Shockingly, the show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! has returned to screens, meaning that many more animals will be subjected to cruelty for the sake of human entertainment. Popular challenges include eating unusual animal body parts and being buried in beds of bugs. Both cause suffering and inflict distress/pain to those creatures unfortunate enough to be involved. The show therefore, is incredibly outdated, perhaps better suited to the Victoria era, where games such as dogs being released onto chained up bears were widely enjoyed as a form of barbaric 'entertainment'. In recent years, complaints have been made by viewers regarding vegan/vegetarian 'campmates' whose trials were deemed 'less difficult' - no sheep brains or kangaroo intimate body parts makes for boring TV according to some. Perhaps, this time wasted complaining would be better spent researching why vegans and vegetarians do not partake in exploiting animals in such vile ways - something the media conveniently fails to acknowledge.
This year apparently sees singer Boy George enter the jungle, who is vegetarian, and of course, social/mainstream media is filling up fast with backlash towards him on this basis. Some even question what right he has to be part of the show and suggest that he should alter his morals for the sake of more shocking TV, which only dilutes the credibility of his lifestyle. Back when soap actress Beverley Callard was on the show, she too was criticised by the media, for similar reasons. Callard is a particularly interesting case, because the public tried to call her out by accusing her of hypocritically eating a scotch egg, which she did, but of course, it was a vegan scotch egg (something that the presenters of the show had to confirm to calm the noise online). People seem to forget there are vegan versions of everything, making it even more apparent that consuming murdered animal bodies in this day and age is outdated, unnecessary, elitist, and cruel. It's time for this show to get out of here!