BBB 23: It’s not a crime to have fans, and Amanda’s victory should be celebrated

BBB 23 (Globo) was a bad edition, but attributing the boredom of the program to the crowd that made doctor Amanda the winner of the edition is almost a contradiction. In a show where having fans and being liked by the voting public is the central objective, who can rightly blame her for succeeding in this difficult task?

The truth is that many artists would exchange rows of prizes on their shelves for the fierce and loyal crowd that chose popcorn Amanda, Thelma and Juliette as the winners of their editions.

If victory is won with foul play, of course, it will be condemned. Bots, vote buying and paid mutirões distort results. They are also fruitless, because the fate of those who win, but do not win the affection of the public, is irrelevance. Especially advertising. And, in the age of influencers, there is no more tragic end to a sub-celebrity.

There is, however, no evidence that Amanda benefited from these resources to be the winner. If money, influence and marketing secured the prize, no anonymous would win. And, in this final, the podium would go to a global player like Bruna Griphao, who took third place after numerous pitis in the house.

There are those who argue that Amanda and her deputy, Aline Wirley, are bland. Plants. Boring. Perhaps they are. But who isn’t? Any relatively normal person would be doomed to blend in with the furniture in a house full of narcissists constantly vying with each other to get more on camera. After all, how many of us have Domitila’s charisma? Or her ego?

We laugh at Thaís Braz’s ineptitude in speaking live in 2021, but who among ordinary mortals would hold 30 seconds live on Globo without stuttering? Who would come up with a plot for more than a hundred days locked in a house with strangers, in the midst of boring and repetitive brand activations disguised as exams and parties?

In reality, common sense is confused with boredom. And finding the balance point to please the demanding critics is even more tricky when you’re a woman — part of the audience that turned up their noses at Bruna’s strong temperament also condemns the monotony of Amanda’s plot in the house. After all, what do they want?

It is not surprising that, for the most part, the players considered wronged by the “hysterical” crowd — and mostly female — who made collective efforts to give the prize to Amanda and other winners are also men. Fandom has been ridiculed, as have any hobbies and interests associated with the feminine, since the world has been the world. They are labeled hysteria, futility and lack of things to do. All that’s left is to amend with a fateful “go wash some dishes!”.

They forget that great players who lost the reality show made serious mistakes — this is the case of the charismatic, but not so loyal Gil do Vigor, who went so far as to say maliciously that Juliette used the story of her own sister’s death to victimize herself.

What do Thelma (also honored with the “plant” tag), Juliette and Amanda have in common? They were normal people in their edits: balanced, sensible, clumsy at times, loyal to their own, fair.

Is it pathetic that fans ship an imaginary relationship between Amanda and the fighter kicked out for sexual harassment? Certainly, but even in this there is a similarity, albeit a sad one, with the history of many women in Brazil. Who has never “shipped” a couple and then found out that the prince was a hoax?

The real champion of this edition could be the lovely Sarah Aline — and that’s not me saying it, but the queen of TV, Ana Maria Braga. But Sarah was also branded as a supporting character and a bore for making the unforgivable mistake of being “a normal woman” in a deeply misogynistic and racist country.

It is to be celebrated, at the very least, that this same country has identified itself with the herbaceous Amanda and granted the second victory to a doctor in this pandemic —and not to the supposed Bolsonarism of Key Alves, to the religious intolerance of Gustavo, to the untimeliness of Bruna or to Larissa’s self-centeredness.