It's a very interesting issue, this.

I'm all for feminism, but Janet illustrates the unwelcome notion of unpleasant sniping and bullying being excused away as acceptable examples of female "empowerment" and "honesty."

Think of it this way... If the genders were reversed and it was Paul acting like Janet, and Janet like Paul, would it still seem so acceptable?

Janet is no bully.

If she were "picking on" someone you disliked, you'd all be dancing in the street.

What utter nonsense......

You forgot

l) n. Canned or pickled beef. Also called bully beef.

But true. It can be seen many times in these forums.

Nope...it's utter nonsesne without any support at all....I can't see how anyone would be happy watching Janet bully anyone......

I think the people (me included) who wanted Janet to do well are pretty fed up with the way she has behaved.

Your wrong Veri,
I for one disliked Sophie, and believe it or not was sure i would be a supporter of JSP.


Mouthy and being able to call a "spade a shovel" is ok in my book.

But she joined in with " mob mentality" , picked on the two people who she was sure the public didnt like.

Why didnt she do any straight talking to Sheila who was the laziest in there?
or Natalie who was starving them all but could still only focus on her own plight?

Easy targets and "cheap shots" I really expected more from JSP.

As for Sophie , im still not an avid fan but now i do have respect for her .

I think your wrong there Veri

Sophie was very much disliked on this forum at the start
but as soon as it was seen that she was being picked on
her support for her went up 100 fold on DS

I like JCP very much , and I don't think she is a bully
mouthy yes opinionated yes

I guess it's how one peceives it in the end. Actually I see the weak/lazy as the easy targets and "cheap shots" and the tougher (even though people see them as "nicer") characters as being able to take the "stick" JSP dishes out. But I do understand why others may see it differently, but personally I'd rather see those more able to hack it getting the JSP treatment.

I respect the way they all have handled it btw.

If Janet doesnt come out tonight, I will be interested to see if whoever does come out wants Janet to win.

I believe her heart is in the right place, its just that her mouth lets her down at times.

The "all" part was hyperbole. The rest is true as a general observation, thought it had yet to be demonstrated in this particular case.

Many forumites don't seem to mind when someone is vilified or subjected to cruelty; why should they suddenly mind just because it's Janet doing the inflicting?

What are you talking about? Natalie was the easiest target in the history of "Get me out of here"!

You don't agree with Janet's choice of targets. That's what this is all about, not a general, principled opposition to bullying or anything of the sort.

And when Natalie was being picked on by the public and press, did support for her go up? Of course not! Forumites were too busy joining in the vilification.

Now you expect me to believe that if Janet had picked on Natalie, the reaction would be completely different.
Last edited by Veri : 03-12-2004 at 20:25

It's traditional when someone is being bullied for them to be aware of it....Your claim that Natalie was "bullied" by this forum and the press hold no weight whatsoever......Also the theory that she was "bullied" by the voters is very dodgy in that she earned her trials by her sheer lack of effort........

Thats' not what I said.


That's not what I said either.

But of course people will pick up on minor, technical differences to jusfity their inconsistencies.

Just to make this even clearer: the Natalie-haters would not have minded if Janet had Natalie as her target. Of course, they would not have called it "bullying" then, beccause calling it "bullying" implies that it's considered wrong, and then they wouldn't have thought it wrong. Instead the would have rejoiced in it.
Last edited by Veri : 03-12-2004 at 20:37

Excuse me...? I've been perfectly consistant.....Your support for Janet's bullying and this belief you have that Natalie was bullied strikes me as the inconsitancy.......

And to answer the editied part......the "Natalie-haters" did not bully Natalie....it;s not possible to bully a contestant of a game show.......

You continue to distort what I said. I don't support Janet's "bullying" behaviour towards Sophie, and I don't say Natalie was "bullied".

Nor did I say the Natalie-haters "bullied" Natalie.

