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Comment by mark gorman on June 6, 2010 at 21:51

Well, that's just a whole new debate.

Comment by Mark MacLachlan on June 6, 2010 at 21:35

Aren't we all delighted that this programme will be broadcast down south with subtitles? I welcome the plethora of stereotypes we'll be inundated with...

Comment by mark gorman on June 6, 2010 at 21:23

I'm not in the least surprised by the front page headline and two page story in today's Sunday Mail. Mainly because it's exactly what I have being saying here for two weeks. And so has Pat Kane. Sorry Stuart.

But more sorry for the poor people exploited by this very poor programme.

Comment by George Falconer on June 5, 2010 at 10:21

I don't know if this was in house or indie, but it certainly got people talking - I'm sure this is something most producers want.

Comment by mark gorman on June 2, 2010 at 14:17

I was gonna say that.

Comment by Charles Hendry McGregor on June 2, 2010 at 12:45

Vincent, I think I know what Pat meant by 'Poverty Porn' but it is a little confusing - the 'porn' part being too specifically sexual. Sometimes the writer's desire to alliterate borrows from clarity.
How about 'Social Voyeurism'?

This debate is polarised for pretty clear reasons.

For a start the two sections of the mainstream audience most likely to be particularly exercised by this series could hardly be more different.

On the one hand you have those Middle Class who require regular massaging of their superiority mythos, perhaps epitomised by Home Counties' suburbia. (BTW I don't think their absence from the blogosphere on this issue can be taken to indicate they do not exist. First of all, that element of the middle class tends not to blog/facebook anyway, second 'Social Voyeurism' would surely be a guilty secret even to them.)

On the other hand, there are those who either live like those in 'The Scheme' or who used to or who have acquaintances who still do or perhaps who live on a scheme but do not live like those depicted and resent the portrayed lifestyles as being typical.

As to the motives of the series makers, I'm certain it was NOT to make ego salve for the middle classes, but if I'm wrong on that, whoever is responsible should consider whether they are in the right line of work. Social voyeurism (as defined) is just plain wrong. Paradoxically, I think it has an even more injurious effect on those practising it than it does of the subjects of, in their eyes, derision.

No, I'm sure the motivation would be one of 'show it like it is' veritas on behalf of the program's producers. Ostensibly meritorious. But even if it is, a question remains. Is this what the modern myth machine should be doing?

Aside from questioning if the utilitarian comparison of undeniably damaging, social voyeurism versus any dubious self-esteem benefit accruing to the subjects would fid in favour of the programme's producers; there is a real big picture, cultural development question here.

Traditionally, from as far back as the misty origins of our culture, our storytellers have, by using their myths, both disseminated and been a facilitator of change for nothing less than our cultural benchmarks. A sacred duty. The line has almost invariably been aspirational and idealistic in nature i.e. what we should strive to be, not what we actually are. Is that really so bad?

I'm asking; if that is not done, is there not a real danger of reversal in the direction of cultural benchmarks? i.e. away from ideals.

What is the purpose of the story teller? To raise the bar or depict the lowest common denominator?

Given that one side of the argument is a given for wrongness and that there are still serious questions even over the merit of the 'good' side, I'm with Pat on this one.

Comment by Claire Bow on June 1, 2010 at 13:37

I have joined this site to add my thoughts about your debate about The Scheme. Too be honest I feel quite sickened by Pat Kane and others comments, as they sit in their comfy middleclass world waxing lyrical about 'poverty porn', referring to real people as 'Characters'!!!! Where on earth have you been living for the last 10 years eh???? Certainly not in 'a scheme', well I have and still work with local young people who do live in a scheme! The world that is shown in the programme is indeed real. People do live like this all over Scotland, their stories deserve to be told. We need to be talking about it...and thank goodness following 'The Scheme' we actually are.

Comment by Tom Morton on May 31, 2010 at 6:43

It seems that Bullet the dog has had a leg amputated and been adopted by someone in London, who has changed his name to Bullwinkle. No, seriously:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/msp-hits-out-at-sleeki...

That was very decent of you, Pat...

Comment by Mark MacLachlan on May 30, 2010 at 21:34

Personally, I thought Kimberley's dancing was as entertaining as Marvin's cousins claim to be a pole dancer, and had quite the unpleasant touch of the mini-pops about it.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i274/discoprincess1/georginangemm...

Comment by pat kane on May 30, 2010 at 12:03

Stuart, yes, I guess I'm making an artist's critique of the kind of "presenting" and performance that's going on in The Scheme. Kimberley's dance competition was utterly fantastic - like an irruption of Rio and Berlin into the middle of Ayrshire. (Away with yir El Sistema - I could have done with a whole documentary about that event). But apart from that, are there no local bands there, no hackers into technology, no menshie wall-sprayers? What courses, therapies, classes were happening at the community centre that WAS built? No joiners/decorators/sparks who were applying their compulsive ingenuity to local projects, house extensions? Looking at poor communities through the lens of what craft and skills they have gives a different result than picking off the worst or near-worst families and turning them into self-subverting strip cartoons. We know the old names to guide us by - Paulo Friere, Augusto Boal, recently Richard Sennett - and there are a few new ones too (Simon Yuill's history of bringing notational skills into tough communities comes to mind).

My youngest bro told me of a call he heard on Real Radio - a guy claiming to have been covered by The Scheme's makers for six months, in which he built up a help website to aid diabetes sufferers, and got married to his childhood sweetheart. He'd been told he hadn't make the cut - "maybe my story was too boring", he'd said. I know from my correspondence that there are many more, subtler stories to be told about Onthank than we're getting here - to grant this edit the generic title of 'The Scheme' is a complete misnomer about life in these communities. I hope one of the consequences of the stushie around this show is that we could perhaps get a web-enabled 'Stories from The Scheme' - stories not used, longer testimonies from people, interesting sideline material, follow-ups on the fate of individuals. And perhaps BBC could revise its editing policy, and invite those filmed into the heart of the production process - an education for both sides, very possibly.

Joan, you're right about the Scots-language element not being remarked upon - thought as a veteran of the Poll Tax wars, you'd probably want a Scots that had a lot more militancy and political consciousness than here. But on methodone and housing - we just don't know what stage of care any of these characters are at, how well others are doing round about them: it's a snapshot of the worst families entirely shorn of any of the systems that are undoubtedly trying to handle them, part of my beef about the prurient selectiveness of the series - showing the pathology, not the sociology. Something less pornographic (yes, still using the term) and fetishizing of the poor wouldn't get the Facebook groups frothing.

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