I've been reluctant to claim that Dean's success in getting a job on The Fairy Jobmother was contrived by the TV company, simply because we have no evidence of this. But others have been less cautious. Take Liam Tucker's posting on the TV Pixie site, for instance. He says: "The circumstances by which they got that work were entirely suspect, and that’s where the Hayley Taylor’s expertise falls down. Gaining Maxine unpaid work experience at Boots and Dean a wageless stint on the bins might’ve been possible in the real world, but grabbing the latter an interview with a fittings company out of the blue was unrealistic, to the point where those genuinely seeking work in the real world might be moved to complain. Job-hunting isn’t that simple for people with a patchy CV, and this was The Fairy Jobmother’s Achilles heel, effectively making it purely bludger-voyeurism, created for those comfortably in work to sit and gawp at the underclass." It's perhaps significant that this criticism comes from the people in a position to know just how unrealistic it was. Other reviews miss this point. The Express & Star, for instance, focusses on Hayley Taylor and her methods, mentions that, "The pair get £261.62 a week, totalling £1040 a month in benefits – more than some working families," and sees nothing unusual in Dean's getting the first job he goes after. The Metro is just plain silly. It's not impossible; and if the TV company and the employer assure us that there was no arrangement, we'll accept it. But even with that assurance, the programme gave the impression that if you really want a job, you can get one easily. And if it was a fix, it dishonestly fuelled hostility to supposed "dole scroungers".
ITS AMAZING SHE JUST WAVES HER WAND, AND PEOPLE GET JOBS! HEY NO MORE UNEMPLOYMENT!
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to popularity, the unemployed are down at the bottom with estate agents, tabloid journalists and students. And this progamme did nothing to change this view.
ReplyDeleteMilly popularity is a word thats only fleeting. to be not popular is indeed a blessing.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be some confusion as to their income: £261 between them is not a huge sum of money for two parents and a child at least. That's barely above the NMW. It's a very modest slary nowhere near the national average. Hardly a life of luxury when you have a child to raise.
ReplyDeleteAnd i take issue with the constant labelling (all over the media) of people on the dole in debt as having been in receipt of a free ride. They aren't living the life of riley; remember that woman from Benefit Busters in debt up to £75k. She was hardly happy about it; more the victim of her own bad decisions within an unsustainable aspiration driven consumer society. But these programmes don't point any fingers at the people giving them the money. They just flag up a few shots of the plasma tv, the xbox, the pc, the 'nice' house, etc, and stupidity does the rest.
What did Taylor do when she discussed the debt with this lady? Roll her eyes in disgust and confusion. I wouldn't trust this lady to deal with anyone's complicated personal issues whatsoever. All she is clearly fit for is trotting out tired poppsychology and 'motivational' claptrap. Anyone with half a brain will deconstruct her rhetoric instantly - and then be regarded as disruptive or otherwise beyond help, no doubt.
So yes, IMO, of course this show was a fix. Even though that's a subjective term in the extreme, isn't all TV?
Of course it was a fix, its on tv.
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