"Poverty Porn" and Some thoughts; especially in light of some previous discussions

Here's a game of hopscotch for you:

I just read Dana Stevens' review of Precious, a movie based on a novel which tries to depict a story of triumph.

http://www.slate.com/id/2234728/

Stevens argues the movie amounts to poverty porn, which means the display of poverty for the sake of entertainment.

In other words, we watch movies about poverty when poverty is supposed to move us to action.

Stevens compares it to another author's review of the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire.

http://www.slate.com/id/2209783/

Which talks about the issues surrounding the movie. In the movie a person from a very poor part of India wins millions of dollars. The basic argument is that there is no introspection for American viewers because they believe people win lotteries and escape poverty like in the movie.

This sort of reminds me of the Horatio Alger myth, whereupon Americans believe people go from rags to riches. (you might want to take a look at the American Humbug entry on this blog, taken from a Slate Magazine article, and contrasted with Wes Anderson's humbug archetype).

The first time I heard about Poverty Porn was from William Easterly when he spoke this past semester, Spring 2009.

Easterly's primary claim was politicians and bureaucrats were fouling up the process of helping nations by not letting the people help themselves. He said these politicians, and photojournalists, were making "poverty porn" as a way to make themselves feel more important than they are.

Easterly claimed that industrialization was inherently a good thing; which is certainly debatable.

In fact, I felt passionately disagreeable with Easterly's main claims; but after I attended a class discussion for International Political Economy, I understood Easterly had generalized his claims as a way of making his speech more palatable for a larger audience.


But I knew the concept of Poverty Porn before Easterly said the term. This is because my friend Soyee and my High School English teacher Deborah Hepburn succumbed and are still succumbing to this.

Hepburn made us read Jonathan Kozol books about impoverished inner-city schools. Soyee had a problem of bullying me into a corner about every political issue. The problem was, in retrospect I absolutely agree with her.


My friend Joseph Ladret I think was quoting Descartes when he said, "If there is no problem, there is no solution."


What this means is that we have to acknowledge a problem in order to solve it.

But do we? Are we inventing our problems? What is the best way to solve a problem?

Dostoyevksy and Nietzche, and contemporary psychology confirms, that people who are in pain or struggle sometimes stay in that struggle and that pain.

There's a lot to say here; there's a lot of the creation of reality going on here.

Let's call the problem of overwhelming political stances bleeding heart liberalism.


The problem of bleeding heart liberalism is poverty porn. The problem of bleeding heart liberalism is the way that people fall in love with the act of helping.

We then get into this relationship of help; therefore dependence; therefore disintegration of self-reliance.

I think we also might fall prey to the romanticization of the problem instead of attacking the problem itself.



I mean no harm to anyone or offense to anyone with this post; it's just my reaction for now and I reserve the right to change my mind about anything I just wrote.