Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates Template:About Template:Infobox character Big Brother is a character and symbol in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is ostensibly the leader of Oceania, a totalitarian state wherein the ruling party, Ingsoc, wields total power "for its own sake" over the inhabitants.
The ubiquitous slogan "Big Brother is watching you" serves as a constant reminder that Party members are not entitled to privacy. They are subject to constant surveillance to ensure their ideological purity. This is primarily through omnipresent telescreens that provide two-way video communication and constantly blare propaganda.
"Big Brother" has become a synecdoche for abuse of government power and mass surveillance, particularly with respect to civil liberties and loss of privacy.
Character origins
There are many theories about the origin of the character. In the essay section of his novel 1985, Anthony Burgess states that Orwell got the idea for the name of Big Brother from advertising billboards for educational correspondence courses from a company called Bennett's during World War II. The original posters showed J. M. Bennett himself, a kindly-looking old man offering guidance and support to would-be students with the phrase "Let me be your father." According to Burgess, after Bennett's death, his son took over the company and the posters were replaced with pictures of the son (who looked imposing and stern in contrast to his father's kindly demeanor) with the text "Let me be your big brother".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A theory made by Mr. W.J. West, a London book collector, who found radio transcripts and over 250 letters written by Orwell during his years at the BBC, that the inspiration for Big Brother was Brendan Bracken, the Minister of Information, based on Orwell's use of the initials B.B. was discredited as speculation by Gordon B. Beadle.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> David M. Lubin postulated that Big Brother was based on Herbert Kitchener, whom Orwell admired as a child. Kitchener's face appeared on Alfred Leete's 1914 British military recruitment poster Lord Kitchener Wants You.<ref name="Lubin">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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,<ref>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."</ref> as well as the Soviet Union, where there was an ideology of "brotherly nations" or "brotherly countries". The Soviet Union 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In the "Circe" episode of James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) the prophet Elijah addresses God as "Big Brother up there, Mr President".<ref>Ulysses p. 478</ref>
Portrayal in the novel
Existence
Big Brother is described in the novel as "a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features"<ref name="Lubin" /> and later as "black-haired, black-moustachioed, full of power and mysterious calm".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His image appears everywhere on posters in public places:<ref name="Lubin" />
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On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran. {{#if:|
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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 novel, it is unclear if Big Brother is or had been a real person, or is a fictional personification of the Party. In the fictional book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, read by Winston Smith and purportedly written by political theorist Emmanuel Goldstein, Big Brother is referred to as infallible and all-powerful. No one has ever seen him and there is a reasonable certainty that he will never die. He is simply "the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world" since the emotions of love, fear and reverence are more easily focused on an individual than an organisation. When Winston Smith is later arrested, O'Brien states that Big Brother will never die. When Smith asks if Big Brother exists, O'Brien describes him as "the embodiment of the Party". O'Brien also explains the reason for Big Brother's existence: "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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:
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Critical response
The magazine Book ranked Big Brother no. 59 on its "100 best characters in fiction since 1900" list.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Wizard magazine rated him the 75th-greatest villain of all time.<ref>Wizard #177</ref> Sally Watson-Jones writing in The Guardian described him as a "terrifying villain" due to his omnipotence as a god-like character made by the Inner Party. She commented that his existence is unimportant as his power comes from his superiority: "He is never wrong, has no idiosyncrasies that can be exploited, no personality that can be manipulated, no desire that can be leveraged against him."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
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 John Hurt released in 1984, the Big Brother photograph was of actor Bob Flag. Both Oxley and Flag sported small moustaches.
Impact and influence
Use as metaphor
Template:Global surveillance Since the publication of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the phrase "Big Brother" has been commonly used as a metaphor and synecdoche to describe any overly-controlling authority figure, increased government surveillance and loss of privacy.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Immediately after the novel's publication Life magazine, in its 4 July 1949 issue, warned that the United States could fall under the influence of a Big Brother figure.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The worldwide reality television show Big Brother is based on the novel's concept of people being under constant surveillance. In 2000, after the United States version of the CBS program Big Brother premiered, the Estate of George Orwell sued CBS and its production company Orwell Productions, Inc. in federal court in Chicago for copyright and trademark infringement. The case was Estate of Orwell v. CBS, 00-c-5034 (ND Ill). On the eve of trial, the case settled worldwide to the parties' "mutual satisfaction", but the amount that CBS paid to the Orwell Estate was not disclosed. CBS had not asked the Estate for permission. Under current laws, the novel will remain under copyright protection until 2044 in the United States; it entered the public domain in 2020 within the European Union.<ref name="Nordicom 1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The image of Big Brother played a key role in Apple's "1984" television commercial introducing the Macintosh, which aired at Super Bowl XVIII on 22 January 1984.<ref>Remembering the '1984' Super Bowl Mac ad ZDNet, 23 January 2009</ref><ref>Apple's 'Big Brother' sequel BBC News, 30 September 2009</ref> The Orwell Estate viewed the Apple commercial as a copyright infringement and sent a cease-and-desist letter to Apple and its advertising agency. The commercial was never televised again.<ref>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 Template:Webarchive</ref> Subsequent ads featuring Steve Jobs mimicked the format and appearance of the original ad campaign.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In other media
The English musician David Bowie gained an appreciation of the novel from an early age. He had wanted to create a theatre adaptation but could not get the rights. His studio album Diamond Dogs incorporates themes from the novel in the tracks "Big Brother" and "1984".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The phrase "Big Brother is watching you" features in the design of a commemorative £2 coin produced by the Royal Mint in 2025 to mark 75 years since Orwell's death.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
See also
- Big Brother Awards
- Little Brother (Doctorow novel)
- National Security Agency
- New World Order conspiracy theory
- Template:Commons category-inline
References
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