I’m A Celeb Bushtucker Trial Criticised For Animal Cruelty

ITV

I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here is under fire again for the Bushtucker trials, with viewers complaining they constitute animal cruelty.

But it’s not the celebrity bottom-feeders the viewing public are worried about – it’s the insects.

Sunday’s show saw two contestants – the little known Adam Thomas and Martin Roberts – take part in a Bushtucker trial that required them to hold live insects in their mouths for 30 seconds, reports The Mirror.

The two D-listers had to hold spiders, cockroaches and crickets in their mouths, trapping the poor critters in their dank orifices.

Just days after Ray Mears criticised ITV for disrespecting aboriginal culture and cuisine during Bushtucker trials, viewers quickly took to Twitter to call the trial out for animal cruelty.

https://twitter.com/marksixtynine/status/803000827875065856?lang=en-gb

This controversy has sparked a rather interesting debate on consciousness, with some people taking the stance that insects are little automatons who operate without feeling.

However, according to Smithsonian a 2016 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers suggest that insects have the capacity ‘for the most basic aspect of consciousness: subjective experience.’

So frankly, with the amount of shit that comes out of Martin’s mouth, those poor insects were in for really dark times.

Who’d have thought the most mindless, brain cell destroying programme on TV could actually spark an intellectual debate?

I’m A Celeb, I underestimated you.

Francesca Donovan

A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.