The ‘controversy’ over Corey Worthington being put in the Big Brother house has continued to bubble after a psychologist claimed on Tuesday it was child abuse.
Seriously people, this is a kid’s TV show, can everyone please take a deep breath?
This ‘our young people are being corrupted’ line is about as old as Methuselah. This is the kind of thing they squarked in the 60’s when Rock and Roll appeared.
Corey couldn’t be safer physically or psychologically.
He is being constantly supervised by about 300 producers, cameraman and other staff – as well as an army of publicists – who are always handy in a crisis. There’s also a psychologist on hand as well as doctors, nurses and the rest.
I mean the boy is only six months younger than another housemate, Bianca, who has impressed everyone with her mature - albeit slightly earnest - views on life.
Sure Corey was a little nervous at first, probably because he had a rep and so much expectation riding on him, unlike the other kids. But now he’s having a whale of a time doing handstands and Mr Bean impersonations.
It’s funny the bizarre accusation is coming from a psychologist because I speak to psychologists and psychiatrists all the time who love the show for the social experiment that it is.
It makes me think the psychologist in question, a Dr Michael Carr- Gregg, might be letting his personal TV tastes spill over into his esteemed psychological assessments. Especially when he describes the housemates on BB as a “bunch of idiots” – hardly the language of a measured and emotionless clinical evaluation. If he’d prefer to watch Lateline on the ABC, good on him, but I think we can make our own minds up when it comes to our recreational viewing.
Besides hanging out with the adults in BB will probably have a good effect on Corey. It will give him exposure to someone other than his 17-year-old mug mates. To hang around David, who's been a fireman and a policeman, Terri the 52-year-old grandmother, and Alice the bossy boots veterinarian, it'll be great for him. He might learn something.
I just find it so funny that Corey is old enough to have an apprenticeship and live out of home on a paltry $300 a week, which given Sydney rents would be no mean feat, yet some people don’t think he’s old enough to lie around in the sun on the Gold Coast.
He’s old enough to run up thousands of dollars of debt on his mobile phone and to have a credit card and to take out car loans but he’s not old enough to bake bread in a kitchen where there might be sharp objects.
But on a more serious note, isn’t there something vaguely offensive to the actual victims of child abuse about saying Corey is a victim of it? I would have thought so.
If professional wowsers are seriously worried about child abuse surely they should be having a crack at the former PM, not Big Brother.
This is a guy who wouldn’t let a boatload of women and children - whose boat had sunk and who had been picked up by a freighter - land here for assistance.
Not only breaking the first law of the sea and risking their lives, but also fibbing about how children had been thrown overboard.
This is a guy who locked up women and children in remote detention centres and refused to let them out even when they were clearly psychologically damaged – refusing to eat, self harming etc.
A guy who used children as political pawns to win elections. Adding a dob of race hate for good measure.
What about the thousands of Aussie kids who currently at risk because our community services departments are under-funded?
These real life examples mightn’t be happening on a popular TV show that it’s trendy to bag – but at least they’re true examples. That’s what real child abuse looks like people. Where are the finger waving psychologists on these issues?
Perhaps those who would whine about Corey Worthington’s participation on Big Brother should take a deep breath and turn their well-meaning attention to some issues of substance instead of camping it up for the media circus.
