Benefit street analysis

You are about to watch part of the controversial ‘Benefits Street’ documentary; a controversial British documentary series broadcast on Channel 4. It was first aired on 6 January 2014.

Please consider and make notes on the following:

What type of documentary is this and give three examples that back this up.

This is an expository documentary.

i) There was a clear narrated voice over although you did not see his face or hear him interview any of the main characters in the documentary. Throughout the documentary the tape was shown while this narrator told facts and information about the people shown this Is a common reoccurrence in an expository documentary.

ii) There also was a controversial topic in this case benefits and the people who claim them. Most expository documentaries tackle these bigger subjects so that they can cause a statement and make an argument for there point of view. The controversial subject often is in the news at the time so that the programme is current.

iii) There are also clear opinions shown not only shown through the interviews but also through the voice over and chosen video content. The whole show mainly presented videos and images of a bad society filled with drugs abuse and bad parenting although this is most likely not to be true representation of the people but instead is swayed by the opinions of the creators of the show.

Who are the main subjects of the documentary? List and sum up the most important participants.

The main characters seen in the episode I have watched were the young couple Becky and Mark also there two young children Casey and Cammeron. This was a troublesome family shown in the episode as bad parents with a bad attitude towards the government and working this could be completely one sided but this is what is shown to us when seeing there house and how they deal with there day to day like. The second family unit we watched was White Dee and front runner for the show she has some loud opinions about everything inclucing how the street is run and the people on it. Her two children seem to have a street savvy attitude making them seem over grown for there ages. The last person was Fungi the recovering drug addict that had all his children removed from him sue to unknown reasons but instead has a strong connection to Mark and Beckys oldest Cammeron.

How does this documentary make you feel towards the subjects?

This documentary gives a false representation of its subjects but If I was to only go of the documentary itself I would be shocked towards the appalling state of the people and the way that they live. The dark gritty shots of the run down road shows how this world is getting to used to living in poverty and off benefits because that’s all they know. It displays how long family lines are now used to the attitude that we don’t have to earn to make a living because the government will give out free benefits although this may not be the reality it is how it is portrayed through the documentary. These people are made to seem like public enemy number one because of the way they have been shown to slack and have a common attitude towards the benefit system. This can make the audience do one of two thing either they will feel sorry and take pity on the subjects or hate them for having an attitude that has only been shown due to the editing of the program.

What issues are raised in the documentary?

This documentary particularly raised issues of poverty, immigrants and crime. The main issue is displayed in the name its benefits  and how we view people who claim benefits. At the moment employment is at an all time low with more people being layed off each day more and more people are dropping below the poverty band and having to live in the streets like that shown on this particular documentary. This is stereotyping the people on benefits as the issue is so diverse and varies from place to place and the people who are claiming. This shows these issues as sark and dingy who are unsanitary and have an attitude this is giving a bad stereotype to the other people who are facing these issues. 

What codes and conventions of documentary filmmaking are used here?

What style of interview is being used here?

The interviews in this documentry are one sided as you can only hear the answers the main subjects are saying. This might have been done so it seems that the people making the documentry had no impact and the things said were all directly thought from the main charcters. This can be used to fool the audience and helps the directors or producers to create evidence that supports the points made about people on benefits. This create a oppinion based documentry.

What is the purpose of this documentary? Do you think it achieves this?

The purpose of this documentry was to explore the realistic lives of those living on a street that is mainly living off the goverments benefit schemes. These people have been contraversial as it faces real life issues of what can be seen as common people in Britain. This documentry has been edited to give people on benefits a bad reputation as all we see in the program are lazy people who lie around and often have had drug issues or other problems. I think that overall the programme has achieved its goal because it has got people talking about these issues and the people who face them this has mainly been spread due to the media.

This documentary caused a great deal of controversy. Why was it so controversial?

This documentry is controversial due to its opinionated nature. It shows people on benefits in a bad light meaning that others who also claim can be seen as these stereotyped images that are being shown to us in this documentry. You can tell throughout that parts are missing and this is beacuse the creaters would have adited out footage that they saw as not needed and this was the evidence to prove that not all people on benefits are bad.