Homelessness Week shame: let’s move on from poverty porn
8 August 2022 at 4:28 pm
As we look back on Homelessness Week, surely it’s time to move on from the scourge of poverty porn, writes Jodie Wainwright.
We’ve just experienced our 15th annual Homelessness Week, the time of year created to draw our attention to the cause for support of people experiencing homelessness.
The week is a time intended to highlight the issue, and promote discussion amongst everyone – including government, social organisations and experts in the arena, to come up with solutions to the problems that cause and accompany the alarming, and increasing numbers of people that sleep and live rough.
While there are events to engage communities and decision makers – which is a great thing – there is also the sharing of stories, thoughts, ideas and concerns accompanied by an inevitable scourge of ‘poverty porn’.
Also known as development porn, famine porn and stereotype porn, it’s intended to add visual impact to the stories and the cause, to generate sympathy, and consequently increase donations and support, but also to sell media publications.
It perpetuates a certain narrative and stereotype of what poverty should look like. A malnourished child? A family living in a dilapidated house? Someone with torn and tattered clothes?
The concept gave rise in the 1980s – the ‘golden age of charity campaigns’, when hard-hitting images of malnourished kids with flies in their eyes represented world hunger. This was the time of the ‘Feed The World’ Live Aid campaign led by Sir Bob Geldoff and his superstar friends’ and the release of the now iconic ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’
The term ‘poverty porn’ was coined years later, when a critic reviewed the film Angela’s Ashes in 1999, describing the film’s depiction of poverty as “ponderous vomit-packed poverty porn”.
Today, many experts agree, the common practice to shock and guilt people into empathy and sympathy, actually ‘exploits’ the poor’s condition. It leads to considerable damage to the vulnerable communities, and the public becomes increasingly desensitised and apathetic to the images, and in turn the critical issues they represent.
Poverty porn is dangerous, it can work to further marginalise our vulnerable community members who are already facing significant barriers to accessing the support, services and experiences they deserve to realise their life potential. It perpetuates discrimination, and further limits access to genuine opportunities that enables a person to thrive in mainstream society.
It seems to remove the societal rules around politeness and what we can ask a person. It’s dehumanising and frequently treads a fine line around laying blame on the individual for their circumstances. There is a growing belief highlighting their trauma as opposed to recognising their strengths, significantly increases the stigma and exclusion associated with their experiences.
History and experience tells us that there has to be a better way. It’s critical that we empower them to transform their own communities.
2020 Homelessness Week brought with it images such as people sleeping on public benches, and in 2021 there were single mums in cars with children and belongings.
There was some relief this year; while we still saw a few images of the downtrodden, most organisations adopted a more progressive approach to the visuals that accompanied media and press. While there was still darkness represented, we saw images of statistics, keys and housing.
Offering disadvantaged people and communities opportunities challenges the preconceptions around who they are and what they can do. Working alongside and collaborating with professionals affords disadvantaged groups and individuals hope, and builds individual capacity. It increases their confidence, skills and connections to promote an ongoing increased sense of self, improved wellbeing, and an improved outlook on life.
Experts and those of us who forge to develop programs that include our vulnerable community, believe that equipped with the tools they gain from these experiences, and with ongoing engagement and opportunities, our vulnerable people and groups will be able to pursue their aspirations.
We need to break down barriers, encourage inclusion and increase opportunities for people with lived experiences to thrive, tackling the issue of disadvantage for them, for us, and for society.
