'Smelly Almost-Dead Wrinkleshits'. And, honestly, you should hear the things we say about you.

However, Autism charities haven't taken Adam's progressive viewpoint lying down and are demanding that Big Brother broadcaster CBS apologises for Adam's outburst, something that it isn't keen of doing very much, only releasing a nondescript statement to try and calm everyone down:

"We certainly find the statements made by Adam to be offensive but believe they were countered by the immediate reaction of shock and condemnation from a fellow houseguest, Sheila… Adam's remarks would not have been permitted to air unchallenged."

So what looks likely to happen now is that Adam will get evicted from Big Brother at the first opportunity, then he'll be fired from his job for the brainlessness of his remarks. And you know what? That's the worst thing that could happen.

Remember that, regardless of the words he chose to explain it, Adam wanted to use his Big Brother prize money to build a special hairdressers for autistic children. Now that he's clearly not going to win, those poor kids are just going to have to struggle on through life with their rubbish badly-conditioned haircuts. Their loss.

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Autism Group Demands Apology From CBS - Associated Press