Bedlam in the 21st Century

[AboveTheSalt]

The government, in 1770, ended the practice of allowing the public to visit the Bethlehem Hospital of St Mary's in London because it 'tended to disturb the tranquillity of the patients' by 'making sport and diversion of the miserable inhabitants'.

I have taken this quote from an article in today's Observer. It compares the practice 250 years ago of people being allowed into lunatic asylums to poke fun at the inmates with ITV's hugely popular "Jeremy Kyle Show" - Link.

The thing that struck me about the article was the idea that programs such as this, like a major pile-up on the M1 are endlessly fascinating. As the author comments at the beginning and end of her article:
"All human life is here: cheating husbands, delinquent children, tearaway teens, feckless fathers, the long-term unemployed, the clinically depressed, wife-beaters, husband-beaters, child-beaters, victims of abuse, perpetrators of abuse, alcoholics, junkies, the sexually insecure, the sexually confused, the sexually polymorphous."
and
"It occurs to me, though, ... that it's not just the fatherless young layabouts who are the Jeremy Kyle Generation. It's all of us."

I have never actually listened to the program although I have occasionally watched it (soundlessly) at the gym when I have forgotten to take my MP3 player and cricket is on Sky Sports.

[Nutcase]

Alas I have seen a few, and it's frankly embarassing that people allow themselves to 1) get into those kind of situations and 2) allow themselves to be paraded for such humiliation. As for thinking it would be a good idea to make the programme (or any of the others of the same ilk) - WTF???

[semi-pro waster]

I don't think I've watched it at all although I've watched similar, I'd like to say it was a case of 'know your enemy' but sadly it was more down to a dearth of other options. I've still only made it through about 10 minutes of any of them before deciding that something, anything, had to be better than watching some supercilious ponce ladling out advice to the dross who infest the show. I'm not sure what could possibly possess people to go on such shows, if Warhol was right and we all have our 15 minutes of fame the biggest question must be 'at what cost'?

[cleanbluesky]

Originally Posted by AboveTheSalt

I have taken this quote from an article in today's Observer. It compares the practice 250 years ago of people being allowed into lunatic asylums to poke fun at the inmates with ITV's hugely popular "Jeremy Kyle Show" - Link.

The thing that struck me about the article was the idea that programs such as this, like a major pile-up on the M1 are endlessly fascinating. As the author comments at the beginning and end of her article:
"All human life is here: cheating husbands, delinquent children, tearaway teens, feckless fathers, the long-term unemployed, the clinically depressed, wife-beaters, husband-beaters, child-beaters, victims of abuse, perpetrators of abuse, alcoholics, junkies, the sexually insecure, the sexually confused, the sexually polymorphous."
and
"It occurs to me, though, ... that it's not just the fatherless young layabouts who are the Jeremy Kyle Generation. It's all of us."

I have never actually listened to the program although I have occasionally watched it (soundlessly) at the gym when I have forgotten to take my MP3 player and cricket is on Sky Sports.

I think that the practice of asylum open evenings has been misinterpreted - the most significant reason why is because often a 'show' would be put on of ballroom dancing. Bear in mind the class differences between those who would attend an asylum show and those who would be in an asylum - fully suited ballroom dancing would not be something that inmates would have done before they entered. It may have been the case that the asylums were open not for the middle/upper classes to mock the afflicted - but for the head of the institution to encourage a sense of empathy in the hope that it may be easier to secure more funding.