The production company behind Benefits Street must have had their feelings hurt by that show's backlash because they've gone and made a new documentary about how they've been bullied and threatened.
This new one is called Immigration Street, though I assume the working title was Poor Little Production Company Tries to Embark On Noble Crusade But Gets Shouted At.
Love Productions made Benefits Street last year and it caused a nationwide furore and nearly melted Twitter as well as provoking raucous TV debates, angry newspaper columns plus spin-off programmes and a new career for its star, White Dee.
I assume the company were quite pleased with the notoriety, and viewing figures, because they set out to recreate the trick in Immigration Street: choose one inflammatory issue, then choose one street in Britain and claim it acts as a microcosm. Finally, besiege the street with cameras and say you're capturing real life.
The residents of Benefits Street - or James Turner Street, to dignify it with its proper name - claimed they were tricked by Love Productions and only opened their homes, and their mouths, because they believed the documentary was about community spirit, rather than a tool for sneering at the long-term unemployed and those with mental illness.
But the residents of Derby Road, Southampton had learned a lesson, having seen the distress brought to James Turner Street in the aftermath of Benefits Street, with the whole area being derided, the tabloids descending and 'tourists' coming to gawp.
So in March 2014, when the camera crew arrived on Derby Road to start filming Immigration Street, the residents tried to force them out and the result was a painful, uncomfortable and pointless hour of TV. No-one came out of this looking well.
The production company tried to impose the same model as Benefits Street: find local 'characters' and film them at home or at their place of work (the latter being largely impossible on Benefits Street.)
There was Delroy, an old, energetic Jamaican man who was dicing a rubbery grey squid on his kitchen table. There was Rafique, a jolly corner shop owner who laughed at how lost and silly Britain would be without its immigrants. Without them, he says, Britain would be nothing but chip shops, with everything closed on Sundays. The immigrants are the plucky, industrious ones, and he believes that's why the native British resent them. 'You lot can't handle it!' he laughed and I warmed to this programme. Just a few minutes had gone by and we were already getting down to some tough issues.
But then the programme veered away from the very subject is was named for - immigration - and turned into a documentary about itself: a documentary about making a documentary when the people you're documenting don't want to be documented. It belonged more to a media studies lecture than Channel 4.
Admittedly, the crew did have plenty to complain about. We saw them subject to intimidation and threats and a local criminal demanded £200k as protection money. The tyres of their car were slashed. They were threatened with acid attacks and shootings. But this did nothing to portray the realities of life on a multicultural street.
We also saw the director attend a public meeting with the locals where he was portrayed as being the only calm, sensible one amidst an angry, incoherent crowd. We heard of politicians who'd belittled the project. The director blamed local politicians who were terrified of their patch getting a bad name on national TV, and who feared their constituents saying controversial things, so he labelled this as censorship. The community, egged on by local politicians, were trying to silence and halt the programme.
So we had censorship, verbal abuse, threats and acid attacks? This surely merited a documentary of its own. But it didn't get a documentary of its own; instead it was jammed into the slot set aside in the schedule for something called 'Immigration Street.' The programme lost its purpose as soon as it began reciting its list of grievances, and setting itself up as the saintly voice of reason amidst a racket of yokels and thugs.
There can be no grabbing at the moral high ground after serving up Benefits Street.
However, there were some traces of the hostility immigrants might encounter. We heard shouted abuse like: 'You ain't actually from round here!', 'Get out of the f*cking area!', 'We don't want you!' 'We're gonna run you out!' but these insults were aimed at Love Productions, not local immigrants.
So what was the point of this grand scheme? Nothing, really. The documentary wasn't about immigration or community or modern Britain, it was about Love Productions. And neither did the locals or the politicians of Derby Road succeed in preserving the apparent good name of their area. With the shaky footage of violence and the recordings of screamed threats and obscenities, the place seemed horrendous.
No-one comes out of this mess looking good, except maybe the residents of Benefits Street.
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