I’ve been watching a lot of Jeremy Kyle recently what with being at home working on coursework and revision (I’m lucky enough to have a monitor for my PC which is also plugged into a Sky box, allowing me to work and have PiP Jeremy Kyle in the corner). I’d like to point out that I do have a sort of ‘Jeremy Kyle ballcock’ in mind which stops me watching too much and turning into a complete couch potato.
However, no matter how much I watch, and how hard I think about it, I can’t decide if the JK show (and Jezza himself) is good, bad or somewhere in between.
On the negative side I have no doubt that Jezza and his cohorts exploit people, usually poorly educated and from the lower end of society, for entertainment. Using highly emotive language Jezza asks people to call his ‘important’ number, or text the word ‘trust’, ‘lie’, ‘pregnant’ or ‘impotent’ to the show with the aim of getting them on the telly and shouting at them. People who can barely count, and probably have difficulty knowing which end to do toilet from, are abused on TV because they feel that Jezza will make everything all right. I think it is worrying that instead of dealing with these problems on their own, people feel the need to air their dirty laundry, skid marks and all, in front of the nation.
I really am not trying to be rude, but when you see the calibre of ‘guests’ on the show it is hard to think they made an informed choice as to whether it is right for them to spill all on national TV. For example, my current favourite quote from one of Jezza’s guests goes as follows (I’ve changed the names in this ‘quote’ to protect the identity of the idiots involved and because I can’t remember them):
A DNA test was conducted to discover the father of a baby. The woman claimed to have had only one sexual partner. The DNA test results proved that her one sexual partner was not, in fact, the father of her baby.
Jezza: So you’re a filthy liar!
Shaz: No! I’m not a liar. Dean is the only man in world I’ve slept with ever n shit.
Jezza: Then how come he’s not the father! If he was the father, you scum; the DNA test would have said so!
Shaz: I’m not a liar; it is Dean’s baby n dat.
Jezza: Science has proved you’re a liar! Science! Liar!
Shaz: If it’s not Dean’s then I don’t know how it got inside me.
Jezza: So it was some kind of Immaculate Conception then?
Shaz: Yeah! They happen sometimes.
Okay, so that isn’t really a quote but the jist is there. This woman, who I have called Shaz, admitted on national telly that she believed that it was quite possible for Immaculate Conceptions to exist. How can a woman who believes she is carrying the Son of God be in a position to make an informed choice as to whether it would be a good idea or not to get help from a shouty man on telly?
Now; here is the defence. The Jeremy Kyle show does offer services and facilities to people which they may not otherwise be able to have – either because they cannot afford them or because they simply do not know they exist. I’m thinking along the lines of treatment for alcohol and drug dependency, marriage/relationship counselling and paternity tests (which do serve a purpose other than creating confrontation). Lie detector tests are pretty much useless and exist only to serve the show’s remit of creating shouting and confrontation.
The question everyone who watches this show, and others like it, need to ask themselves is this: Do the services and facilities offered justify the exploitation?
I myself am unsure; I am sure however that Jezza Kyle is an idiot.
