The poor are blamed for general reckless borrowing and a lack of financial discipline, and TV bosses know just how to exploit them
A 17-year-old woman is called a thief and a crackhead and is tormented and humiliated on national television. Amid all these taunts the host of the programme, Jeremy Kyle, interrupts and pruriently informs viewers that she has a "reputation" and is said to have slept with 33 men. ITV says this did not violate broadcasting standards because, after all, the young woman appeared to accept "the allegation" that she has an active sex life.
Of course, the veracity or otherwise of the allegation is beside the point, as is whether the young women accepted it. The fact that it is considered an "allegation", that it invokes a stigma, is the point. This is sexist, but it is also linked to social sadism. Sadism is hardly particular to "bear-baiting" shows like Kyle's. It is an integral component of a great deal of neoliberal popular culture. In reality TV, such as Big Brother, it comes in the form of a host or a disembodied voice playing the impartial enforcer of the rules, but which is actually imposing irrational superego injunctions and distributing punishments and rewards in a totally unaccountable way. That represents one aspect of neoliberal ideology: life is a lottery, stuff just happens, there is no morality in either winning or losing, but we nonetheless accept the outcome and enjoy the suffering of the loser.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
A 17-year-old woman is called a thief and a crackhead and is tormented and humiliated on national television. Amid all these taunts the host of the programme, Jeremy Kyle, interrupts and pruriently informs viewers that she has a "reputation" and is said to have slept with 33 men. ITV says this did not violate broadcasting standards because, after all, the young woman appeared to accept "the allegation" that she has an active sex life.
Of course, the veracity or otherwise of the allegation is beside the point, as is whether the young women accepted it. The fact that it is considered an "allegation", that it invokes a stigma, is the point. This is sexist, but it is also linked to social sadism. Sadism is hardly particular to "bear-baiting" shows like Kyle's. It is an integral component of a great deal of neoliberal popular culture. In reality TV, such as Big Brother, it comes in the form of a host or a disembodied voice playing the impartial enforcer of the rules, but which is actually imposing irrational superego injunctions and distributing punishments and rewards in a totally unaccountable way. That represents one aspect of neoliberal ideology: life is a lottery, stuff just happens, there is no morality in either winning or losing, but we nonetheless accept the outcome and enjoy the suffering of the loser.
Continue reading... Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.