Pop CultureSeptember 25, 2024

Celebrity Treasure Island power rankings: Tears on my pillow, jet planes in my heart

Staff writer

Tara Ward power ranks week three of Celebrity Treasure Island.

Welcome back to paradise, and has there ever been a week like it? Our celebrities battled some of the worst conditions ever seen on CTI, enduring the freezing cold, pouring rain and a meat pack prize that nobody ended up winning. The damp seeped into their bones and into their hearts, and while rivalry was high, morale sunk to new lows. As far as relaxing beach holidays go, this one could do with some help.

We lost a whopping four players this week, but the 10 celebs who remained tried their best to have a good time. Cully and Bubbah had a bath together, while Team Aihe won a birthday party feast with cheerios and fairy bread. There was a surprising amount of nipple talk, and some castaways made a pretend podcast on the beach using driftwood for microphones, just like the professionals.

Plus, we must tip our waterproof hats to CTI’s production team, who once again outdid themselves with this incredible, one-of-a-kind celebrity edition of Guess Who, or as Wairangi Koopu called it, “Who’s That”. This game was a thing of beauty and should be sold in all good toy stores immediately. Put it in Te Papa! Put it in my house! Enough with the tiny heads, let’s step into our power (rankings).

SELF-ELIMINATED: Spankie Jackzon

“Sometimes you’ve got to know when enough is enough,” Spankie announced as she unexpectedly withdrew from the game. Having suffered a rib injury that left her struggling to breathe, Spankie dressed up as a Christmas tree and bid everyone an emotional farewell. “It’s been the most incredible experience of my life,” she declared in tears, before making like a tree and… leafing.

ELIMIINATED: Aidee Walker

Aidee started the week stuck in a net and ended it being pushed over by a box, which means she left having experienced the very best of what CTI offers. “I’ve really enjoyed it, especially the last few days,” she said. “I feel like I’ve done my whānau really proud.”

WITHDRAWN: Mea Motu

Mea was one of this season’s fiercest and most loyal competitors, so it was a shock to see her being carried off the island in a medical emergency. Competing in an intense challenge that was held in the pouring rain made an existing respiratory illness worse for Mea, and after a night in hospital, Bree and Lance announced that Mea wouldn’t be returning to the game.

ELIMINATED: Janaye Henry

Some say it rained a lot on CTI this week, others say the downpour was all the tears from the celebrities. Janaye was hugely disappointed to be eliminated, having barely tapped into her vast knowledge of the game. At least she managed to appear on Duncan Garner’s beach podcast before she went, where she correctly argued that the issue with snoring lies not with the fulsome nasal cavities of the snorer, but with the over-sensitive ears of the snoree. That’s fact, that’s science, that’s CTI, baby.

10. James Rolleston

James survived two elimination battles in two weeks, sending two influential players (Suzanne and Janaye) from the game. He also eliminated an eel from the game of life this week, providing valuable nutrition for his team. Who will he eliminate next?

9. Millen Baird

Old mate Javelin Legs made some important announcements this week: 1) “I went for seven wees in the night, so there might be something wrong with me,” and 2) “crikey diddles”. Makes you think.

8. Wairangi Koopu

The Wētā leader may have retained his captaincy, but he went rogue with some unexpected nipple chit chat during a charity challenge. “I know nipples come in various colours, and I know nipples come in shades of pink. But I feel like my nipples are pink.” That’s all for now.

7. Michelle Langstone

Michelle woke up feeling “naughty” and had a lovely time causing complete chaos. The actor masterminded a plan to distract Team Wēta with a pretend argument that involved her sobbing on the beach and Christian Cullen storming off to the sidelines. Early reviews of the performance are impressive (“five stars, you got me good,” says Anonymous Spinoff Power Ranker) and hopes are high for a sequel.

However, nothing topped the pure, unbridled emotion that washed over Chef Michelle when she spied Duncan Garner fiddling with her rice. “It’s not your rice day!!!!!” she shouted at the broadcaster. Meryl Streep could never! IT’S NOT YOUR RICE DAY, DUNCAN GARNER!!!!