Veri, there's not many people on this forum that are going to agree with your points about Natalie. I think the main difference is that Natalie was not bullied in the camp as Sophie was. It was pretty obvious for us all to see that she was favoured by JSP and Sheila no matter how much she let the group down in the tasks. I have no problem with that in itself until they all decided to become a clique and gang up on Sophie. Not nice viewing at all.

JSP may well be surprised that her fellow clique members have gone, hence her all of a sudden change of tactics which is all too obvious to the majority of us.

I don't see how you can draw parallel lines and similarities between nastiness towards Natalie on a public forum and nastiness towards Sophie in a real life situation. Natalie never has to read any of our posts on this forum. Sophie on the otherhand had no alternative or escape from the nastiness directed towards her. I've been neither a Sophie or a JSP fan and have liked and disliked each of them at different times but at this particular time I think Sophie is more deserved of winning than JSP will ever be.

But you attacked the forum in general for disliking Janet's bullying...that strikes me as inconsistant in your own opposition of bullying (as in supposed attitude of forum members to Natalie).....Surely you''d support them rather than trying pull them apart.....Also you criticism of these so-called "natalie-haters" seems to suggest that there is a link between how Natalie was treated and Janet's bullying......

The bullying attitude of Janet is the problem...in that it's a very real thing...The attitude of forum members towards game show contestants is something entirely different and is mostly taken in the context of the show itself....

Sure, but suppose she had been criticised etc by JSP. Would all these people be objecting to it then, like they do now when the target is Sophie?

I've seen nothing from any of the people who disagree with me that suggests that they would criticised Janet in that case.

What they've said suggests instead that they would find reasons to think Janet's behaviour was justified.

All this suggests that it's Janet's choice of target that makes them object and call it "bullying".

Her picking on Natalie , wouldnt have fell in with the mob mentality in there .
They were all fawning over Natalie because they all thought she was popular out here.

Natalie was the bookies favourite for about a week before they went in .

So bullying Natalie= not good politics within the camp or with the public.

But pick on Sophie ...not popular within the camp ,and had bad press.
Paul liked in the camp, but everyone including himself thought he was one of the first to go.

Both with bruised ego,s = easy targets

I already took back the "all". (Well, ok, said it was hyperbole.)


See my previous message, in reply to JTW.

I don't like bullying at all and I'm pretty sure if Natalie had been the victim of bullying we would have people on this forum sticking up for her and supporting her. I can only speak from other past DS forum examples where we've seen shows with similar examples. BB3 and the Jade/Sophie incident is one example. Most people side with the underdog, me included. I think JSP has brought it on herself to be less popular than what she was at the beginning.

That's what I think too.

I think she likes to make out that others are desperate wannabes, and she is someone more worthy.

Not only is she going for what she believes to be an easy target in Paul ,..I think she's also feeling that Sophie is an easy target too.
She knows that on IAC the public often immediately hate the stereotypical model contestant. Catalina got some stick, and so do other model types.

It's so easy to make out that models are vain, and are all me me me.
To me that's just lazy thinking and Janet is relying on the public to induldge in lazy thinking.

Sheila and Huggy were much lazier than Sophie, yet Janet goes for the easy target.
Maybe Janet has now figured out she made a bad call now that her cronies have been eliminated,..and Janet will again start bragging about how "nice" she is again.

She's okay in ways is Janet, but I'm sick and tired of her literally bragging about how successful in her career she is, and how tough she is.
Fine Janet, you be the alpha "male" and see what happens to you.

If a bloke was acting the way Janet is, he would be hated universally.
I think it's rather patronizing to celebrate woamen behaving in a way that would be seen as wrong for a way for a man to behave.

Janet is just being a bit much now.
If it was necessary, fine. ....But it isn't. It just appears as though Janet is being self induldgent, and wearing the tough, strong woman persona as a badge.

Stockholm Sydrome

Look at how nice Sophie is trying to be with Janet.
Even when they get evicted they'll still be shit scared of Janet.

They're not going to want to slate Janet even out of the show. Janet is a skilled media professional and would eat them for breakfast.