The problem with I’m a Celeb

I’M a Celebrity was once about fun and friendship. Now it’s about celebrity cockfights, writes Claire Sutherland. The format’s not broken, but it needs to get back on track or it’s all over.

THERE’S two kind of reality shows.

There’s the brawling and bitching variety (see Married at First Sight, My Kitchen Rules, The Bachelor).

And there’s the heartwarming, life-affirming and inspirational kind (see Queer Eye, Selling Houses Australia, Gogglebox, Survivor, First Dates, Ninja Warrior).

In its first three seasons I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here staked its claim in the second camp.

Sure, there’s bugs and gross eating challenges, and there’s a certain satisfaction in watching usually air-brushed and styled celebrities waking up looking as rough as the rest of us, but for me the attraction was seeing the celebrities share stories about their lives, support each other through challenges and learn things about themselves.

One of the loveliest aspects of last year’s show was comedian Nazeem Hussain and his friendship with conservative commentator Steve Price. In this era of culture wars and people defining themselves by whether they’re Left or Right, it was a wonderful example of two people coming from opposite directions but meeting in the middle by talking and listening to one another and accepting they would disagree about some things.

This year Price invited Hussain and his former castmates to his house for a halal reunion dinner.

The casting of bitter rivals Anthony Mundine and Danny Green was the first hint this year’s I’m a Celeb was going down a divisive road. (Pic: Channel Ten)

The year before former AFL star Brendan Fevola talked about his infamous drunken Brownlow Medal TV appearance and refused to blame anyone else for it, even as fellow campmate Shane Warne said he thought the club and the media should bear some responsibility.

“It was my fault,” Fevola said simply, and I instantly went from thinking he was an iredeemable boofhead to wishing him nothing but well.

In 2015 camp comedian Joel Creasey and footy hardman Barry Hall became fast friends.

I’m a big sap. People being kind and lovely to one another while being amusing is how I want to spend my evenings, which is why Netflix’s reboot of Queer Eye — that beautiful gift of loveliness and pure joy — is my current obsession.

So there’s nobody more up for a new season of I’m a Celeb than me.

To say I feel let down this year is an understatement. And judging by the ratings, I’m not alone.

It’s because someone, somewhere seems to have made the decision to move the show from the heartwarming column into the brawling column — to use the show as an arena for celebrity cockfights designed to capture headlines.

Previous series were noteable for the lovely friendships they created, including between Barry Hall and Joel Creasey. (Pic: Channel Ten)

There’s nothing wrong with the format, what’s wrong this year is the casting and the nagging feeling I’m being manipulated — that the producers have chosen some of the camp mates not for what they have to offer one another, but for the controversy they might create and the buttons they’ll push.

The selection of Anthony Mundine and Danny Green was the first warning sign. The pair of rival boxers had the odd skirmish on the show, but producers must have been sorely disappointed they didn’t provide them with a nasty blow up to promote.

And Mundine, with his odious views about women and homosexuality, obviously got bonus casting points for being an outrage magnet.

The cynical casting of the Oldfields — whose eye-wateringly awful marriage was uncomfortably on show during their stint — was another obvious attempt to drum up angst, and viewers voted with their remotes.

But perhaps the most contrived and nasty moment for me was when Green and Mundine went head to head in a challenge and Shannon Noll was asked to sing the Australian national anthem first.

Jackie Gillies and Simone Holtznagel eat something vile on I’m a Celeb. (Pic: Channel Ten)

Call me a cynic, but the only reason I can think of that this was done was because producers knew Mundine would refuse to stand for it.

No other challenge I can recall has started with the singing of the national anthem.

Mundine dutifully stayed seated, and producers must have high-fived each other about the “unAustralian” headlines they could look forward to.

I’m no fan of Mundine, but it was rotten to use his politics as a public lab experiment.

Meanwhile, Shannon Noll was left looking uncomfortable and a bit silly through absolutely no fault of his own.

If I was him I’d have felt completely set up.

On the old I’m a Celeb, there were skirmishes and arguments, but they happened organically, not because producers scoured the country for wildly unpopular people who hate each other, and offered them a stack of cash to display their noxiousness live on national TV.

There have been some nice moments this season — Danny Green teaching royal butler Paul Burell how to swim, Shannon Noll talking quietly about losing his savings trying to keep the family farm going after the death of his dad — but they’ve been too infrequent.

I’m still watching, because Pete Rowsthorn, Fiona O’Loughlin and Vicky Pattison are delightful, and Julia Morris and Chris Brown make me laugh like a drain, but I need more of that, and less (actually none) of the desperately manufactured controversy.

If I wanted that I’d be watching the Real Housewives of Wherever.