TV Review - Brat Camp

To sum up what Channel Four’s Brat Camp is like, you have to take a quote direct from one of the brats involved:

"You’re all in my fucking face and you’re all fucked up."

Beautiful, ain’t it? Out of the mouth of babes and fucklings.

Of course, Brat Camp is the latest of Channel Four’s ‘people are
awful’ shows, and this one, held a big fat light up to the horrors of
humanity, and mocked from a swivel chaired office that probably smells
like joss sticks and soundtracked by world music. Har bloody har
Quentin, pass the hashish would you?

Brat Camp was filled with delightful hissy fits. One girl in
particular tripped over a tiny pebble and claimed that she couldn’t
move her leg. More likely that she had smashed her puny mind open when
it collided with her self esteem. Its obvious that the major draw for a
thing like this is to sit and laugh at these moronic teens, stropping
around the side of a mountain and demanding fags or whatever, but
inevitably there are morals to be swallowed.

Let’s not dwell on that.

Georgie, plug shocked Prisoner Cell Block H haircut, claimed that the staff trying to turn them into humans were:

"a bunch of fucking hippies (and I’ll) kill them with their fucking sticks."

Naturally, viewers smell blood, and what’s better than a bit of car
crash TV? Unless it’s Casualty involving an actual car crash with some
bloke you swear you’ve seen on something else. To watch ASBOs in
waiting getting picked on until they cry on Brat Camp is a lovely sight, and your
mind wonders off into the future, picturing terrible teens left alone
on the mountain surrounded by a pack of savage wolves. Watching in
super slo-mo as a one-eyed wolf takes down a petrified goth.

Brat Camp itself was made of two distinct sections. A) the girls lugging
stuff around the American countryside and B) their parents, who by now
have forgotten all about them and lolling around in their middle-class
gardens playing table tennis.

Naturally, the enfant terribles hold the ridiculous notion that
their parents are at home sobbing and awaiting the return of their
offspring. They’re not.

"Have you heard from Juliet dear?"
"Sorry Bill, Juliet?"
"Our daughter dear…"
"Oh yes, didn’t we send her to be ravaged by wolves? Your serve dear, 30-15"

Lucy, a six-foot granite monolith, was continually impressive in her
escape attempts. When reading ‘impressive’ think ’staggeringly stupid’.
She bravely told the cameraman that she’s "off home." By her own
admission she had:

"No idea which way to walk coz these knob heads keep following me."

So, something akin to Bigfoot, humping her arse around, feebly
punching the helpers and calling them wankers. There was only one way
to deal with her. Think about it for a minute. What would you do? Its
obvious isn’t it?

Make her take part in a Pagan ritual and pack her off to a big horrible farm.

The most staggering thing about the sulk-a-thon was actually hearing
the girls talk. A weird mixture of uninterested, lazy slur and slang.
The overall hotchpotch of words was the sound of listening to someone speaking who is a
bit deaf. Both great and bewildering.

The Brat Camp staff, even though they’re trying to help (and in all seriousness, do an
amazing job of which they should be applauded loudly from the rooftops)
are annoyingly apple pie. With names like JT, Andre and Zipboink
Cherryblossom, they quickly grate, and of course, act like hippies.

It’s easy to scoff though. These people stopped a girl from self
harming. They helped the girls to understand that violence and abuse
don’t work. They work miracles. It really is heartwarming to know that,
somewhere, out on a mountain, there are a group of people who can get seven
horrible little fuckers, and make them reconsider their actions and
think twice before destroying a loved ones feelings.

Don’t miss next week’s episode of Brat Camp. Rumour has it that the girls are
force fed dog hormones and locked in a pagan rules ‘fight to the
death’. Failing that, just sing-a-long to Creedence Clearwater Revival
at the end.

All together now "I SEEEE A BAAAAD MOOOOON RIIIIISIN’…"

Brat Camp is broadcast on Channel Four on Wednesdays at 9pm

Read more:

Brat Camp - Channel Four

[story by Mof Gimmers]