There are now clips of the ‘Poverty and Participation in the Media‘ DVD available to view online. Please click here to view clips of our interview with Zac Beattie, maker of ‘Rich Kid Poor Kid‘.
There is also a discussion of ‘The Tower’ with residents of the Pepys Estate.
Other topics include:
The Media’s Potential For Change
Please let us know what you think by leaving a comment on this blog.
Spectacle are planning to return to the infamous Tower on the Pepys Estate, as featured in the BBC documentary The Tower, to find out from residents what they thought of the programs representation of where they lived. We will be visiting the community centre on Monday night (9/02/09) so please come along and share your opinion with us.
Have you ever lived on the Pepys Estate?
What would you like to ask the makers of The Tower?
Do you think the The Tower is a good representation of the Pepys Estate?
For more clips from our Poverty and The Media project please visit our Archive
To find out more information about our Poverty and The Media project please visit our Project Page
Rich Kid, Poor Kid, The Secret Millionaire, The Tower and Repossession, Repossession, Repossession are all programs that centre around ‘poor’ areas and attempt to explore social inequality through individual stories.
What happens to the individuals or areas in these programs when the film makers leave?
What are the consequences of putting peoples personal circumstances on television?
For more clips from our Poverty and The Media project please visit our Archive
To find out more information about our Poverty and The Media project please visit our Project Page
The Tower is a documentary TV series, recently broadcast on BBC1, which claims to give an accurate portrayal of the social issues on the Aragon Tower on the Pepys estate. The Tower has been sold to private developers Berkley Homes and the programme centres around the contrast between the old and new residents. Some have heralded this as an excellent of portrayal the deep-seated social problems of large council estates, contrasting the lives of local council tenants with a recent influx of wealthy home owners, to highlight the issues around ‘mixed development’. Others have claimed the program relies on old forms of stereotyping, portraying the mass of council tenants as either brow-beaten victims, alcoholic drug -riddled junkies or violent criminals.
How accurate is The Tower portrayal of the Pepys Estate? Is it possible to make a popular TV show about social issues without using the most extreme examples? Is this sort of program useful to remind people that real problems do exist in these areas or does is simple make the problems worse? Can you show poverty in a bad light without showing poor people in a bad light.
