Saturday, December 06, 2008

Are Ant and Dec more frightening than the Taliban?

If you haven't read it yet go and read Sean Langan's piece in the Guardian.

It is a sad insight into a certain sector in the media emphisis on news values and perhaps a sad reflection on society

He compares the trials and tribulations of the celebritities in the jungle with the real life hardships of being kidnapped by the Taliban

It's easy to mock the seemingly endless supply of second-rate celebrities in Britain today. But as I watched Nicola McLean, a former glamour model with fake breasts, talking about the harsh realities of life in the jungle on this week's I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, I realised that perhaps I was wrong.
says Sean but

Maybe I shouldn't laugh, I thought. Not after what she's been through. It sounds just like what I went through earlier this year, after I was kidnapped by the Taliban and locked in a dark room for three months; even the pain she felt at being separated from her child reminded me of the torments I was forced to endure. Maybe I should take celebrities and their suffering more seriously


For the media he points out her ordeal was on the par with the people arriving back from Mumbai and he remembers

On my return from Iraq in March 2004, I was surprised to discover that the fighting in Fallujah wasn't the big news. The front page story in the Observer on the day of my arrival was about who had won some new reality TV show called I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Within a few days, I quickly realised that no one I met in London seemed to care, or even know much, about the war in Iraq.

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