Reality show reveals raw edge

It’s just another summer in the “Big Brother” house. Or is it?

Bloggers have condemned contestants’ scandalous remarks about incest, race, ethnicity, sex and sexual orientation, with thousands of YouTube watchers eavesdropping on one participant’s unfiltered thoughts about Jewish people.

Message board posters have debated about a physical altercation involving two participants and a lit cigarette.

Should viewers be shocked? The CBS reality show’s motto is, after all, “Expect the unexpected.”

For the past eight summers, “Big Brother” has isolated contestants (or houseguests, as they’re referred to on the show) from the outside world, while under constant surveillance. Once a week, they vote to evict each other.

The “Big Brother 8” winner will be selected live on Sept. 18 and receive $500,000.

With several different versions of the show broadcast in different countries, the made-for-TV claustrophobia has proven endlessly fascinating across the globe – and so has its voyeuristic peep show.

In the United States, in addition to the edited prime-time airings, there’s mostly uncensored access to the house’s cameras on the Internet for $14.99 a month and, for the first time ever, for three hours every night on Showtime Too.

It’s there that viewers can listen to 44-year-old bar manager Richard “Evel Dick” Donato’s unbleeped, expletive-filled tirades against his fellow houseguests.

And it was on the live Internet feed that Amber Siyavus, a 27-year-old cocktail waitress from Las Vegas, told fellow contestant Jameka Cameron, a 28-year-old school counselor from Waldorf, Md., that Jewish people tend to be “really money hungry” and “selfish.”

YouTube videos of that conversation ignited controversy on the Web and beyond, prompting CBS to issue a statement condemning her remarks and refusing to air them in prime time.

“The producers are operating essentially two different realities,” says Andy Dehnart, who blogs about reality TV at realityblurred.com.

“One is for the feed watchers and the Showtime Too watchers at night. The other is on TV.

“They’ve condensed things that aren’t really representative of reality. We can show that Amber has said anti-Semitic things without having to repeat them. We can show Dick is a horrible person without including the words he’s using. But the producers choose not to.”

This season’s drama has boosted “Big Brother” ratings. The Aug. 23 episode, which featured a physical altercation between Donato and 23-year-old nanny/model Jen Johnson, drew 8.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Donato has taunted Johnson verbally all season, once dumping a glass of iced tea on her head.

Things came to a head when, after Johnson threw away some of Donato’s cigarettes, he blew smoke in her face. Then Johnson repeatedly swatted at the lit cigarette in Donato’s hand while telling him to stop trying to burn her.

The tussle was originally censored on Showtime Too’s “Big Brother After Dark” but later was included in the edited CBS prime-time broadcast.

“It was clearly disturbing,” says Dehnart. “It seemed out of left field as we watched it on TV because Jen has been mild-mannered all season long on TV. It ignored the fact that she’s essentially been abused by Dick and others for weeks and weeks, and she finally snapped.”

Neither Donato or Johnson was expelled from the house by producers following the cigarette incident, though Johnson was later evicted by her housemates.

“I definitely think he should’ve been kicked out, but obviously he was definitely entertainment for the show, so that’s why he wasn’t,” Johnson said afterward.

In the past, houseguests have been removed following incidents that were deemed violent or racist.

Earlier this summer, broadcaster Channel 4 expelled a contestant from the British version of “Big Brother 8” after she used a derogatory term about a black contestant.

In January, Britain’s broadcast regulator received a record 44,500 complaints about racist abuse endured by Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty on “Celebrity Big Brother 5.”

During the U.S. edition of “Big Brother 4” in 2003, contestant Scott Weintraub was expelled following a violent outburst in which he threw furniture.

And after holding a knife to another contestant’s throat, houseguest Justin Sebik was removed during the U.S. edition of “Big Brother 2” in 2001.