I’m bush tucker get me out of here
I don’t particularly like ITV’s celebrity reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!. This is for a number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with me being hugely adverse to ‘reality’ formats – I’d be the first to admit that I’ve had my moments of serious addiction to Big Brother, Celebrity Big Brother, Wife Swap, Faking It, The X Factor, Pop Idol et. al. (and thankfully, I’ve been able to successfully recover from all of them).
I’m a Celebrity has always irked me though.
Allow me to come over all po-faced for a moment, but Australia and Australian wildlife really doesn’t deserve to be associated with useless B grade celebrities.
The centrepiece of I’m a Celebrity is the bush tucker trials where viewers vote to submit the celebrity kicking-bag of the moment to torture via native animals. So we have celebrities wading through swarming angry insects, eating live wriggly worms and being covered in curious creeping beetles. Of course, we’re meant to laugh at the hapless celebrity, but I’m guessing that the animals don’t particularly like it either.
Obviously I didn’t grow up in a rainforest (or an ITV jungle filmset in Queensland for that matter), but I did spend my formative years in a typical Australian country town. At school, on TV and in first-aid classes we learnt about our country’s insects and animals, including some of the nastier ones. We discovered how they sustain an fascinating and distinctive eco-system, how they’ve provided a food source for Aboriginal people for thousands of years and exactly what to do when a box jelly fish decides to attack you.
There is a peculiar populist British media view of Australia as a land of non-stop sunshine, where blonde-haired, BBQ loving, lager drinkers constantly risk being eaten by sharks and crocodiles as they go swimming during their lunchbreaks. And with its portrayal of Australia’s wildlife as something to gleefully torture celebrities with, I’m a Celebrity isn’t really doing much to help the cause.
Yes, Australia does have lots of creepy crawlies, but apart from a few notable exceptions, they do mostly keep to themselves and are a vital part of what makes the country unique. They deserve better than being eaten by Robert Kilroy-Silk.
Tags: cultural difference, defensive
November 26th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I am surprised it’s been allowed to continue, I spent several years trying to convince kids that insects etc weren’t horrible and this show has trashed all that. Quite why it’s ok to eat/kill life insects and not puppies on tv is beyond me . Are they the viewers the same who watch blue planet?
November 26th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Mmm, perhaps the BBC should have programmed something like ‘Life in the Undergrowth’ against I’m a Celebrity. My guess its because these insects aren’t cute and cuddly, and we can easily assert our authority over them.