PASADENA, Calif. — Despite the fact that it has cameras running 24 hours a day, there has been some criticism of the voyeuristic CBS summer series "Big Brother" for distorting reality. Apparently, however, that criticism is misplaced.
William Collins, a k a Will Mega — the first house guest to be expelled from "Big Brother" — is as overbearing, obnoxious and unrelentingly difficult in person as he was on the show. His housemates, who nominated him for expulsion, and the viewers who voted him out can only be commended.
At the news conference with television critics gathered here, Collins showed up carrying Scriptures, the book "48 Laws of Power" (by Robert Green), a dictionary, a huge attitude and at least a bit of paranoia. He said he brought the dictionary because "Malcolm (X) taught us the importance of the dictionary when we would be using the words of our enemy." (Oh, he also had bodyguards and indicated he was armed. "I believe in my God and I believe in my gun," Collins said.)
And who are his enemies? "Those who oppose God," he said. "The unrighteous. The evil."
Which seems less high-minded when you take into account that Collins caused controversy not only within the house — where he seemed to rub just about everybody the wrong way at one time or another — but outside as well, when it was revealed that he had been a member of the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense, a group whose leader has espoused anti-white, anti-Semitic views. (Collins had not previously revealed this fact about his past to CBS or the show's producers.)
He avoided answering directly when asked if he considered white people and Jews his enemies. "If white people and Jews fall in that category, then they would know that, if those are their actions," he said, again refusing to specify what he considered evil or unrighteous.
And, despite repeated opportunities to do so, Collins refused to distance himself from his association with the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense and its leader, saying only that he had spoken to Minister Khalid Abdul Muhammad and that what transpired in that conversation should remain "behind closed doors."
Muhammad criticized Collins last week for associating too closely with the women in the "Big Brother" house, but whether Collins took umbrage, he refused to say. "I don't want to allow the press to play Don King between me and brother minister," he said, completely missing the point that he was being given a chance to repudiate the racism and anti-Semitism Muhammad has espoused.
And he sees himself as the victim of a conspiracy of some kind to "out" him for his New Black Panther Party past.
"I'm not surprised where the leak came from — the NYPD. And we know they hold the focus of the world (for) police brutality right now," said Collins, adding that he's "one who stands up against police brutality" — and that he's headed back to his hometown of Philadelphia "where there's extreme police brutality issues taking place now."
While this has turned into a media firestorm, it's not what got Collins voted out of the house. And the same behavior that got him tossed was on display for critics — he was argumentative, condescending and self-centered.
He apparently didn't quite understand that the point of the news conference was for him to answer questions — at one point he demanded one critic tell him everything she had written about him before he'd speak. Shortly thereafter, he asked a black writer to stand, saying, "I want to see you because I ain't seen too many black people in a while. . . . I want to get some love."
He couldn't even give a simple answer to a question about what book of scripture he was carrying, obfuscating for several minutes before simply saying it was the Bible.
He complained that "Big Brother" didn't show a complete picture of him, but said, "All the confrontations were real, absolutely real." At the same time, he admitted that he was "aware that the camera's there, and I was aware, as part of my strategy, that in order to win, you had to be entertaining." And that some of his behavior was "to liven it up and make it a bit entertaining."
Yet he complained that such incidents were played up on the TV show, calling it a "major imbalance."
The show's producer, Paul Romer, took issue with that, pointing out that, at most, only 22 minutes out of 24 hours make it on the air in a day. "We only identify the highlights," he said. "We take them, edit them together and that's the show. Let's say we did the opposite. If we edited out all the confrontations and we only showed William praying in the morning and praying before dinner, that would not be reality, and we would harm the whole idea behind the show."
Collins denied that he went out of his way to antagonize the housemates and get himself expelled. "My competitive nature makes me want to win at everything that I engage in. Absolutely," he said. "And the boredom was striking me a bit rough because the people weren't engaging me. And there wasn't enough mental stimulus there for me." Poor guy.
Collins wouldn't say who he thought would end up winning on "Big Brother," but he did narrow the field a bit. His picks for the final three are Cassandra, Eddie and Josh.
At least we know it won't be Collins.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com