I agree that the Comic Relief format is dated, condescending and promotes a white saviour narrative that is just not right for this day and age.
I recently found a children's anatomy book from a charity shop and was looking at the illustrations, which were quite lovely, and in vivid colour.
I noticed that, apart from the illustrations, there was one little photograph in black and white the corner of the page illustrating the digestive system.
Unlike the children illustrated in the book, who were all white, the people in the photo were "starving Africans" whose likeness existed solely to depict malnourished children so that the fortunate children reading the book would be encouraged to count their blessings and eat their greens.
When I encounter debates like this I very much regret not buying the book as it illustrated the depiction of African people as "other" and in need of rescuing in a way that is highly relevant to this discussion.
As for Stacey Dooley I have mixed feelings.
I watched recently her on a programme where she was accompanying Yazidi women fighters to the frontline to fight against daesh. On a few occasions women disclosed appalling personal experiences of rape and enslavement and of witnessing the rapes and beheadings of women and children including close family members.
It is I think difficult to know how to respond to someone telling you about such atrocities and many people would cry or feel lost for words. I believe it is important to reflect the horror of the person's account by letting them see how shocked and horrified you are.
Stacey kept cooing, in a sing song voice with which one might comfort a small child "Aaaaw! Everything's going to be all right" and hugging the women and trying to cheer them up.
At one point one of the Yazidi women could not bear to talk further about what she has endured and ran from the room. Stacey explained to the camera that the women had said that they wanted people to hear their stories but that when given a chance they couldn't bear to talk about it.
I wanted to step into the screen and talk to Stacey.
I wanted to say to her something like, "Stacey these women have suffered unimaginable atrocities. They are on the front line with guns fighting the scum who raped and murdered their family members. They might die fighting tomorrow. Even if they live and they manage to kill 1,000 daesh they will still suffer for the rest of their lives because of what they have seen and endured. Don't you dare tell them everything is going to be all right."
I think Stacey Dooley was out of her depth dealing with such serious issues. I suspect that, being a celebrity, she is not being properly advised by her people who should possibly gently challenge her more and not just say "Yes Stacey". She should have been better educated about how to listen to traumatised people and how to give them space to share what they are able without giving them hugs and false, anodyne reassurances.
I don't doubt her courage travelling to the front line but I found her attitude very condescending.
These women have endured so much. Rape, violence, slavery. They have become warriors with guns out for revenge and justice.
They deserved to be treated with much more respect than they were given in the programme.
The worst part was, at the end when Stacey left the Yadizi women, she spoke to camera and giggled about how sweet the women were and that, while they had little in the way of personal possessions, one of them had given her a gift of purple lipstick.
Lipstick probably does not mean very much to Stacey as she can buy as much as she likes in whatever shades she wants. Stacey doesn't understand that, for women fighting on a front line in a terrifying war, a simple lipstick is something that, even after you have been robbed of everything else, shows that you are a woman.
This story is I think highly relevant
fransorin.com/one-small-act-kindness-saved-lives-impact-giving-lipsticks-women-brink-death/
You do not need to be a psychoanalyst to work out that the gift of lipstick to Stacey was a gift of something precious. Sometimes when someone has very little to give even a small gift takes on great significance. It seems to me that the lipstick was a symbol that the Yazidi warrior was still a woman and, as a gift to other woman was a gift symbolising sisterhood. An extremely moving and generous gift full of meaning.
How did Stacey respond?
"I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'd never wear it" she confided to the camera, apparently oblivious of anything other than the fact that it was purple and she didn't like it.