Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
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Big Brother is a character and symbol in
In modern culture, the term "Big Brother" has entered the lexicon as a synecdoche for abuse of government power, particularly in respect to civil liberties, often specifically related to mass surveillance and a lack of choice in society.[1]
Character origins
There are many theories about the origin of the character. In the essay section of his novel
Additional speculation from Douglas Kellner of the University of California, Los Angeles, argued that Big Brother represents Joseph Stalin, representing Stalinism, and Adolf Hitler, representing Nazism.[3][4] Another theory is that the inspiration for Big Brother was Brendan Bracken, the Minister of Information, a government department in wartime United Kingdom, until 1945. Orwell worked under Bracken on the BBC's Indian, Hong Kong and Malayan Service. Bracken was customarily referred to by his employees by his initials, B.B., the same initials as the character Big Brother. Orwell also resented the wartime censorship and need to manipulate information which he felt came from the highest levels of the Minister of Information and from Bracken's office in particular.
The idea of Big Brother could be also borrowed from the 1937 H. G. Wells novel Star Begotten, in which "Big Brother" is referenced as a fictitious example of "mystical personifications" able to easily manipulate the common man,[5] as well as the Soviet Union, where there was an ideology of 'brotherly nations' or 'brotherly countries'. Russia presented itself as a big brother who watches over its younger brothers (other nations). The ideological word 'big brother' or 'older brother' was very well known and used in the Soviet Republics before and after the Second World War.[6] In the "Circe" episode of James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) the prophet Elijah addresses God as "Big Brother up there, Mr President".[7]
Portrayal in the novel
Existence
In the novel, it is never explicitly indicated if Big Brother is or had been a real person, or is a
. Big Brother is described as appearing on posters and telescreens as a man in his mid-forties. In Party propaganda, Big Brother is presented as one of the founders of the Party.At one point, Winston Smith, the protagonist of Orwell's novel, tries "to remember in what year he had first heard mention of Big Brother. He thought it must have been at some time in the sixties, but it was impossible to be certain. In the Party histories, Big Brother figured as the leader and guardian of the Revolution since its very earliest days. His exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London".
In the fictional book
Cult of personality
Big Brother is the subject of a cult of personality. A spontaneous ritual of devotion to "BB" is illustrated at the end of the compulsory Two Minutes Hate:
At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmic chant of 'B-B! ... B-B! ... B-B!'—over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'B' and the second—a heavy murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamps of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise.[8]
Though Oceania's
Film adaptations
The character, as represented solely by a single still photograph, was played in the 1954 BBC adaptation by production designer Roy Oxley. In the 1956 film adaptation, Big Brother was represented by an illustration of a stern-looking disembodied head.
In the film starring
Use as metaphor
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Since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the phrase "Big Brother" has come into common use to describe any prying or overly-controlling authority figure and attempts by government to increase surveillance. Big Brother and other
Iain Moncreiffe and Don Pottinger jokingly mentioned in their 1956 book Blood Royal the sentence: "Without Little Father need for Big Brother", referring to the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union.[11]
The worldwide reality television show
The magazine Book ranked Big Brother no. 59 on its "100 best characters in fiction since 1900" list.[13] Wizard magazine rated him the 75th-greatest villain of all time.[14]
The iconic image of Big Brother (played by David Graham) played a key role in
China's Social Credit System has been described as akin to "Big Brother" by detractors, where citizens and businesses are given or deducted good behavior points depending on their choices,[20] though new reports say the system doesn't work that way.[21]
See also
- Big Brother Awards
- Little Brother
- Memory hole
- National Security Agency
- New World Order (conspiracy theory)
- Totalitarianism
References
- ISBN 0787975508.
- ^ Burgess, Anthony (1978). 1985.
- ^ "Douglas Kellner, George F. Kneller Philosophy of Education Chair, UCLA". ucla.edu. Archived from the original on 9 July 2011.
- ^ "From 1984 to One-Dimensional Man: Critical Reflections on Orwell and Marcuse" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 August 2011.
- ^ Wells, H. G.; Star Begotten, Sphere Books, 1937, p. 101–102. "Most of us to the very end are obsessed by infantile cravings for protection and direction, and out of these cravings come all these impulses towards slavish subjugation towards gods, kings, leaders, heroes, mystical personifications like the People, My Country Right or Wrong, the Church, the Party, the Masses, the Proletariat. Our imaginations hang on to some such Big Brother idea almost to the end. We will accept almost any self-abasement rather than step out of the crowd and be full-grown individuals."
- )
- ^ Ulysses p. 478
- ^ a b Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- ^ Dix, Willard (27 December 2017). "Big Data's Influence On College Admission Is Growing". Forbes.
- ^ Lauchlan, Iain (2010). "Laughter in the dark: Humour under Stalin". Press Universitaires de Perpignan.
- ^ Iain Moncreiffe & Don Pottinger (1956). Blood Royal. Thomas Nelson and Sons. p. 18.
- ^ Drotner, Kirsten. "New Media, New Options, New Communities?" (PDF) (PDF). Nordicom. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
- ^ Christine Paik (19 March 2002). "100 Best Fictional Characters Since 1900". NPR.
- ^ Wizard #177
- ^ Remembering the '1984' Super Bowl Mac ad ZDNet, 23 January 2009
- ^ Apple's 'Big Brother' sequel BBC News, 30 September 2009
- ^ William R. Coulson ‘Big Brother’ is watching Apple: The truth about the Super Bowl's most famous ad The Dartmouth Law Journal, 25 June 2009 Archived 25 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Farrell, Nick (9 October 2009). "Steven Jobs is the new Big Brother". the Inquirer. Archived from the original on 10 October 2009.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Gianatasio, David (16 December 2010). "Steve Jobs (once again) cast as Big Brother". AdWeek.
- ^ "Big brother: China's data-driven Social Credit system sounds like a sci-fi dystopia". The National. 26 September 2018.
- ^ "China's social credit score – untangling myth from reality | Merics". merics.org. 11 February 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.