Benefits: Too Fat To Work. Fucking really???

[Mountainygirl]

I just spotted this in the TV guide. Channel 5 have obviously hit on the perfect formula- bring everyone's two favourite folk devils ('fat people' and 'benefit scroungers') together, for a brand new series, which I am sure will be a balanced and fair portrayal of these people's lives....

TV seems over run with this shit atm. Everyone goes on about how sexist/racist telly was in the 70s, but honestly, in years to come, people will be totally gobsmacked about how in 2015, it was almost universally OK to rip the absolute shit out of poor people.

Who watches this kind of crap though? I always see people saying how shit it is- I hear friends and acquaintances saying the same, all over livejournal, here, other forums people mainly say 'ho grim'- so who's watching because the ratings are the things that push this shit.

This is the second time in two days that I've been reminded of the Black Mirror 'verse and how it's looking more likely.

YANBU. I agree with mistle more and more the TV and newspaper producers seem like they're all on some kind of secret board where everybody covers their faces, and meets once a month to push some kind of government agenda. Because its all the same line over and over again.

I suppose its aimed at making people feel good by proxy. Sort of 'well at least I'M not a fat overweight lazy scrounger, even if I am a cheating tax evader/spouse cheater/shoplifter/lying politician etc etc....?!

its exploitative shit, near Xmas there was one about ,how is this benefit mum gonna fill santas sack for 6 kids on benefits gave me the rage...., I think freakshows were less exploitative!

There are always shocking or crap programmes on tv, don't look for them.
Until your thread I had no idea it was on, I won't be watching the programme so won't be bothered what its about.
Simples. don't get involved if you don't like it, choose another channel.

Exploitation of vulnerable people.
Utterly vile.

I agree with usual too. I work with people on benefits and I know what fucking shit lives they have.

I bet none of the frothers who watch this exploitative crap would want to swap.

Even if you choose not to watch it, someone will be talking about it at work the next day. I live in a very affluent area of the UK now but actually lived in one of the areas shown on one of the previous episodes of Skint and just felt really disgusted at the cheap and easy use of people's lives for entertainment. I then spend the next day trying to reason with work colleagues that this is not a true representation but of course they don't want to hear that, they much prefer to be outraged.

some people on benefits have shit lives. Some are fine thanks very much :)

Actually they may well not be paid. I think the standard procedure with this type of programme and the sort of stories you get in 'Closer', 'The Sun' etc is to deceive the people who are taking part on the intent of the programme/article.

Basically the people are approached and they are told that the programme/article is going to deal with them sensitively and be sympathetic. So basically it will be saying how hard life on benefits is and how they should get more help etc. They win the trust of the subject and they will in turn make confidences. As the person interviewing has told them that they are sympathetic and they think their life is really hard and deprived they will get soundbites out of them about how they think they should get more money etc.

But then when the programme is aired or the article written they don't take a sympathetic tone at all. And they will put a quote of them saying how hard it is for them and how little they get next to a picture of a widescreen TV or a cupboard bulging with junk food. And the things confidences they made because they thought the interviewer was sympathetic will be used against them, they will be used to make it look like they are lazy and ungrateful.

aermingers, I watched a TV programme about White Dee from Benefits Street recently and she explained that she'd been told by producers that the programme would be about good neighbours helping each other through difficult times. It showed her making a phone call re benefit enquiry on behalf of a neighbour who couldn't read well. She was shocked when she saw the programme.

AIBU to hope that this gets the Chawners back on our screens again? Their show was my guilty pleasure!

Why do people always assume those on benefits have shit lives? I was probably better off on them tbh.

What you see is heavily edited. Didn't the producers spend 6 months filming for benefits street?
That's lots of footage of people being good neighbours and helping each other out. Learning to relax in front of the camera and be more open and trusting. Then bam a few bad eggs or a few bad days and there we have the golden nugget they've been mining for.

I wish they'd film my mums street.

My mum is a 40 odd year old woman who relies in DLA

Her neighbour to the left is a Lithuanian couple who work their arses off and are the nicest couple you will ever meet.

To the right is a share house with a Polish man, a Kurdish man, a Polish woman and a couple from Tunisia

There's a man living in a caravan.

Yet this community of people help each other, share meals, help each other with housework and building, they help my mum because she's ill

Yet I'm sure they'd all be made out to be the worst people in the world. My mum would be a benefits scrounger and everyone else would be immigrants wanting benefits.C4 would have a field day.

Channel 5 are pricks. I caught a snippet of a show last year where a camera crew documented so called "super sized" patients using the Nhs. Not the fat greedy fuckers who "demand" free treatment for fat related illnesses. No no no, this was about fat people who'd had accidents. (Trips, falls, car, bike etc etc) the dialogue was horrendous. "Geoff has had a car crash. Due to his humongous bulk a fire crew has had to be called to cut him from the wreckage using up so many man hours..." Cue footage of poor Geoffs unconscious face obviously blurred to protect his privacy and not due to the fact that any normal person would refuse to be a freak in the sideshow that is channel 5 had gargantuan Geoff been socially acceptably sized then treatment could have been provided by a passing pedestrian fresh from A St. John's first aid course."

I was asked to go on 'big body squad' as a professional but refused. I'm glad I did. I cringe watching it.

Really they're taking advantage of people who aren't in much of an economic position to refuse.

It's like offering a starving person a steak and criticizing them for doing questionable things to obtain it.

I'm glad you declined Gray. What a horrible title. If ever there was a way of telling your patients that you are judging them then working for a programme with that name is the best way. I'd refuse to ever use the services of a professional who felt it necessary to subject their patients to such humiliation.

I refuse to watch any of these horrible propaganda shows, the exploitation and judgement disgust me! It sickens me that people believe this shit. Whoever it was that likened it to the anti Jewish propaganda in nazi Germany hit the nail on the head imo.

Exactly Derek
Grays I'm not assuming. I can only vouch for the people I work with and their lives on benefits are shit for the reasons Derek states.

Problem is, 'benefits' is too wide a title.

My best friend is on benefits after her husband left (slightly more complicated than that but ...) and while I don't know the exact figures it's income support, child tax credits and child benefit of course. Her life definitely isn't shit. I'm not saying it's rolling in luxury but she has holidays, buys new clothes, had nice Christmas presents for the children.

I think it's JSA that's the real killer as it's a tiny amount of money anyway and there are more conditions attached to it.

I am starting to feel more and more that the media is the puppet of the government. It doesn't feel any different to Nazi portrayals of Jewish people in the 1930s. Seriously?