Poverty Porn

Each afternoon the alternative rock station in our fair city plays a comedic bit called Nerf's LOL at 5:05. Usually they are short skits like a mock add for The Donald's "presidential campaign" or what it's like to be a French guy on Cinco De Mayo (podcast-lols-at-505-channel933).  Lately, however, they have been running a series entitled First World Problems.  In one piece someone is complaining about something like wanting to send a text at a red light, but getting all the green lights.  Or pouring a bowl of cereal before realizing that you are out of milk.  My favorite is having too big a hand to fit inside a Pringles can, thus having to tip the can which spills crumbs that the maid has to clean up.  I end up annoying those around me by reciting especially good ones and then laughing like a hyena. What's so great about these tiny snapshots of funny is how close to home they hit for most of us. In fact just today I got irritated with the lady at Chipotle for not putting enough beans in my bowl. Pitiful!

Today on the show I want to explore the topic of poverty in relation to how we first world folks consume it.  The phrase "poverty porn" has a tendency to hit like a backhand to the face.  Probably mostly for the obvious reason that it includes the word porn, but in a much deeper way once you begin to understand its implications.  I don't know who came up with the term, I having first seen in on Appalachian photographer Roger May's twitter timeline.  Basically it means using imagery of poverty to enrich yourself of your company, or to boost charitable activity. Some say a good current example of just that is the CBS realty show "The Briefcase."  The premise is that two struggling American families are each given one hundred grand and then told they can keep it or give some of it to this other family that has problems of its own.  So they agonize over the decision for our entertainment until the finale at which time both families are brought together and "revealed" to each other. All I had to see was a trailer for that crap to call it poverty porn.  Using others misfortune for ratings is lame CBS, don't watch!

In the last couple weeks I have seen three different pieces of media that highlight the ongoing debate about how poverty is portrayed to us, the masses.  The first is a photo essay by  Bruce Gilden that appeared on Vice.com entitled "Two Days in Appalachia",vice.com/read/two-days-in-appalachia.  One look at Mr.  Gilden's “work” and you will see why the reaction to it has been swift and negative.  It appears that old Bruce spent his two days looking for as many fat, ugly and/or disabled folks he could find to prop up the stereo types about mountain people.  Honestly I thought we had stopped doing that sometime in the 1960s.  Go ahead and take a look at the piece if only to see what passes for photo journalism.  Not to mention that one of the nicest men I have ever met, the guy rocking the sweet Anthony Davis unibrow somehow made it into the lineup.  Roy works at the local plumbing supply house in Isom, KY and always made my visits there a joy. Hey Roy loves him some UK basketball is all. Oh and Bruce Gliden, go to your room!  Definitely Poverty Porn!

The next item is the documentary “Rich Hill”.  The doc follows the lives of three boys growing up in the small town of Rich Hill, Missouri.  Made by a brother and sister team from that area the movie does a good job capturing the chaos and struggle that growing up in poverty can be.  Unfortunately, watching it is a lot like watching a car crash over and over again.  It’s a continuous stream of terrible parenting, crappy housing, mental illness, neglect and abandonment.  You’re rooting for the kids even though you know they or adults around them are going keep making a mess of life.

I don’t believe that Rich Hill was made with bad motives, or to raise money for a particular cause.  However its effect on the viewer has that rubber necking on the freeway feeling.  You can't turn away even though you know there is going to be carnage.  I am not sure what to do with a story like this.  On the one hand it needs to be told, but on the other watching it on your couch at home feels a little like I imagine going to the Coliseum to see the gladiators was like.  And of course we Americans with our soft hearts try to assuage our gilt for watching it by throwing money at the kids.  That is a topic for another day but suffice to say that is something I have mixed feelings about.  Unintended Poverty Porn.

Have you ever binge watched documentaries? The same night I watched Rich Hill I also watched “On The Way To School.”  This documentary details the challenge four sets of kids face just getting to school each day.  One is a girl in Morocco that hikes 22 kilometers on a mountain trail with her friends each week to the nearest village, only to have to catch a ride with strange men and goats from there to a boarding school.  Others ride horses something like 11 miles in Patagonia each day or walk many miles through dangerous African savannas for the chance to learn. Not to mention the two little Indian boys that drag their disabled brother in a lawn chair turned wheel chair two miles every morning.  Netflix it people!

Honestly I think I cried a little watching "On The Way To School."  It is beautiful and powerful to see kids make such sacrifices to learn.  If you're a bleeding heart, then this movie is right in your wheel house.  Yes to some degree it is poverty porn because watching American kids ride the bus for two hours isn't all that interesting.  But I honestly think that the film makers wanted to tell a story that most of us have no idea about.  Yes of course the kids are now showing up at Cannes at the films premier rocking leather coats, and I am sure the kid with the crappy wheel chair has a rubber tracked motorized ride to school these days.  Oh how I want to pass judgment on those who think they can fix these stories and potentially ruin something hard but beautiful. But when you see those Moroccan girls get in a truck with scary dudes and a bunch of goats its hard to argue with them.  Not Poverty Porn, but check yourselves injustice collectors.

The problem with me yelling too loudly about this topic is that I am a contributor to it.  Hell one of the reasons we moved to Kentucky was the PBS show "Country Boys" about two kids growing up in Pike County.  Think car crash meets train wreck.  And I am guilty of telling stories or taking friends who visited there passed houses with open sewers running down the hill or hundreds of caged fighting chickens in cages in the front yard.  Was I really using others misfortune as entertainment for my friends, or to justify why I moved to Appalachia?

 Let's face it, Poverty Porn is here to stay in part because it's a good vehicle to raise money and awareness for dire causes around the world.  What is not cool is when it's used to make money for media outlets or when the Red Cross pulled that card and then managed to blow half a billion in Haiti and build six homes npr.org in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief.  What is also not cool is to watch Honey Boo Boo people.