Jeremy Kyle viewers are at fault too for laughing at the misfortune of people
SOMETIMES we need time and distance to appreciate the full detrimental extent of certain situations.
The management of those situations doesn’t seem too bad at the time and it’s all too easy to get so swept up in the emotion, provocation and resulting devastation that we never stop to fully examine the rollercoaster we’re on.
The Jeremy Kyle documentary, Death On Daytime, was a stark and deeply uncomfortable examination of what we considered to be entertainment for some 15 years.
I had almost forgotten quite how manipulative, disturbing and outrageous the show had become by the time it was taken off air.
The documentary harked back to a time of ASBOs, Benefits Street and other poverty porn, a societal fascination with sink estates and what might be deemed to be the underbelly of society.
These were communities that no one really wanted to deal with but with which we were more than happy to engage in the name of entertainment.
I was never a fan of The Jeremy Kyle Show. It could be because, not only am I an empath, but I’m severely allergic to confrontation and I always felt very strongly that it was poking fun at people everyone else thought they were above.
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It took advantage of and taunted the less well-educated. It derided and ridiculed the economic and educational misfortune of people who could not grasp the concept of communication.
It mocked them for their lack of emotional intelligence and complicated family and relationship set-ups. And now we know it also tormented them. All in the name of entertainment.
The programme and its staff were pressed to squeeze as much controversy out of every contributor who actually had no real notion of what the fallout would be.
So, while there are people to blame — not least Jeremy Kyle and his alleged “God complex”, but also all those that watched it, who, by applauding and laughing at the horrors that unfolded, were complicit, too — I’d like to think things have now changed in TV.
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Certainly, every programme nowadays has psychologists and welfare staff crawling all over it.
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It can be frustrating at times — such as during the filming of Celebs Go Dating, when I asked if I could have ONE rum and coke after a long day of filming.
And someone had to pick up the phone and ask a senior executive if this 54-year-old woman might be permitted to have her favourite tipple.