US Brat Camp

[Funt Solo]

In some kind of horrific televisual accident, I surfed straight into an episode of US Brat Camp.

Anyway, as they introduced the troubled juves to us(the viewers) the program makers had provided a block of text below each brat that encapsulated their particular behavioural difficulty.

"Troubled punk", it said, underneath one normal looking guy that was rapelling (abseiling) down a cliff.  

"Abuser of drugs", it said, beneath a girl who had made it safely to the bottom, and looked as if she'd maybe had a spliff, once.

Then the camera settled onto a young man that was holding the rope at the top of the cliff.  "Tried to stab his twin", the caption said.

[Mr D]

Awww...

This the fella?http://a.abc.com/primetime/bratcamp/images/bios/bio_nick.jpg">

[Mr D]

One of these girls was molested by someone she trusted when she was 11 and has since had bouts of depression and done badly in school...

So they pack her off to Brat Camp?!?!?!?!

[House of Usher]

Who hasn't tried to stab their twin? I know I have...

Sounds like that girl's continuing to get a raw deal. But maybe the experience might do her some good? Who knows.

[Mikey]

No no no!

Stabbing you twin is *wrong*!

Stabbing your doppelganger is what you want...damn looky likeys!

M.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

my brats & me agree, its all so wrong on so many levels.

i would suggest an overhaul of the education system, NHS, review the causes of poverty, the peer values of society & why familys are broken dysfunctional & disempowered to deal with their own children.

shoving them on tele, is a really really stupid thing to do.

[Quirkafleeg]

I've got some issues with the 'Brat Camp' concept.. it's all very entertaining to see horribly self-centred teenagers that are the results of clearly incompetent parenting. And I'm sure the organisations shown are staffed with caring and competent staff. However there are some very dodgy places off the radar and located in the Caribbean with very lax child care laws that 'Christian' families send their teens to, sometimes for years on end, for crimes like drinking the odd beer or listening to rock music.

[House of Usher]

What, you mean like boarding school?

[Funt Solo]

I know what you mean, Quirkafleeg.  With the UK version, there was a clear view of a before-during-after for each of the 'brats' - so that you could see the extent of the poor behaviour (whatever the cause).

With the US version that I saw, you just had to take the program makers word for it that the "troubled punk", was troubled in some meaningful way (beyond perhaps being a bit annoyed that the punk movement had been kidnapped and adopted by the mainstream who had missed the whole point).  And, of course, the term "drug abuser" is such a ridiculous all-encompassing phrase.  Is smoking weed drug-abuse?

Then you have to wonder if the solution on offer is a good solution.  In the UK version (using a US company) the solution was to detox the brat in the wilderness and offer a basic reward system.  Do as you're told - you get hot food.  Disobey - you get cold food.  In the US version, the solution also involved becoming one of the team - but that team was a physically active, go-getting, of-one-mind, team.  If you didn't rapell, you were deemed to have lost - and you were told so.  So, no room for anyone with a phobia of heights in their society.

Which is what brat camp is, really:  this is our society - you WILL conform.  Or, at least, as long as you're here or living with your parents, you will.

[The Amstor Computer]

What, you mean like boarding school?

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[Quirkafleeg]

>What, you mean like boarding school?

Well basically yes... except punishment for not conforming is lying on the floor in a bare room for hours/days/weeks on end until you do. And 'education' consisted of reading Christian text books on your own and writing a one-page summary at the end.

Oh and there are Christian schools here now doing exactly the same thing. I think there's a Dispatches doc on next week about it.