The celebs have a choice, but what about the animals? | Emma Kay

I’m a Celebrity... is nothing more than an ‘entertaining’ extravaganza of cruelty and poisonous production values.
Gwrych Castle in north Wales, the setting for this year's I'm A Celebrity...Gwrych Castle in north Wales, the setting for this year's I'm A Celebrity...
Gwrych Castle in north Wales, the setting for this year's I'm A Celebrity...

We gawk with glee as we watch celebrities squirm and suffer, turning a blind eye to the real suffering. We have had 18 years of senseless animal torture and death.

Animals are routinely crushed, frightened, dropped, thrown, chased and stuffed into highly stressful situations on the show for no other purpose than to provide us with entertainment.

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Celebrities are showered with snakes who get screamed at. Furry rats are flung and crushed into little coffins. Insects are stuffed into noses, ears and eyes, and for what? The welfare of these creatures seems pretty low on the show’s priorities.

If the celebrities sign up to be flung around and injured then that is their business. But these animals did not sign up for anything. They can’t beg for their lives. They cannot get up and shout: ‘I’m a Celebrity…get me out of here’.

The show shamelessly subjugates the idea that certain animals are worthy of our scorn, that they are ugly, frightening or nasty and therefore deserving of their fate. Close-ups of spiders and snakes are routinely plastered across the screen with menacing music to reinforce the notion, making it far easier for viewers to passively watch and distance themselves from their dilemma. The producers do not want you to consider that the animals crushed underfoot are feeling and thinking creatures. They are merely an expendable obstacle for a plastic star.

You might find snakes, rats, lizards and insects creepy but that should not demean them. If the rats were replaced by hamsters would you still honestly feel the same way?

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In the 2009 series, celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo and his fellow contestants were accused of animal cruelty for catching and cooking a rat for a meal. This blew up in the media but there was no mention of erasing other harmful animal content that was far more prevalent on the show. Catching and eating a rat might be no better than stamping on one but at least eating it was out of a necessity to subsidise hunger. Though this hunger need not be created in the first place. Starving people has little to do with contesting.

It’s all about the punishment.

Be it human or animal it should be a just game and not a way for us to constantly violate the vulnerable.

Is that old mainstay of chocolate out and alternative surprises in this year?

The simple windowed chocolate Advent calendar is now considered, by some, to be a crumbling and archaic Christmas item. Calendars now contain chilli, cheese and all manner of other curiosities, albeit at a much higher price. Kitsch calendars are a popular quirky item.

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With everything that has happened this year, it is no small wonder that chocolate is no longer enough of a treat to look forward to. We crave the strange and the unusual to fill our humdrum lockdown lives. From prosecco to Pringles, anything can share in the limelight. Some calendars do not even contain food – pretty perfume bottles, teeny toys, even stationary.

Little rewards to help us navigate through the stress storm. Splashing out on a fancy Advent calendar may be a guilty pleasure, but this year we have all more than earnt it.

Covid doesn’t just target Christian festivals

Christmas has not been cancelled after all.

The tier restrictions are to be relaxed to fuel our festive fun with our very own Christmas bubble that will enable us in our Christian setting to be closer to our long socially distanced families.

We all know that Covid-19 does not have any regional boundaries, but also no religious boundaries.

It will and does target anyone.

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When Eid ul-Fitr happened in May, Muslims were told they could not meet other family members. Eid ul-Adha suffered the same fate in July, even though the rules had been relaxed and the numbers were lower.

Diwali also suffered in lockdown with Rishi Sunak urging those celebrating the festival to stick to lockdown restrictions and avoid big gatherings.

It feels as though our PM does not want to be the person who is remembered for cancelling Christmas but in our multicultural society families from other faiths seem to have been overlooked.

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