We crap on about her intelligence because she’s demonstrated it to us. Tim never even completed his degree, but that still didn’t stop me from being able to see that he was by far the smartest contestant of last series. A person’s education can only tell you so much about their overall intelligence. It’s OK if you don’t feel she is as intelligent as people say she is, but I think it is unfair of you to try and dismiss her intelligence based purely on where she chose to go to school and her chosen vocation and I don’t think it’s fair to assume that she just wasn’t “good enough” simply because she found a way to gain the equivalent accreditation necessary at a less reputable institution, then used that to gain entry elsewhere. You’re making a lot of assumptions based on this and it comes across as a bit elitist, even though that may not be your intent. University courses are expensive – and Priya herself has admitted that she has struggled financially in the past. There is no shame in going to somewhere such as a “community college” to complete the equivalent coursework to save money, then transferring those credits in order to take up further study at a university. Just because she didn’t study something “respectable” like Law, that in no way is a measure of her competence, how much effort she has put in or how intelligent she is. She is clearly an educated person, by any Australian standard. You say she doesn’t even have “street smarts”, yet I can see an incredibly savvy and perceptive woman with a great deal of common sense, as opposed to the oh so intelligent sCat, who still somehow managed to screw up the relatively simple task of maintaining a good reputation and some semblance of dignity on national television.
That’s true, though I think Priya has an amazing presence, and I am always interested in hearing her thoughts and perceptions on what’s going on inside the house. She might not be as “in your face” as the other housemates, but it’s clear that she serves an important role in that house. She doesn’t need to rap, shout, scream or stick another man’s toes in her vagina to make her presence felt. Even in silence, the blessed mother exudes a dignified aura of splendour and majesty. In spite of the limited footage we get fed by Channel 9, she’s still been a major focus these past two weeks, and she is always slaying social media. To paraphrase her own words, her presence is felt, and her absence even moreso. Not everybody might feel it, and that’s OK, but there are plenty of us who do.
Perhaps it’s just my inner cynic shining through, but I think it’s pretty obvious that a large percentage of people in this country hold racist attitudes. Whether we like it or not, we have a reputation internationally for being racist. Racism, sexism and anti-intellectualism are all pervasive in our society, and many of the things I've seen happen in this country over the past few years tell me this. Yes, it’s a blanket statement, and obviously a great number of people in this country are good, decent, caring people, such as yourself – I do apologize if anybody is offended by that, but I think most people will see that I wasn’t referring to them. There are good stereotypes and there are bad stereotypes – the racist Australian is one of our bad ones, but stereotypes do often hold some degree of truth. And yes, I believe that the perception and attitude of people in Australia to the boat people is VERY relevant to a discussion on racist attitudes in Australia, because it provides a contemporary example of these attitudes at play. Priya doesn’t have to be a boat person for it to be relevant to the point that I was making about racism in Australia. You’re absolutely right that anybody who is not indigenous could be considered a “foreigner” in this country, yet even aboriginal people are still too often the target of racist remarks and attitudes from certain people, even though they are the ones who were here first. Unfortunately, as you say bigotry is rife in any country, but it becomes a HUGE issue in a multicultural society such as ours to the point that it shows up in even something as relatively innocuous as a reality television show.
Of course she and Tim are not the same person, but I do see similarities in terms of their perceptiveness of other people, their drive and their individualist mentality. Tim played the game completely different to the way Priya is doing it – it’s going to be hard for anybody to top the way he played it last series and Priya is perceptive enough to realise that she won’t have the same broad appeal that Tim did, so she can’t afford to be as reckless or have such an all or nothing mentality as he did. Even though Tim claims he knew he would win after Ben was evicted, he never really knew until he had taken the show out, and had Jade received 2% more of the vote, he wouldn't have. Priya knows she can win it, but she also is perceptive enough to realise that there’s only so much within her power that she can do to achieve that. Why not have some guaranteed rewards along the way? Not everybody has the same end goal. Tim wanted the crown, he wanted the glory. Priya wants “whatever she can get”, and whether that means the win, or just some attention to feed her ego, a bit of cash and some life experience – who cares, she’ll take it.
That’s probably true, regarding Priya using BB to test out her social intelligence. I do understand the difference between book smarts and street smarts, but I don’t think intelligence can or should be categorized so broadly, nor do people have to fit into any one category.
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I appreciate you taking the time to reply to mine too, Kismet. Discussions like these are part of what makes these forums interesting for me, and I hope you haven’t taken anything I have stated personally, as I really do not mean to offend, or to make offensive generalizations. We see different things in different people, and that’s not a bad thing. Like I said, once this season is over, we won’t care too much one way or another… if it weren’t for Priya, I probably wouldn’t care at all. It hasn’t been the best of seasons for me – supporting Priya is one of the few ways I’ve been able to engage with this series.
