When I first saw the adverts for this new series I saw the money of Secret Millionaire and the concept of Wife Swap with a new twist. Which it is ...but not quite.
Families living in poverty show us their situation and then they are sponsored by wealthy families who feel that 'charity comes from the home' or that their children need to see the real world. Which comes across as dangerous ground for pretentious and embarrassing scenarios when either the rich family end up just throwing money at the poor or having a family in poverty not being gracious or thankful. In fact I have that feeling of dread a lot when watching these types of documentaries (Supernanny, The World's Strictest Parents….)
So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched Episode 3 in the new series and saw how the poverty that Annie and Zofia were living in was not self inflicted. Zofia's company had gone bust and the debts had accumulated, made worse when she lost her cleaning job because she had taken her 8 year old into work for an hour before school…
By the end of the programme I felt I had taken away a sense of more perspective about how giving money to others, in such a way, need not be pretentious and condensing but instead empowering. I thought Julia (the sponsor) might have ended offering Zofia a job at her firm which would have been embarrassing but instead she and her husband invested in Zofia's business.
I was really interested because the 'poor' family weren't complaining or asking for money which made the show feel more authentic and clean whereas on similar shows it sometimes feels dramatised to the point of embarrassing themselves, for example, on Supernanny some parents go the extra mile in being awful in front of the cameras.
In general I'm watching documentaries a great deal more because they are letting me know about our society in fresh formats which come across as fun to watch although, lots of them seem to like having a huge 'feel-good' factor for the viewer, which is interesting that we need to feel gratified by seeing a 'happily ever after'.
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