I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here starts on Australian TV on Sunday. And yes, before I continue, I must divulge that I was one of the many folk asked to consider being a contestant. Don’t worry, I don’t feel particularly special; there were hundreds who received the same call. The prerequisite for an invite seems to have been at some point one appeared on telly, or, as producers became more desperate to sign people up, near a telly.
Sadly (and I say this with complete sincerity), I had to decline. As a lover of reality TV in its many trashy forms, the adventurer in me is a teensy bit disappointed I’m not on a plane to South Africa. It would certainly be an adventure. What’s a media career if there aren’t a few surprises?
I don’t care if you think such shows are rubbish and they’re heralding the end of civilisation as we know it. You’re probably right. But it’s not that different to what’s gone before. Reality TV is just Neighbours or Home and Away wearing a different coat, the roles played by real people who cost less than actors, therefore it’s cheaper to produce. That’s it. At the end of the day, reality shows play out the same Shakespearean dramas we have been braying for throughout history.
So why decline such an offer? I’ve seen the UK version and I know what I’d be in for. I’m not sure I’ve got the mettle to cope. I’m a Celeb in the UK is no Big Brother-style fun times sitting around the pool tanning and bitching about someone else who snores or not having enough money in the budget to buy this week’s tin of Milo. It’s much, much worse than that.
It’s far harsher on the contestants because of the celeb factor. We know the contestants already, so there is no need to discover who plays which archetypal character in the drama that will unfold. Subsequently, it’s goes straight to pushing people to their limits for the fastest results. Much like what happened in the Colosseum in Roman times. Just get out there and get the job done, so to speak.
In the British version I watched people sitting in a spinning carousel while they endured snakes crawling through their undies, or having their heads encased in square plastic cages while buckets of maggots, cockroaches and various other creepy crawly horrors were poured on their trapped heads. After one episode, some poor sod had to have a cockroach removed out of his ear by a doctor.
And no amount of a downpayment on a house would make me do that. I simply couldn’t.
I just hope the Australian version is a little kinder on the contestants than the original version. At least there, the poor old celebs who front up for this ritual humiliation make enough money to purchase a mock-Tudor pile in Essex and won’t have to do anything again for at least another 10 years.
I fear the Australian version will be the same horrific critter fest. Because a bunch of lovely rational folk people enjoying jungle time is hardly going to get people talking in the kitchen at work as much as someone who once played the character of Lucy on Neighbours (there were three, it could be any of them) had to eat the intestinal tract of a rare, rotting African rodent. Now, that’s entertainment!
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