Matt Hancock, former Health Secretary for the Conservative Party, currently finds himself on the UK’s reality game show I’m a Celebrity: Get Me out of Here! Having now run for a baffling 20 years, this season threw Hancock in as a later shock addition alongside comedian Seann Walsh.
Like most of us watching at the time, Walsh summed up our emotions on Hancock’s arrival. Seeing Hancock — or simply “Matt” as the other campmates have started calling him (which feels aptly alien to have to write when someone so inhuman is the source material) — emerge through the Australian jungle like a pale, out of shape Crocodile Dundee was met with Walsh directly laughing in his face, and then uncertain how to proceed, before ultimately settling on a hug.
The fear is that this is how the show could pan out: The British people laughing directly at their screens at the quasi-Running Man set-up that we adore, at the easy-to-loathe posh boy at the center of the muck as he grasps for plastic stars — before warming to him and forgetting just how much pain and rage he personally caused so many of us during the peak of the COVID pandemic.
When Politicians Become Celebrities
ITV
Hancock has said that he has gone on the show to highlight who he really is, and to show himself in an intimate light that a politician isn’t often afforded while being able to highlight dyslexia (he is also being paid what The Independent quotes “as upwards of 30k,” and has so far not been seen to mention dyslexia). But, like when boasting about the art of the “political pivot,” it’s all just deception, another lie atop a burning pile of them.
Barring the recent Nov. 14th episode, Matt Hancock has thus far been voted by the public to take part in every single trial he could be included in. As the viewers vote for who they wish to participate in the (sometimes wet, sometimes dark, always slimy) trials, it has given Joe Average at home the ability to enact some form of trash TV revenge on the man who, under Boris Johnson’s shambles of a Tory government, failed NHS nurses, set rules for the public which he and his mates actively flaunted, had an affair, and pretended to cry on TV to convince us he was a real life human and not a dead-eyed cyborg… all when we weren’t allowed to even shake hands.
When finally questioned about his and the government’s handling of COVID (coming off the back of Matt mentioning that he had written a book detailing his own experience with the pandemic), Hancock stood his ground of sorts, then gave a limp apology without addressing what he was actually apologizing for. Actress Sue Cleaver (Coronation Street) said afterwards that “the elephant in the room had finally left,” but it makes this particular viewer long for the more obtuse WTF moments of an American reality show where fists from random family members would have been thrown by now, accompanied by bleeped out swear words.
I’m a Celebrity is Nauseating, and it’s Not Just the Animal Anus
This is not to say that everyone else currently on I’m a Celebrity is safe from criticism. Also arriving alongside the Hancock announcement came the aforementioned Seann Walsh (Big Bad World), most remembered for his unfortunately highly publicized affair with his dancing partner at the time (and married woman) on Strictly Come Dancing in 2018. In 2020, co-host himself Ant McPartlin would be fined a gargantuan £86,000 and disqualified from driving for 20 months for drunk driving. Which is nothing compared to Karma Chameleon singer Boy George, who was incarcerated in 2009, being found guilty of locking a man to a radiator, imprisoning and beating him.
From the campmates’ perspective, admittedly they have to live with this man for (possibly, if the public decides to not vote him off) the next two weeks. So they addressed said elephant the only way they knew: with Britishness prevailing in a complete avoidance of real confrontation, followed by complaining and gossiping behind his back in the immediate next scene.
While nauseating to watch Hancock not receive the grilling that he deserves (for his quite literal crimes), it has made for some of the most addictive television viewing of the year. Matt’s name being called out by hosts and agents of chaos Ant & Dec (Alien Autopsy) at the end of each episode informing him that he will be doing yet another trial hasn’t yet got stale either. Like watching Tom & Jerry to see what horrible slapstick carnage befalls that naughty cat this time, Matt being announced as the cliffhanger has become some strange kind of inevitable running gag. A sort of Tory infused catchphrase that the public is lapping up and repeating aloud to their flat back televisions, having previously been the very same people who voted for Boaty McBoatface and to make Rage Against the Machine a Christmas No. 1 just to spite Simon Cowell.
Does I’m a Celebrity Dangerously Humanize the Inhuman?
While tuning in at 9pm GMT every night on the dot (or 4pm EST) to watch the Cambridge alumni eating sheep vagina on a cocktail stick comes as the most unique of viewing pleasures, but at this rate the British public could well be feeding their own monster — and creating an unfortunate hero.
With each vote via the dedicated I’m a Celebrity app, every new trial gives Hancock exactly what he really craves, more screen time to multiply his own agenda. It’s his opportunity to distract and be humanized for his and his party’s abhorrent handling of a situation where so many people were afraid and dying, and finally perhaps even going as far as to become the “celebrity” that the show’s title assures us that he definitely is. This is doubly so as he smashes trials unphased like the human android he is, winning stars and simultaneously the hearts of those around him in camp, with fellow cast members reliant on him to have to do well, so they can starve off having to eat the default beans and rice given to them.
Either way, it creates a perfect storm for ITV who know that Clockwork Orange-ing the British viewers eyeballs’ open with casting choices like the universally loathed Hancock will drive viewing numbers via good old-fashioned outrage and controversy, and that throwing in new gimmicks daily (like making Hancock the “camp leader”) will likely cause drama on the inside as well. Back home, Hancock has been suspended with immediate effect following his announcement on the show, along with the Tory party and current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reacting downright negatively to the news.
Meanwhile, we can only hope that said British eyes remain awake enough not to fall for Hancock’s play, and not to see him as a hero when he returns with a full 11 stars for the camp. To the point where, when the time does come to decide who to vote out, that the public will have the good grace to off him immediately, our fun over and now remembering how much we all hate him. Hopefully, the humanizing lens of eating animal anus on TV won’t get in the way of justifiable, righteous contempt.
Mr. Hancock’s book will be available at the bottom of all good bargain bins this Christmas.
