A new Channel 4 documentary ‘Jeremy Kyle: Death on Daytime’ explores the now infamous ‘reality TV’ show, and how the lives of its vulnerable guests were ruined all in the pursuit of profit.
The Jeremy Kyle show – on air for 14 years – was axed following the tragic death of Steve Dymond days after his appearance on the show. Jeremy Kyle: Death on Daytime (available on Channel 4) lifts the lid on the bullying and harassment of the host, and the ruinous impact the show had on countless people’s lives.
Though ITV’s official statement claims that the central purpose of the show was “conflict resolution”, this is a patent and obvious lie. If anything, the circus performance of Jeremy Kyle was not designed to resolve conflict, but to maximise it.
Death on Daytime certainly holds up the mirror to the treatment of the poor and vulnerable in capitalist society. Their often very complex problems and insecurities were seamlessly transformed into simply problems of their own moral standing.
Bear baiting
The documentary explains how the guests were separated from each other before appearing on the show and riled up over the course of the day. They would be fed lies about what the others were saying until when they came onto the stage to be gawked at by the host.
One ex-guest recalls how after being brought onto the show under false pretences, and being “poked and prodded” to the point of no return, he headbutted another man on stage.
The judge overseeing his assault case condemned the show as a human form of “bear baiting”. The guest involved ultimately lost his job and livelihood, and reported battling with poor mental health for a long time afterwards, to the point of becoming suicidal.
Many others were told that the lie detector tests offered by the show were ‘99.9% accurate’, despite the producers knowing this to be false. The documentary reveals how this shattered the lives of many of its guests – including that of Steve Dymond, who tragically took his own life.
The working principle of the show was to do whatever it took to enrich the host and executives at ITV – themselves from well-to-do backgrounds – regardless of the personal cost to the guests and production crew. Here we have a mirror of the capitalist system itself.
Priced out
As the documentary reveals, one of the primary reasons people went on the Jermey Kyle show was to ‘get help’ they couldn’t access otherwise. Inevitably this would be those priced out of paying for therapy or rehab themselves.
A woman shown in the documentary who had a heroin addiction was brought on for ‘help’, but instead was screamed at by Kyle for being a burden to her family.
The family was lied to – told they would be competing with two other families for access to rehab, so they should put on an emotional show. This is a damning indictment of capitalist society. You must ‘put on a show’ in order to have the ‘privilege’ of rehab, after years of austerity and sharp cuts of social services.
Demonisation
The purpose of such shows is not to just create a senseless spectacle for cheap entertainment. To the documentary’s credit, it shows the real impact on public perception of the poor and vulnerable that the show helped to create.
Over many decades, establishment politics and the media in Britain demonised people who don’t have jobs as wasters, and dangerous drains on the system. The documentary explores how the show painted the unemployed as lesser people, as some sort of ‘sub-class’, in order to widen the divide between all those exploited and oppressed.
This is a textbook example of the bosses’ divide and rule tactic. It puts workers across as deceitful, dubious, and unruly. We are led to believe that they are responsible for the system’s neglect of their issues.
Callous to the core
Every single facet of the show – from who they hired to recruit, the people they targeted, the way they drove them to fury, to the aftermath of attending the show and being publicly humiliated – shows that from start to finish the show was callous to the core.
Death of Daytime does an excellent job at showing how the show purposefully tried to drive a wedge between workers through sensationalising suffering. There was never any mention of why people suffer from addiction, homelessness, family breakdown, or poor mental health. They were instead victimised and goaded into fighting like animals on air.
Heart-wrenching at points, it shows the extent to which television producers will go to in order to make a quick buck. And yet with several deaths linked to the show, and countless others’ lives ruined, none of those responsible have ever been brought to justice.
The very real problems that the show glosses over will continue to proliferate in this era of crisis. Far from being the personal failure of these people, the blame lies with the capitalist system itself.