6. Carmel Sepuloni

Carmel is playing this game with real intensity, and when she found herself in a tough elimination battle, she and teammate Gaby rose to the challenge. The duo kept a box in the air with their feet for an astonishing 51 minutes, calling on superhuman strength and endurance to outlast, outplay, outbox. “It’s an amazing thing to be put with a young Samoan woman in a challenge like that, and being able to win it. I think it’s quite an accomplishment,” the former deputy prime minister said, wiping tears from her eyes.

5. Gaby Solomona

When Gaby began to sing a Samoan song to rally Carmel during their exhausting challenge, it was one of those unexpected, emotionally powerful moments that CTI does so well. Watching two strong Pasifika women of different generations, inspiring each other to find strength they didn’t know they had, instantly became one of the most uplifting moments of the season. “At this point, I’m don’t even really care about the game,” JP said, watching on in awe. “I just want to see our people be brave.”

4. Duncan Garner

Speaking of uplifting: Duncan Garner, everyone. “I will die on this beach. You can leave my carcass on the sand, and tell my kids, ‘he fought to the end’,” the war hero/reality TV castaway said, who was definitely not being melodramatic about yanking on a big bungee cord next to his hero Christian Cullen in the pissing rain. In other news, IT’S NOT YOUR RICE DAY, DUNCAN GARNER!

3. Christian Cullen

Imagine if every episode of CTI was just Christian Cullen saying things. This week, the mysterious smooth guy compared meeting Duncan Garner to meeting Tiger Woods, and then couldn’t say “mouthpiece” without sending his mouthpiece into both mouths and pieces. Nobody was sadder than Cully when he had to share the jet plane lolly prize (“I’m a big jet plane fan”), and then he delivered another Oscar-winning performance, this time as “Man Storming Off Beach” during the fake argument.

But nothing will beat Christian Cullen opening up to the nation about his own emergency defecation situation. In a story worthy of front page news, Cully revealed that as a young paperboy, he’d had to make an unexpected pitstop in an unknown Dominion Post subscriber’s garden. “I delivered the paper… and a number two,” he confessed.

2. JP Foliaki

JP was in big demand this week, with both Bubbah and Millen borrowing a pen from production and writing letters to him proposing a secret alliance. Although he already had a secret alliance with Gaby, JP made the bold move of revealing Millen’s offer to the rest of his team in an effort to earn their trust. Turns out the last thing Team Wētā trusts is a trustworthy player. “Don’t play games like that!” Carmel ordered, as she played the game. Good luck to one and all.

1. Bubbah

Bubbah is having the time of her life. She formalised her alliance with Mysterious Smooth Guy Christian Cullen while taking a bath together. She called Duncan Garner “hottie” and body slammed him on the beach. Then she got one up on her team by slipping a secret note to JP, seizing the moment when everyone was distracted by a fake argument that was supposed to distract everyone from being distracted, or something. “Did you get that on camera? I think I was a smooth criminal,” Bubbah said proudly. The rest, as they say on Duncan Garner’s pretend beach podcast, is history.

Celebrity Treasure Island screens Monday-Wednesday at 7.30pm on TVNZ2 and streams on TVNZ+.

Keep going!

Pop CultureSeptember 25, 2024

What is going on with Taika Waititi’s Instagram?

Alex Casey

Senior writer

The film director turned influencer has been promoting a weird range of products – including full body health scans, spa pools and mattresses.

Amid Instagram’s amorphous scroll of pyjama pants that look like work pants and skincare that looks like a glue stick, it really looked like Taika Waititi was announcing news of a terrible illness to his audience of three million. My thumb stopped urgently at the sight of him dressed in medical scrubs, smiling meekly from inside an enormous full body MRI scanner. The text caption was lengthy, which my one half-open eye recognised as Very Serious News.

