On the rare occasions that I haven't been at work and have been up in the morning I have stumbled across the Jeremy Kyle Show and I have been instantly addicted. By the show? No. By the host. No? Its the people. Where do these people come from?
So what defines a Jeremy Kyle guest, well there is the clothes. It seems that the Jeremy Kyle guests have their own uniform, it consists of cheap top, jeans and trainers for the normally toothless males and cheap top, leggings and fake Ugg boots for the ladies (if you can call them that). Then there are the personality traits shown, most claim benefits, they take drugs, they have sex, a lot and with indiscriminant amounts of partners and they shout. Boy, do they shout. It can be one person shouting, sometimes two and occasionally a whole stage of people are shouting all at the same time. On the periphery stands Jeremy Kyle, a slim 40 something who tries to control the characters on stage and the baying crowd (who he jokes "should be at work). It seems the only people working are Jeremy and some big bouncer guy who occasionally has to split up two guests who are, you guessed it, shouting.
Their tales are the sort of dirty laundry that any normal person would want keeping from every person they know but these guys trot it out as if it was Parkinson and they were discussing their new film. Subjects like "Is my boyfriend cheating on me?", "Are you my real father", "Has my sister stolen our Mum's money?", "Is my girlfriends baby mine?" It is shocking to any normal person and of course that is what makes the show.
It hit home to me though the other night when I was watching a Channel 4 documentary called "skint" which focuses on a Jeremy Kyle style group of people, that the one thing all these people have in common is that no matter how bad their lives and what immoral things they may be doing they have no fear or embarrassment of showing the general public. The characters on Skint are very similar to Kyle's guests, they are on benefits, they take drugs, they sleep around and they shout, a lot. They talk of how bad things are and how they have no money but do this all whilst smoking, playing the x-box on a 50 inch TV with their Apple iPhones resting on their ashtrays. No shame, no embarrassment of the juxtaposition of the situation and of course they do it all whilst wearing the uniform of the scrubber-chic. I noticed that some of the girls had substituted fake Ugg boots for ballet pumps which had seen better days but on the whole the get-up was almost identical.
They openly discuss how they are playing the system, they get more money from not working, they got more money the more children they have, they go to prison because its a holiday camp. The honesty is quite frightening to those watching. In fact the only people not frightened are those on the programme. Of course, the truth is that their lives are wretched and we all know it, we thank God we don't live like this but it is all these people know and for them its just fine.
For the first 4 or 5 years of my life I was in a single parent family and my Mother had little money but she made sure I was turned out properly and she made the best for our lives but that is what sets some people apart from others, my mum doesn't shout, she listens. There is the difference. We need these people to start listening. To start contributing to a society that they have become isolated from.
Every so often these shows throw up a person or people who are searching for something more, something better, these people are normally not shouting but you know it will be difficult for them to break the ties of their old lives.
I don't pretend to have the answer but what I can tell you is that I find Jeremy Kyle and Skint for that matter, an hour of the most frustrating television ever.
If I did have some advice it would be to start to listen more, shout less and maybe go and buy a pair of those mustard coloured cords that those guys from One Direction wear. Actually don't, I almost hate those as much.
No comments:
Post a Comment