ITV Teen Tourette's Camp

[markpaterson]

Let's hope this is as good as 'John's Not Mad'...

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds22970.html

ITV sends teens to 'Tourette's Camp'
Tuesday, July 26 2005, 22:27 BST -- by Neil Wilkes

A group of teens with Tourette's Syndrome is being shipped off to a summer camp for a new ITV reality series.

The aptly-named Teenage Tourette's Camp will follow five British kids at the unique camp in Chicago, where they will be "allowed to swear, behave obsessively, act compulsively - and enjoy every minute of it."

The show will air as part of the network's upcoming autumn schedule.

[Lee]

So... what is the point in that?

"Hur hur, he said fuck!"

At least John's Not Mad had a point to make, what's this going achieve?

[Darrell]

Tourette's Syndrome is HILARIOUS. Apparently.

Whoever commissioned this is a cunt. Because they are clearly aiming for the same 'huh huh, fackin' genius he's said a swears!' crowd who, to steal a turn of phrase from ELW10, quote John's Not Mad as though it's fucking Withnail and I.

[The Mumbler]

Sounds completely revolting.

[Melth]

The vast majority of people with Tourette's syndrome have no problem with involuntary swearing. It mainly manifests itself in scratching and facial tics, I think.  But, yes, it's dispiriting that this has been commissioned

[Pinball]

Modern freakshow. Disgusting.

"Wanna tour the asylum, Sir? Only two guineas"

[trotsky assortment]

The vast majority of people with Tourette's syndrome have no problem with involuntary swearing. It mainly manifests itself in scratching and facial tics, I think.  But, yes, it's dispiriting that this has been commissioned

I couldn't agree more.  I had a friend with Tourette's and she was beautiful and smart - one of the nicest people you could ever meet.  There's a misunderstanding that it's somehow funny...  This just sounds like cheap, sensationalist TV.  I hope I'm proved wrong.  No...actually I don't.

TV has hit a new low.

[slim]

Gah. What a lot of uninventive tut.

[The Mumbler]

Some proper documentaries about mental health might actually be more helpful.  I've often defended a fair bit of ITV's output in the past, but its popular factual offerings are usually abysmal.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

See also C4's new reality show featuring a three OCD sufferers sharing a  house together. Why in the name of cuntung buggery fuck has nobody objected to that?

[klaatu!]

See also C4's new reality show featuring a three OCD sufferers sharing a  house together. Why in the name of cuntung buggery fuck has nobody objected to that?

Ah yes. I saw a trailer for that this evening. I couldn't quite decide whether it was real or not.

"This woman has confined herself to one room and can't stand touching anything, not even her husband or children. This woman washes her hands a hundred times a day. This man fears incrimination and refuses to talk to anyone. We lock them up in a house for a week and see what happens."

Or something along those lines. I see Channel 4 are trying to justify it as some kind of 'ultimate therapy'. Yes, of course, all in the name of science. From a fucking Monkey production.

[Mr. Analytical]

Exploitation TV at its worst.

Why don't they go the whole hog and put a bunch of people with Downe's syndrome in a house and continuously play noises of people screaming and crying, spray them with animal blood and issue them electric shocks until the residents of the house tear each other apart in an orgy of fucking and fighting.

[variant]

Holby City had a kid with tourettes in it this week (the wife watches it...). Thought they dealt with it quite well actually. Don't know where I'm going with though. Just showing I was paying attetion really.

[Pinball]

Exploitation TV at its worst.

Why don't they go the whole hog and put a bunch of people with Downe's syndrome in a house and continuously play noises of people screaming and crying, spray them with animal blood and issue them electric shocks until the residents of the house tear each other apart in an orgy of fucking and fighting.

Well said :-)

Some torture cams in Gitmo and in the Bosnian rape camps too? Maybe a bit of child rape?  I'm just curious as to how far this trend will go. What ITV are proposing is just a freakshow. Of course, that's all BB is anyway, but to do this with disabled people is genuinely a freak show. We're laughing at freaks, enjoying their misfortune. What next???

