Justice For Miriam: Why Is Big Brother Screening The Miriam Episodes?
Image: Image: Big Brother Australia
It’s been twenty five years since Big Brother debuted on our screens and as the show prepares to relaunch they are taking viewers down memory lane.
However despite the highs and lows of this popular television show that brought us some of the best television characters there were some questionable moments in the series.
Currently the production team behind the series have decided to screen one of the lowest moments of their earlier years as they revisit the story of Miriam Rivera.
Big Brother meets There’s Something About Miriam
There is no doubt that the early years of Big Brother served some of the most memorable characters in Australian television history.
The social experiment took over the hearts and minds of millions of Australians, making stars out many of the earlier contestants and leaving lasting memories of many more in our hearts.
Whether they were winners or not from Sara-Marie to Reggie Bird, Farmer Dave and more there was a magic that was captured in the early seasons that was hard to replicate.
This became clear as the later seasons began to delve more into gimmicks and cheap ploys to hold the audiences attention.
Now producers have revealed that the iconic show is heading back to channel 10 and the shows creators are promising everything is going back to how it was, live nominations and evictions, real people and a real show.
As part of a promotional campaign the official Big Brother social media channels are flooding our feeds with content as they take us back to the “good old days” however they seem to have forgotten they weren’t all good.
Whilst the first three seasons maintained some level of wholesome content, 2004 was the first iteration that really started to try and change things up. This season saw Trevor walk away with a million dollar prize for the first time and even treated us to the iconic silent protest by Merlin.
But wedged in amongst this season was an idea that at the time producers must have thought was brilliant, but in hindsight was possibly one of the lowest moments in this shows history.
At the same time as the 2004 season of the show was airing another show was airing on channel 10, There’s Something About Miriam.
This controversial show had everyone talking for all the wrong reasons, it featured six British men competing for the affection of model Miriam Rivera and a $10,000 prize.
The “twist” as it was promoted was they were unaware that Miriam was a transgender woman, making her the first openly transgender reality television star.
Naturally at the time, the cultural sensitivity towards the transgender community was clearly non existent as the public narrative that drove interest in the show was not in the best in Miriam herself. Rather the tired old “got ya” trope with the focus on the contestants being “tricked” into being interested in the model not knowing she was trans, a degrading concept in itself.
In what Big Brother producers must have thought was a stroke of genius at the time they decided to introduce Miriam into the Big Brother house as an intruder, introducing her as Maria.
And the introduction video, including Gretel’s line “This isn’t about deception, it’s about the reception” and her subsequent chat with the star was about as awkward as you would come to expect.
The narrative following Miriams entrance into the house continued to be just as uncomfortable as producers pounced on every moment of speculation about Miriam’s identity. The moment were housemate Ryan started to guess that Miriam was a “bloke” was seized as an apparent moment of victory as the public degradation of Miriam continued. The discussions and speculation by the other housemates were uncomfortable to watch, but seemingly hilarious for the audience of 2004.
After the better part of a week Miriam departed the house after again her gender identity was waved around as a play thing for producers and the public one final time.
The public dialogue around both appearances was slammed by transgender advocacy groups at the time with trans author Julia Serano stating “Programs like There’s Something About Miriam not only reinforce the stereotype that trans people’s birth sex is ‘real’ and our identified/lived sex is ‘fake,’ but they perpetuate the myth of deception and thus enable violence against us.”
This was further reinforced by the reactions of the contestants on There’s Something About Miriam who all ended up joining in a lawsuit against the program in an attempt to prevent it airing. “They alleged conspiracy to commit sexual assault, defamation, breach of contract, and personal injury in the form of psychological and emotional damage” according to wikipedia and they ultimately settled out of court.
Following her time on air Miriam eventually disappeared from the spotlight and it was not until her death in 2019, which was ruled to be a suicide, that Miriam was heard of again. In 2022 a documentary Miriam: Death of a Reality Star was released exploring the circumstances behind her death.
It would appear to go without saying that upon reflection the appearance of Miriam on Big Brother Australia in 2004 was not something worth celebrating. In 2025, a time when our trans community are under attack worldwide, it is important that we are uplifting and supporting them, yet Big Brother producers seem to have forgotten this fact.
As the audition process for the upcoming reboot of the season kicks off the official Youtube channel is taking viewers down memory lane as they screen entire seasons back to back.
After finishing season three it was quickly announced that season four would follow. But surely, one would think, perhaps they might skip a few episodes and maybe leave one of their poorest production decisions behind?
Apparently not.
Not only did the entire season air on their Youtube account as fans clamoured to relive the memory of the season, it appears producers were revelling in every gritty moment of it.
Taking to social media producers shared a “bingo card” with viewers as they watched the season together, marking off key moments from the show including the “voting recount,” “prize money reveal” and yes, “Miriam gender reveal.”
The decision is a little staggering, it appears producers are lost in the cloud of nostalgia as they forage through old footage, seemingly forgetting the damage this long buried “social experiment” did to an already marginalised community.
So where is the justice for Miriam? A woman who was used and abused for the worlds entertainment, no longer here to defend herself, again having her identity used and flung around for cheap thrills.
We can’t re-write history and we can’t undo what was done, but we can choose not to celebrate it and not to revisit a something that was just as damaging now as it was then.
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