I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here returns for its 14th series this week, promising its trademark combination of scorpion challenges, waterfall showers and bitter infighting. Some critics accuse reality TV of damaging viewers’ brain cells and young people’s life goals. But if you look closer, there may be some lessons from the great philosophers to be learned by sitting back on the sofa with a glass of pinot.
The show: I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here
The philosophy: OK, watching Amy Willerton flirt with Joey Essex might not be the optimal way to learn about 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his theory of the social contract, which suggests that human beings must voluntarily agree to shared moral and social responsibilities for a political system to have legitimacy. Yet the show does bring its urban-based contestants closer to a “state of nature”, which could prompt viewers to think about whether human beings have innate ethical codes, and the dynamics of group living in a non-civilised setting.
Educational value: 5/10
The show: The X Factor, or any other competition based on elimination, from The Great British Bake Off to MasterChef
The philosophy: The exclusionary format of these shows brings to mind Charles Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. Although time constraints render the process of evolution itself difficult to monitor, by achieving fame the winning contestants increase their chances of mingling their genes with those of other successful reality TV contestants, eventually creating a master race of smooth-faced, treble-voiced pastry chefs.
Educational value: 7/10
The show: Big Brother
The philosophy: British philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s theory of the Panopticon, in the late 18th century, suggests that in a prison where inmates feel they are constantly being watched, no guards would be necessary, because the prisoners would watch each other and adapt their behaviour. On the other hand, the TV show revealed that if a group of people in a house know they’re being watched, they will feel the need to act as obnoxiously as possible and occasionally insert fireworks into themselves.
Educational value: 3/10
The show: Deal or No Deal
The philosophy: Until the show’s final box is opened, in the contestant’s mind it remains entirely possible that they are holding a huge cash prize instead of £20. Nobel prize-winning Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s paradox of the cat in the box (which, according to quantum theory, might be alive or dead, or both) mirrors the contestant’s simultaneous feelings of uncertainty, hope and dread.
Educational value: 8/10
The show: The Only Way Is Essex, Made in Chelsea et al…
The philosophy: What is real and what isn’t? Did they say that because it was scripted or was it a genuine reaction? French post-structuralist philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard’s theory from his 1981 text Simulacra and Simulation – that meaning in modern life has been replaced by symbols, and that all human existence merely simulates reality – has become, well, reality (TV). These part-true, part-fabricated shows are even more Baudrillardian than the simulated reality in the 1999’s The Matrix.
Educational value: 10/10
