OPINION: Primetime spectacle I’m a Celeb received a massive 12,000 complaints to regulators in the same week that Bear Grylls expressed regret for killing animals on his survival shows. The British public said no to fox hunting, but are we turning a blind eye to another bloodsport on our screens?

Ah, December. The month of tinsel and fairy lights, mulled wine and mince pies, and rampant animal abuse. Not just the carcasses of turkeys, geese and processed pig parts on our dinner tables, but the reindeer (and camels?!) in town centres and shopping malls too. As if that wasn’t all bad enough, something we often forget is that even with a ban on fox hunting and other blood sports - the brutal pastimes of the pompous and the asinine - we only have to turn on the TV at this time of year to see countless other horrors against non-humans committed for nothing more than entertainment.

Nothing encapsulates this more than I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! which for more than two decades has returned to our screens every December to fill ITV’s primetime slots with groups of questionable celebs all looking to rejuvenate their careers or accept very healthy paycheques in return for submitting themselves to daily challenges in the Australian outback. Some of these trials, the ones where only the contestants are involved, we have no problem with. But others, the ones involving insects and other animals, are case studies in animal brutality for ratings.

The most infamous and dreaded ‘Bushtucker trials’ see celebs eat awful things - usually animal-derived like kangaroo testicles, insect larvae and fermented eggs - or endure obstacle courses crawling with insects, water tanks with amphibious reptiles, or a myriad of other imaginative ‘tests of willpower and endurance’ involving snakes, insects, spiders and other invertebrates. 

When panicked contestants are crawling through mazes with insects, spiders, snakes and other animals all around them, and having uncontrollable visceral reactions like shaking, flicking hands and moving carelessly, it’s simply impossible that none of the animals is harmed. However, the show’s producers still insist that animal welfare standards are maintained.

The public, thankfully, isn’t entirely convinced with 12,000 complaints sent to TV watchdog Ofcom within days of this year’s I’m a Celeb final. Every year the show receives complaints, but as the Metro reports, this has been one of the show’s toughest bouts of criticism.

“The team at I’m A Celebrity have many years of experience in producing the show and have rigorous protocols in place to ensure that animals are handled safely before, during, and after filming, in compliance with animal welfare law,” an ITV spokesperson told the Metro. “Welfare and safety is always our primary priority.”

This clearly isn’t the case. Even without the risk of crushing small animals, there is still stress caused by being so close to humans. The RSPCA, which leads an annual campaign against the use of live animals on the show, pointed out that animals such as rats, lizards and snakes may be “subject to stress” while in close proximity to contestants who are “panicked” and in “small, confined spaces”, adding that animals may be “handled inappropriately by contestants”.

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I’m a Celeb is an extreme example of abuse against animals for nothing more than cheap laughs, making parallels with bloodsports - the intentional hunting and killing of animals like foxes for weekend entertainment - very easy to make. 12,000 complaints is great, but the show’s viewing figures averaged 12.14 million per episode in 2018. That’s nearly one in five people in the UK tuning in to see irrelevant, talentless people get paid to crush spiders and insects. It’s utterly shameful, and at a time of year when we’re supposed to feel compassion and charity for others.

But then there are the other shows in which animals die, the ones that masquerade as education or even conservation. Speaking to BBC Radio 4 last week, Bear Grylls admitted his regret for killing animals in the early days of his hit TV show The Island, which again sees groups of people transplanted to wild settings. Unlike I’m a Celeb, however, The Island builds on our fascination with ‘man versus nature’, pitting participants against the elements and testing their survival skills. 

“I think in terms of survival and food, definitely in the early days we were killing way too many snakes and stuff like that in the same of survival,” Grylls said. “I’ve moved so far away from that nowadays. It’s always about finding carcasses, bugs and grubs. If you look at great survivors historically they were always foragers.”

Interestingly, Grylls said the rise of veganism (and vegetarianism) was partly responsible for his ethical awakening, having taken “many, many stars” of a plant-based disposition into the wilderness, but this is actually beside the point for our discussion. In 2016’s celebrity spin-off, Made in Chelsea star Ollie Locke stabbed a crocodile through the back of the neck, and over the years caiman and other animals have fallen victim to the quest for cheap thrills.

Grylls has a long and rich history of killing animals for TV shows going all the way back to those which made his name, such as Born Survivor aka Man vs. Wild, in which an episode wouldn’t be complete without him spearing defenceless creatures and eating them raw. The argument of course is that it’s educational, that he’s imparting valuable lessons should anyone inexplicably find themselves in a plane crash over the Andes or some other terribly unlikely situation. But without proper survival training, no one is going to remember something they once saw on a Grylls show. Seeing the UK’s biggest boy scout jump out of a helicopter and eat a snake is pure titillation, no one sits there taking notes, making the education justification very thin indeed.

To the question that we posed at the start: are TV shows like I’m a Celeb nothing more than televised bloodsports? A bloodsport is a type of ‘sport’ that involves the brutal killing of animals, and sport while often competitive is essentially a form of entertainment. So if we accept the comparison - and in light of growing recognition of the sentience of animals and the capacity possessed by fish and invertebrates to feel pain and suffer - isn’t it time that I’m a Celeb goes the way of fox hunting and be banned?

Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager for Surge.

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