"I'm a Celeb's" Spidergate

I hadn’t watched any of I’m a Celebrity 2015 but I tuned in on Sunday night to see the final.  Ok, so two reality TV stars and an X-Factor reject made the final, great start.  But then the events of the final episode began to quickly descend when the notorious eating trial took a particularly inhumane turn.   The trial climaxed with Ferne McCann (girl from TOWIE, I know right?) having to eat a live water spider; not a small spider – a big one.

First thought: disgusting!  Second thought: ah, it’s a trick; she gets the star if she throws the spider into the bushes behind and it scampers to freedom.  Third thought: she just ate it – that was not only revolting but exceptionally callous. 

This is where I assume the role of ‘that guy’, because although only a trivial arachnid, somebody has to speak on behalf of spiders and defend their right to life because they can’t do it themselves. 

It isn’t just the fact that the contestant killed a living creature by eating it alive that is appalling, it is the way that it was presented.  It was the ceremony, the vainglory, the total ignorance (from the contestant but also the producers) that spiders are sentient beings; it was the disturbing way Ant and Dec could not control their laughter; and most of all it was the sickening ritual Ferne McCann was instructed to execute in order to eat the arachnid.  She was told to shake the glass to disorientate and disable the spider, it crawled up into a ball protect itself, then she necked it like a shot and choked on it like a Fresher.

Ant or Dec dubbed Ferne “a hero”, pundits on Twitter called her “a ledge”

It was unpleasant to watch.  There are more unpleasant things to be found on the news, of course, but it was nonetheless unsettling.  I think that people should recognise this to be flagrant animal cruelty, despite it ‘only being a spider’, for two reasons.

The most important one is what it reveals about our treatment of animals lower in the food chain than us.  I would argue that the consumption of a live spider in the name of entertainment demonstrates mankind’s contempt for anything inferior to ourselves that has no obvious purpose.  Certain animals have prestige (at least in the West) because we have domesticized and then sentimentalised them, such as cats and dogs; some have a symbolic purpose like the eagle or the whale.  But spiders fall short of our standards.  It was acceptable for a contestant to eat a living spider on I’m a Celebrity because they’re not important in our eyes; in fact they are disgusting and frightening and they overrun our homes.  Of course it is all a matter of perspective.  Spiders kill pests, they show you don’t have a damp problem in your home, and some people keep exotic spiders as pets.  They are one of the few creatures that has adapted to live in our modern, urbanised and domestic realms, and we coexist in near perfect harmony – and yet we despise them.

The other reason why this is act was so obnoxious is because it was intended to fall into the category of ‘entertainment’.  What were we meant to feel watching that living spider be tossed around in a glass, hunch up in fear, then be crunched to death in a women’s mouth?  Disgust, certainly; but was there a feeling that as an audience we were being entertained?  I think I understand why the producers did it: audiences are increasingly desensitised.  The boundary is pushed and pushed because what is considered shocking, outrageous, controversial – all the stuff that keeps us griped, keeps us talking, keeps us buying – proceeds before of us with every TV programme that is dependent on ratings.

I have probably exhausted all of the possible reasons why killing a spider is wrong – I have well and truly become ‘that guy’.  But isn’t ‘that guy’ sometimes a necessity? No? Ok, fine…

However, as much as you sneer at my spider-hugging, I’m not alone: OfCom received over 500 complaints for that episode and there was at least some Twitter outcry.  It will be up to the regulator to decide if they will launch an investigation or not, but I would think it unlikely.

Otherwise, I’m happy to be that guy who puts the spiders outside rather than splatting them with a newspaper – your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman, in other words.