http://theedge.bostonherald.com/tvNews/ ... at=&page=1Brats for sale: Exploitive `Camp' turns the cameras on troubled teens
By Mark A. Perigard
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Some people shouldn't be parents.
Some people shouldn't play at being counselors.
And one TV network should know better than to televise such exploitive claptrap as ``Brat Camp.''
In this ABC reality series debuting Wednesday at 8 p.m. on WCVB (Ch. 5), nine teenagers are whisked away to SageWalk, a ``therapeutic wilderness camp'' in Oregon.
The kids have been lied to about the nature of the trip and have no idea their parents have signed them away for a minimum of 40 days - and as much as 90 - to work on their issues - all for the benefit of the cameras and millions of viewers across the country.
If adults want to go on ``Extreme Surreal Bachelor Fear Factor,'' that's their business. If they want to risk being made fools of in front of millions of people, they are entitled.
The stars of ``Brat Camp'' are troubled kids, struggling with problems ranging from hyperactivity to drug use to out-of-control rages.
There's Jada, 15, the Boston representative, an unskilled compulsive liar who fails at covering her cocaine habit. At home, her father laments that she spends all her money on drugs.
At this point, I yell at the TV, ``Then stop giving her money.''
SageWalk's simplistic philosophy is to break the kids physically and catch them as their emotional shells crack from the punishment. In the opener, the teenagers are forced to hike several miles while wearing 40-pound backpacks.
By the end of the two-hour premiere, a 17-year-old girl has admitted she was sexually molested when she was 12.
One of the SageWalk counselors proclaims she is ``cool.''
How could anyone at ABC think that televising children's emotional traumas in alleged outdoor therapy sessions would qualify as entertainment? Any facility that would expose its vulnerable charges to the cameras has no business operating. At its best, ``Brat Camp'' is an extended prime-time infomercial targeting desperate parents, such as the depressed mom who complains, ``I feel like there's nobody out there to help us, and I'm tired of doing it all by myself.''
SageWalk's chief operative, Tony Randazzo, narrates the drama. He insists on being called by his ``earth name,'' Glacier Mountain Wolf. The other counselors have equally stupid monikers ranging from Mother Raven to Flying Eagle. Randazzo tells us the kids will have the opportunity to earn their own earth names. Because that is so important, allow me to christen ``Brat Camp'' with its own earth name: Dung Heap.
It's where this show belongs.