But as I pried my other eye open, it became clear that this was not a heartfelt health update, but an advertisement for a full “preventative” body scan service with a bougie private American health company called Prenuvo. Endorsed by leading scientists such as Kim Kardashian, Miranda Kerr and Boone from Lost, a 60-minute scan costs around $4000 NZD and purports to detect early signs of cancer, aneurysms, liver diseases and other abnormalities.

Hollywood may be scanning themselves silly, but experts aren’t entirely convinced. In April 2023, the American College of Radiology released a statement that “there is no documented evidence that total body screening is cost-efficient or effective in prolonging life.” They also voiced concern that “the identification of numerous non-specific findings will not ultimately improve patients’ health but will result in unnecessary follow-up testing and procedures.”

In his post, the Academy Award winning director said that he was hoping to better understand his “life health status” through the scan. “The aim is to see everything and deal with anything that might pop up. Preventive action baby,” he wrote. In one video, he paces around in scrubs waxing lyrical about taking control of your health, being proactive, and catching “catastrophes” early on. “Let’s go have a look and see if there’s any catastrophes I need to deal with.”

Alas, the biggest catastrophe of all is what happened in the comments after he posted it. “I wish this kind of care was affordable for all people,” wrote one commenter, gaining nearly 2000 likes. Nearly as popular was this comment: “Awesome man. Took me 4 months to get approved for an MRI for an active issue. Being rich seems great.” It went on and on. “I love this. Can poor people use it?” “It’s giving healthcare inequality.” “What in the rich people hobbies is this?”

Taika Waititi and his award for best Adapted Screenplay award for Jojo Rabbit at the 92nd Annual Academy Awards (Photo: Getty Images)

While many comments came from America, ranked last in this recent report into the healthcare systems of 10 high income countries, some local voices weighed in too. “How many of the whānau on the east coast are accessing that my bro? Not even easy to see a GP down those ways, nice to see that a rich man like you will be ok,” wrote one commenter. “It takes four weeks just to get into see a GP in Aotearoa brother. Good to have the $$$$ I guess,” said another.

Another question came up again and again in the comments: “I don’t understand why you would even accept a sponsorship like this. It’s not like you need the money.” It’s a good point. While we can’t begrudge out-of-work local actors hawking Wattie’s frozen meals between gigs, Waititi is rich. Really rich. $10.5 million Pt Chev property rich. $6 million diamonds to the Met Gala rich. $17,000 camera given to him by Jason Momoa rich.

It’s not even the first time Waititi has done a weird sponsored deal. In March he shilled for a hot tub company: “No bs lights, 400 jets or annoying bucket seats, just classic, timeless tubs.” Not long after, he collaborated with a mattress company: “I’ve been sleeping in these @Casper cots for a few years now and honey, I am telling you… if you prefer the inside of your eyelids to anything else on god’s green earth, these beds are the freakin realiest of the dealiest.”

Which brings us back to the central question: why? An anonymous source from The Spinoff office posited that the shift to influencer could be traced to when Waititi married popstar Rita Ora. Not only did he become half a Samoan in that moment, he also became half of an extremely marketable celebrity power couple. The pair have hosted music awards together, featured on the cover of Vogue, and even starred in whatever this cooking video is.

During our robust editorial conversation, another anonymous source suggested that perhaps he’s immersing himself in scary dystopian health tech to prepare for an upcoming role in the much-teased Elysium sequel. Or, given that he claimed in his sponsored mattress post to be asleep for 78% of his life, maybe Waititi has simply been in a deep storybook slumber for most of the year and is signing social media partner contracts from the land of nod.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that Waititi’s latest foray into promoting inaccessible and scientifically contested health technology hasn’t gone well, even with the generous discount code for his followers. “TAIKA WAITITI cares about you and so do we. That’s why we’re giving you $300 off your Whole Body scan,” the site reads. Waititi came back with a clear scan, but someone should tell him you don’t need a flash machine to detect an out of touch rich guy.