NAKED CITY – POVERTY PORN IN THE LOO!
With Coffin Ed.
“Poverty Porn” – it’s a rather unfortunate expression that has entered the English lexicon in recent years. According to one internet source it’s defined as “any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor’s condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers or increasing charitable donations or support for a given cause”.
It’s does however manifest in many other ways, well outside the area of aid organisations and charity groups. We have all seen those reality style shows on television that focus on those living at the lower end of the economic spectrum like SBS’s Struggle Street, not to mention endless documentaries on the slums of India and Brazil. Whilst no doubt well intended they do satisfy a somewhat perverse fascination on the part of the financially secure, observing the struggle of those living on next to nothing. It could be seen as “there for the grace of God go I” but in many cases it appeals to a kind of highly questionable voyeurism.
Hand in hand with the media preoccupation with the less fortunate is the worldwide phenomenon of ‘slum’ or ‘ghetto’ tourism, whereby supposedly well meaning tourists divert from the normal attractions to tour the impoverished areas of cities like Mumbai and Lima. Again the messages are very much mixed. Some see it as just plain gawking at the poor whilst others view it as one way of highlighting the immense social and economic problems facing the so called Third World. Others would argue it puts much needed money into the pockets of those ‘entrepreneurial’ slum dwellers who actually organise these tours.
Closer to home in downtown Woolloomooloo, I’ve recently witnessed the phenomenon of school groups, many from Catholic colleges bused in to observe the landscape of the homeless and the bottom end of the city. On one occasion a group of school girls arrived in Walla Mulla Park with plates of cakes and sandwiches to feed the regular crew of drunks and itinerants who gathered there – a gesture that can only be described as biblical in its inspiration.
I recently intercepted one such group and offered their teacher some of my own personal insights into the problems that beset the area, like the numerous homeless men who sleep rough in Tom Uren Place and the complete apathy on the part of the Council and State Government as to their welfare. This kind of impromptu social comment was not appreciated by the teacher in charge and I was quickly dismissed as some kind of local crackpot. Perhaps the students were only here to observe and shed pity, not to discuss the shameful neglect that has exacerbated this problem.
So are we soon to see an organised sightseeing tour of Sydney’s skid row quarters, one which reveals a different side of this city, totally removed from Opera House vistas and cuddly Koalas at Taronga Park. Oh don’t worry – there’ll still be wildlife but in this case the numerous rats which scurry along Cathedral Street in the Loo and prowl amongst the homeless at night.
Let’s not be cynical, it’s a tourist initiative that might just catch on as camera snapping participants begin their late evening tour with coffee and muffins at the makeshift homeless camp at the top of Martin Place. It’s now time for a body count along Macquarie Street as the tourists are encouraged to tally up the number of homeless bedding down for the night. We now enter the wilds of Wolloomooloo and a staged hurling of Molotov cocktails in Tom Uren Place, recreating an earlier infamous incident and a fabulous photo opp. There’s lamingtons and Iced Vo Vos in Walla Mulla Park, courtesy of a group of Catholic School Girls and we all bed down (for at least ten minutes) with the homeless guys outside the unoccupied Police Station. Who said there‘s no money in poverty?
