BBC drama kicks a family that’s down
I’D love to have been present at the BBC meeting which gave the go-ahead for the Shannon Matthews drama, The Moorside.
I’d love to have heard how the executives, keen to make a ratings winner about the reviled mother who faked the abduction of her own child, tried to justify it.
Maybe one played devil’s advocate, and told them: “Matthews has served her time and is trying to rebuild her life, what if she gets vile abuse and death threats?”, only to be told by the ratings chasers that the country has her down as a scummy chav, so it won’t rebound on them.
“What about Shannon, who’s a vulnerable teenager with a new identity? This will be devastating for her.” Well let’s not make it about her. Only show her briefly. Let’s spin it as a drama about the salt-of-the-earth neighbours who rallied to her cause.
“Yes, but when it happened they were portrayed as a feckless, feral underclass, epitomising Broken Britain. Why bring all that up again?” Well it won’t be us that brings it up, will it?
“Shall we speak to Shannon and close relatives like her grandparents to see if they approve of us telling her story?” No. Anything else? Good. Then let’s go make it, darlings.
Which they did. And 7.2 million watched. And Karen Matthews was bombarded with death threats and now fears for her life. And a national paper ran an article headlined “The dark side of Moorside” regurgitating tales of an estate “like Beirut, only worse” full of benefits claimants, electronic tag wearers, car thieves and drunks.
And Shannon’s grandparents June and Gordon unleashed their anger, saying: “She deserves to live her life in peace. What happened to her was a trauma, a tragedy. It is sick and disgusting that it is being turned into a TV show. It isn’t entertainment.”
Well, her story clearly is to people in BBC drama, who maybe envy the ratings drawn by shows like Benefits Street and decided to grab a piece of the poverty porn action.
I’m all for hard-hitting, working-class dramas, but this seems far too close to the events. And it reeks of moral cowardice in the face of easy targets they knew were powerless to fight back.
Would the BBC commission, so soon, a drama about the disappearance of Madeleine McCann? I doubt it. If they had, would they have done it without consulting the empowered middle-class McCanns? Never. It was noticeable when aristocrat socialite Tara PalmerTomkinson died this week that tributes portrayed her as “a troubled woman who had it all, but whose demons made her make the wrong choices”.
You could argue, that as vile and unforgivable as Matthews’ crime was, she’s “a troubled woman who had sod all, but whose demons made her make the wrong choices.”
Yet how soon after TPT’s death would the BBC do a gratuitous drama about her at times sordid life, knowing it would bring pain to her loved ones, notably her close family friend, Prince Charles?
How would a TV exec react if a writer suggests: “Maybe we can have a young Harry and Wills playing at Highgrove when Tara staggers into the room with a globule of coke dangling from her nose?”
I’m guessing they’d erupt with laughter and boot the writer out of their office with the words “how on God’s earth would we get that past the BBC board, darling”.
Ah well. Maybe in Broken Britain, that’s the difference between the It Girls and the Sh** Girls.
It reeks of cowardice in the face of easy targets