The Benefits Stereotype
2017
The benefits stereotype is amongst the strongest of a selection that are held in - and routinely perpetuated by - British society. From Little Britain to Benefits Street, certain strands of entertainment rely on the perception that people who claim benefits are lazy, uneducated, and a burden on the economy, and consist of reducing a diverse group of complex, multifaceted people into one fictional figure that serves as an inaccurate, generic representation. They take pre-existing stereotypes but remove circumstantial nuance, and then exploit them in the name of humour. The audience are invited to laugh at - or deliberately manipulated into deriding - a selectively edited or entirely fictional character that serves to validate the public’s preconceptions and to reinforce the inaccurate stereotype.
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This stereotype is then further perpetuated by certain elements of the media, such as The Daily Mail; a vile, vitriolic newspaper that represents the deepest cesspit of gutter press “journalism”. Through its willing complicity in the routine, sensationalist portrayal of people who claim benefits as “scroungers” (Springer et al., p.181) - whilst making little attempt to mask their thinly veiled class contempt - they’re further ingraining the stereotype. The Daily Mail is “Britain’s most right-wing newspaper” (YouGov, 2017) and reaches an estimated 29,000 adults a month (National Readership Survery, 2017). If Yanis Varioufakis is correct in asserting that the Conservative party is “[conducting] a class war” (Stone, 2015), then - in a display of blatant bureaucratic cruelty - they’re undoubtedly being aided and abetted by publications like The Daily Mail.
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One of the overriding issues is that the people who are being targeted are all too often unable to refute the validity and accuracy of the stereotype. Their autonomy has been taken from them, and they’re not permitted a platform through which they can regain it. I, Daniel Blake, a critically acclaimed film from director Ken Roach, depicts just how broken the benefits system is, but was openly condemned by certain right wing politicians. The benefits stereotype is deeply and, perhaps, irrevocably ingrained in British society; it’s being systematically perpetuated and must be pertinaciously challenged.
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Reference List
National Readership Survey (2017) ‘Daily Mail Print, PC, Mobile & Tablet Net Reach’. Available at: http://www.nrs.co.uk/latest-results/titles-at-a-glance/quick-view/ (Accessed: 4th May 2017)
Springer, S., Birch, K. and MacLeavy, J. (2016) Handbook of Neoliberalism. London: Routledge.
Stone, J. (2015) ‘Austerity is being used as cover-story for class war against the poor, Yanis Varoufakis says’, The Independent, 25th September. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/austerity-is-being-used-as-a-cover-story-for-class-war-against-the-poor-yanis-varoufakis-says-10516247.html (Accessed: 4th May 2017)
YouGov (2017) How left or right-wing are the UK’s newspapers?. Available at:
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/03/07/how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers/ (Accessed: 4th May 2017)
Watts, J. (2016) ‘I, Daniel Blake; Iain Duncan Smith slams Ken Loach’s benefits sanctions film’, The Independent, 28th October. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/i-daniel-blake-iain-duncan-smith-ken-loach-response-criticism-benefits-sanctions-film-unfair-a7384306.html (Accessed: 4th May 2017)
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