BROOKE GLADSTONE: Last Sunday, Sammi, the radio deejay from Ghana, was evicted from the Big Brother Africa house. Meanwhile Gaetano, the suave Ugandan, continues to trade jibes with Bayo, the Nigerian economist, both competing for the one hundred thousand dollar prize. The producers say Big Brother Africa which drew contestants from a dozen African nations has pulled in some 30 million viewers, making it the most popular show ever produced on the continent. Some critics celebrate the show as a landmark display of pan-Africanism. Others decry it as just the latest examples of Western-style tawdriness wherein cameras capture intimate moments day and night in the garden, the kitchen, the bedroom and the bathroom. Moses Serugo has been covering the hullabaloo over Big Brother for the Monitor in Kampala, Uganda. He says it does display a kind of pan-Africanism, even though many of the participants like Uganda's Gaetano have spent formative years outside Africa.

MOSES SERUGO: There's been criticism that the bulk of the contestants didn't really grow up as in-- like Gaetano -- he didn't do most of his schooling here. Some of the, the contestants have been criticized for not having been through or probably lived through Africa enough. But you must look at some of the requirements that the show organizers wanted. They wanted people who were fluent in English. They really wanted people who had had some form of exposure -- not people who were really raw.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:The house made some Big Brothers Africa spend their time doing pretty much what all the Big Brother contestants have done in all the nations around the world -- they eat and they flirt and they drink and they play in the hot tub and they take showers in front of the camera--

MOSES SERUGO: It, it's not a hedonistic lifestyle like you're trying to make it out to be. Like the housemates here -- they've had to design their national flags; they've had to teach other housemates their national anthems, you know?

BROOKE GLADSTONE:So you wouldn't agree with one writer from Nairobi who wrote in Kenya's Daily Nation that the contestants generally don't demonstrate pan-Africanism but, as he puts it, "an unashamed adoption of the behavior patterns and habits of Western youth.

MOSES SERUGO: No, not entirely. I do not agree with that entirely, but I remember the organizers saying they are really not out to create a United States of Africa or that kind of thing. The bottom line is it's a game. You know? Big Brother is not African, itself. It's a show I think that originated in the Netherlands. So-- of course they've got this idea and they've tried to tailor it for the African viewership. That's why each of them was required to bring a traditional or national dress of their respective countries when they are getting into the house, and the housemates will be required to prepare the national dishes of, of their respective countries. You know? I think they're really trying hard to bring in the pan-African element, but again, it's only a game with the hundred thousand dollar prizes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: How do you think this show compares to the two previous versions that had only South African contestants?

MOSES SERUGO:It has actually generated interest on the rest of the continent, I must say. I then also read an article on the BBC web site that not so many whites are watching this particular one -- probably because there are fewer whites than the previous ones. Yeah.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: There is one white contestant however, and he's from Namibia, and I guess he's rather controversial, isn't he.

MOSES SERUGO: Yeah, as far as what defines an African [is it] but-- an African has to be black or a white person can represent Africa, yeah.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:The show producers say that Big Brother Africa has broken down stereotypes among Africans and the example they cite is that the Nigerian contestant Bayo Okoh gets up every morning to clean the house, and that challenges his housemates' view that Nigerians are untrustworthy. How influential has the show been in actually shattering those stereotypes?

MOSES SERUGO: I'll, I'll start with the Nigerian housemate. It has changed my perception about Nigerians -- seeing the behavior of Bayo. At least I know not all Nigerians are crooks. And people have always had this perception that -- okay, whites are kind of flawless and that kind of thing on the continent, but I think after watching Stephan play all those pranks and do a couple of nasty things in the house, I think they are like "Well, they're just like us!" You know? There's always been this thing about whites --I, I don't know if I should say this -- okay, about the, the whites being-- [BOTH SPEAK AT ONCE]

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Go ahead! Just say it!

MOSES SERUGO:-- a kind of superior race, you know? But it has a colonial twist to it. But if you see someone behaving like you, you kind of get this thing that -- "Well, they're just like me. There's nothing superior about them. It's just that I probably have more melanin than they do."

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So Moses, do you think it's a good thing for Africa that this multi-national Big Brother program exists?

MOSES SERUGO:Yeah! I do. It has given some viewers an insight into other countries, because half of the time you just study these things in geography class, and you never really get to see what other countries look like, and on the show at least every time they say a nomination or there's an eviction, they take you into the other country and you see what the citizens in other countries live like. You know? And, and even the AIDS and sex debate had a couple of insights with, with the individual housemates speaking up and telling the rest how each of their countries is coping and how the epidemic has affected them as individuals and the respective countries they come from.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So you think that perhaps the critics are taking it all too seriously.

MOSES SERUGO:Yeah. I guess so. Instead of giving the proper perspective to the whole thing, they are, you know, looking out for the flaws in this -- it's not pan-African enough; it's not representative enough; that these guys are Africans trained to act as Westerners, you know?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And so basically the lesson is, here is: Lighten up.

MOSES SERUGO: Uh-huh. [LAUGHS] Yep.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well, thank you very much, Moses.

MOSES SERUGO: You're welcome.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Moses Serugo is the arts and entertainment reporter for the Monitor newspaper in Kampala, Uganda.