Popularity and Criticism
The show has been criticised by the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Tessa Jowell. In an interview with the Financial Times during the second UK series, she said, "If they weren't mostly – save their blushes – has-been celebrities, there might be more interest I think that if we saw many more programming hours taken over by reality TV, I hope you'd begin to see a viewers' revolt."
In 2002, CBS, broadcaster of the popular American reality show Survivor, unsuccessfully sued ABC and Granada TV over a planned American version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, alleging similarities.
The show's use of live insects and other living creatures in the bushtucker trials has led to some public criticism of the show and its producers & those involved in the programming. This issue was highlighted during the 2009 series, where celebrity chef Gino D'Acampo killed, cooked and ate a rat. The Australian RSPCA investigated the incident and sought to prosecute D'Acampo and actor Stuart Manning for animal cruelty after this episode of the show was aired. ITV was fined £1,600 and the two celebrities involved were not prosecuted for animal cruelty despite being charged with the offense by the New South Wales Police. This incident did, however, highlight among certain groups such as Buglife, a British charity for the conservation of insects, and the RSPCA, the controversy surrounding the use of living creatures for human entertainment. It also raised concerns with these groups that people may attempt to recreate the bushtucker trials with their own pets at home.
There has been criticism that the producers pretend that the celebrities have to live in "dangerous" jungle even though they are in a controlled environment, with some of the scenery being artificial, e.g. a pond and a small waterfall.
Read more about this topic: I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!
Famous quotes containing the words popularity and/or criticism:
“A large part of the popularity and persuasiveness of psychology comes from its being a sublimated spiritualism: a secular, ostensibly scientific way of affirming the primacy of “spirit” over matter.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.”
—Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897)