[Ambient Sheep]

To defend the C4 OCD documentary, it does appear that it's a serious attempt at an extreme form of therapy, given that everything else has failed.  I *assume* that the idea is to lock them up together so they can each see how absurd the others' fears/compulsions are, and maybe all end up helping each other.

On the other hand, the ITV thing does very much sound like "tour the asylum, two guineas" as Pinball so excellently put it (although shurely "two shillings" would probably be more fiscally accurate :) ).

[Lee]

Incidentally, why is this in Comedy Chat? Does Mark think this will be a piece of hilarious viewing?

[Mr. Analytical]

We're laughing at freaks, enjoying their misfortune. What next???

That's exactly what it is.  It's also going to make life difficult for people who manage to deal with their tourettes and OCD through the use of medication.  Effectively putting the clock back on a lot of the myths that support and activism groups have been trying to dispel.  Good job trying to get a job if you're OCD in the months following that programme being screamed.

As for what's next?

Obviously we've had blaxploitation and sexploitation so the next step should be obvious...

Who's the spack private dick with a forehead that is fucking huge?
Spazz!
You're damn right!

[Pinball]

How about they walk around with the camera looking for spazzers, and then shout "spaz!" at them. TV has dumbed down almost to an infantile level now. WIth that and women's fashion/lifestyle/cooking/looking after terrible tots-type TV, the only thing keeping me sane now is the Sky EPG, thereby enabling a high degree of selection, the radio, and imported DVDs (plus UK discs if I can't buy them overseas, although I only buy them here if I absolutely have to).

This said, we're not as bad as US TV yet, but we are getting there, and when NBC buys ITV it ain't gonna improve things.

[Mister Cairo]

If people on this site complained to the TV regualtory body (still Offcom?) or ITV, perhaps they might think twice.

[Mr. Analytical]

I actually do complain but you can't really complain about shit programmes can you?  I've complained about the BBC quite a lot recently given their recent policy to withhold any critical commentary on any large event such as the death of the pope and live8.

[The Mumbler]

I was thinking to myself today: Why does no major broadcaster transmit a series (either populist or indepth) on mental health issues?  Given that one in three people will suffer from some form of mental health in their lifetime, this seems a curious omission from the schedules?  Is it because it doesn't lend itself to visuals?  Is it because programmes like Trisha supposedly deal with many of the problems (they don't, of course)?  Or is it just that broadcasters think no-one would watch them?

Yet the OCD house programme or the Tourette's camp programme seem to be acceptable.  You only get a documentary if it's a great fat arrow at people just so you can go "phew, at least I'm not *that* bad".  

Anthony Clare always said that one of the great successes of doing In The Psychiatrist's Chair on R4 for twenty years was having listeners writing in to say, "I thought successful people didn't have anxieties and depressions".  Maybe public figures could contribute to a TV series - but don't do it in front of an audience, just a magazine programme with fact sheets and so on.

[Johnny Yesno]

shurely "two shillings" would probably be more fiscally accurate :) ).

Heh! Glad I asked what this "shurely" business was about now.

[Johnny Yesno]

How about they walk around with the camera looking for spazzers, and then shout "spaz!" at them.

Or perhaps they could interview them with a squirty microphone. That'd be hilarious and it'd work this time because they'd be easier targets than Tom Cruise.

I actually do complain but you can't really complain about shit programmes can you?

I guess we can complain because the likely problem with this Tourettes show won't be that it will be shit but that it will be offensive. Problem is we're back to the old "do we criticise something we haven't seen or watch something, get offended and then complain" issue? The boot is truly on the other foot for Morris fans, I feel. Have you got a link for when I've stopped dithering?

[Harfyyn Teuport]

God this sounds repulsive.

[Munday's Chylde]

The times have changed haven't they? Wasn't that long ago I got hold of the johns not mad programme on the recommendation of c&bers saying it was hilarious.

[Johnny Yesno]

The times have changed haven't they? Wasn't that long ago I got hold of the johns not mad programme on the recommendation of c&bers saying it was hilarious.

Mark Thomas is popular too.

[Pinball]

And Chris Morris has become crap.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

And R**** G****** is no longer unilaterally despised.

Ah, 2000, what a different world...

[Harfyyn Teuport]

And there's no twin towers and this has changed how I view everything.