We all want to snoop around the homes of the rich and famous but what about when the roles are reversed? Shows such as Rich Kids Go Skint and Rich House, Poor House do just that. Privileged young adults spend time on the breadline in their £5000 bracelets in an attempt to see poverty through the eyes of real people, but in the end it just becomes the baiting of the working class. Whilst the wealthy don't exactly come off great, what grinds me is that the wealthy person will almost always give those in poverty a gift at the end in an embarrassing attempt to redeem themselves from their views or actions i.e. spending too much of their parents' money.
Whilst there's no denying that these shows address the class divide in the country, it's also poverty porn at its finest. The poorer families are used to make audiences feel sorry for them, whilst the rich are made to look inherently selfish and snobby – which isn't always the case. The setup itself isn't much better as whilst the poor families switch to living in luxury, the rich people frantically scramble their brains in order to work out just how they are going to live off £60 a week, if anything the show is an insult to the poor people it claims to hold compassion for.
It's not just these shows that project poverty porn however, charity adverts showcasing damp riddled council houses push stereotypes of the working class in Britain, and use the lives of the poor as a mere cash grab. The rich have always had an obsession with the working class whether it's Boris Johnson spouting offensive lines like “chavs, losers, burglars and drug addicts” when describing those living in poverty in Britain, or these ‘eye opening’ reality shows that show some of society's most vulnerable what they could have before swiftly removing it again like a cruel game of monopoly in real life.
Others may prefer to watch debt collectors tear lives apart in Can't Pay? We’ll Take It Away, which regularly shows families on the breadline being evicted from their homes with nowhere else to go, but it's fine because that's show business right? These shows make a spectacle of the working and lower class so the audience can feel somewhat content with what they have (for an hour at least). Yes, debt collectors are only ‘doing their job’ but does it really need to be plastered all over the TV when vulnerable people's lives are at stake?
The idea that any of this is to simply reflect today’s society is frankly ludicrous, if we wanted to accurately portray life in Britain we could do this through heartfelt, well-researched documentaries, not quick, cash stacking entertainment formats that encourage God complexes and the ‘point and laugh’ mentality.
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