I’m an old mare and have attended many rodeos. As such, I am rarely-to-never surprised. But this week, I had the chance to again feel as a filly: hitherto untouched by the brutality of bulls.
Tonight, the program Filthy Rich and Homeless concludes on SBS TV. Here’s a spoiler: I have seen the conclusion to this “immersive reality” series and it’s just as jaw-dropping as the other two. I really did not expect that television could surprise me by becoming even more deeply shit. It is now more deeply shit and I am young again.
This is the spectacle of well-known Australians who “trade privilege for homelessness”. For ten days, five celebrities were left on the streets of Sydney with nothing but their camera crews and the delusion that they were really helping make a difference. And, no, I am not saying that it’s no fun to watch bodies habituated to clean-eating suck stuff up from a bin. God, who wouldn’t want to see what happens when Cameron Daddo sleeps on carboard? Spoiler: he puts his back out, perhaps an event of job creation for Sydney’s healing osteopath community. Which is the only economic good that will come out of this pornography.
Notwithstanding public claims by very literate participant Benjamin Law that this show is not pornography, this show is pornography. It seeks to arouse a physical feeling in viewers which it then relieves. Yes, I found make-believe congress between celebrity and hardship momentarily satisfying, but I’m embarrassed to admit I enjoyed it. Here’s a tissue. Mop it up.
Just how the “journey” of a person — such as NSW MLA Alex Greenwich who was surprised by the fact of something he should have effing known — means progress for actual homeless persons is a mystery to me. But not to participants and producers, who have two piss-weak alibis for their illicit screen romp.
The first is that we all follow the prescriptions of Everybody’s Home, an online group of Christian charities that recommends as a first priority in the fight against homelessness a tax incentive for first home buyers. Incentives for first home buyers have had the past effect of increasing the price of the housing commodity, and economist Steve Keen was entirely right to call the First Home Owner’s Grant the first home vendor’s grant. But, hey, the second alibi does away with the first.
You just say: this show will make a difference.
What difference? Well, apparently, we need to be shown homelessness through “relatable” eyes to understand that homelessness is shit.
Look. I’m no a priori whiz, but I reckon I already know that homelessness is shit. I am similarly confident that attack by drone strike is shit. I do not need to face the very best fatal technology the world’s hegemon can afford to know that it would be shit nor I do not need to hear moving stories about drone strikes by their victims. In fact, I propose that when people do hear moving stories, they tend to feel like they’ve done their bit. US Congress — the people who have rather a lot to do with drone strikes — heard the moving testimony in 2013 of then 13-year-old Zubair Ur Rehman. This little citizen of Pakistan said that he now feared blue skies. The drone strikes continued. Here’s a tissue for those dead children. Mop them up.
Argue all you want about whether this show is a route to creating “empathy” in the general population. But, know two things: first, The Guardian has already had all the arguments about the sum of empathy created by shit telly and will continue to argue about beautiful, yummy empathy until little is left on this planet but heat, death and a dozen biodomes whose imprisoned elites fear attack by giant cockroaches; second, who cares about my “empathy”? What can my empathy do?
I’ve got empathy coming out my holes. I can’t go to the shops without wanting to cry. I broke down in Coles the other day when I saw a frail woman hold a no-name frozen shepherd’s pie for one. Empathy? It’s like flatulence. You’re human and you can’t stop it happening.
You can, however, restrain yourself in public. I do wish the five prominent Australians who traded “privilege” — these days, shelter is a privilege, no longer a right — thought to pop a cork in it. I wish that the out-and-out lie that empathy ever produces policy results, or prevents them, would no longer be told. These guys seem to think we’re living in a democracy. One activated by eminent tears.
Want to make a difference? Use five minutes of your time on TV to link the nation’s punishingly high cost of housing to the nation’s punishingly high cost of housing. Interrupt the cheap satisfaction of a “journey” with an unsexy thing like finance sector control over house price.
It is a decision not to discuss the role the finance sector plays in house price. One must ignore a global financial crisis, an ongoing royal commission and the opinion of many working locally to solve the growing problem of insecure housing to omit this. One must ignore a national economy that has boomed on debt creation.
Empathy? Here’s a tissue. Mop it up.
Have you watched the show? Let us know what you think at boss@crikey.com.au.
good work Helen
this filthy rich and homeless gig was always loathsome manipulative shit
just build more public housing, and stop tearing down the little that is left, you morons
Didn’t know SBS was in charge of building homes.
I commend Ms Razer for her demolition job on ‘Filthy rich and homeless’. While I may have summoned the energy and focus to make some of the same points myself, I could never have made them so eloquently. With regard to the nature and value of empathy in this situation, I found myself wondering if Helen had read and absorbed Paul Bloom’s 2016 book ‘Against Empathy – The Case for Rational Compassion’ ‘? As Helen points out, this show is a fine example of some of the problems with simply evoking empathy.
As Bloom wonderfully sets out in his book, seeing and feeling the world from the perspective and feelings of one person can be counter-productive. Empathy means we can be transfixed by the plight of a single homeless individual, but indifferent to thousands of others in the same – or a worse – predicament. Research suggests we tend to donate more when shown the plight of a single child in distress, less if we are shown the same child and her brother and even less if shown a thousand children in the same position.
The situation is perhaps most startlingly illustrated by considering that empathy does not necessarily imply goodwill. The most empathetic people around us are sociopaths. They know exactly how we are feeling – and then use that empathy to manipulate us to their own advantage.
Goodwill combined with reason and compassion mean we are motivated to properly address problems like homelessness. And that takes a systematic approach. Thanks Helen! ‘Empathy? Mop it up.’ Indeed.
Yes! I did read it. Not my sort of framework as I prefer to think of private and public manifestations of empathy differently. But, this belief in the power of empathy is of great interest.
Very nice compliment, and thanks. It’s the job of a writer to set down what the reader has no time to. I feel like I just did a good job on your lawn! Nice to feel productive.
Would it be too hevvy to suggest a reading of Ursula Le Guin’s “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas“?
Our comfy lifestyles are not accidental.
Good suggestion, AR.
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Admittedly, I am watching this series which is inferior to the 2017 version. At best the show can afford more affluent members of the public a glimpse of hopelessness and fear. Perhaps it will prompt them to reach into their pockets for a gold coin or note next time they encounter a homeless person.
But the bottom line is this: our government pours money into exorbitantly expensive submarines and dud fighter jets rather than provide housing for Australians who genuinely struggle. And who likely don’t vote. There you have it.
Right on Razza!
Particularly that last para where you actually mention a solution, in part at least, instead of this ridiculous slumming it for a few nights.
If these people – just the ones on the show – or better still the dills watching this rubbish, bought five ads on tv or the Murdoch press and pointed out that Negative gearing allied with the lowest interest rates ever and foreign capital inflows have combined to make housing prices unreachable they would actually do some good.
Matthew Cummins
Good stuff Razer. I ‘d seen the title but I thought it was some sort of revival of Filthy, Rich and Catflap (when will that NetFlix reboot premier) but now I realise it’s really another capitalist bastard trick designed to prevent any semblance of a rebalancing of equality. Fuckity fuck.