Kyleology

A judge once famously described the Jeremy Kyle Show as 'a human form of bear-baiting'. While critics of the show often cite this as a definitive and apposite description of its horror, it falls into a trap of the show's making. In order for Kyle's piece of shit to be broadcastable, its participants have to be made to seem subhuman, animalistic - at best childlike, requiring Kyle's care. In fact, if we're going 19th century in our comparisons, the Jeremy Kyle Show is a reincarnation of Bedlam, where damaged people are exposed for the entertainment of others. It is a form of pornography - a pornography of aggression and misery (not exactly the most fun kind).

What is interesting about the show is not the horror displayed, but the strategies used to legitimate the display of horror. Prime among these is a thin tissue of theraputic credibility. The entire show is framed as an attempt to reconcile warring parties. This is of course utterly unbelievable - even accounting for editing, the participants have at most 45 minutes of Kyle's shock therapy. Given that many of the participants have come to the show in an attempt to rid their lives of conflict, his abrasive style can be assumed to be of very little use.

The show implicitly accepts this, and so Kyle often speaks of the 'Aftercare' team headed by the gentle Northern 'Good Cop' Graham. Aftercare is an apology for Kyle's aggression, the flowers after the wife-beating. Interestingly, we're near as fuck never told how the participants fared during, or following Aftercare. Instead of any meaningful engagement with the guests and their experiences, Kyle spends around 5 minutes of his alloted hour making Graham's healing powers sound as profound and (we can assume) realistic as those of Jesus Christ.

The second and more politically interesting justifying strategy applied to make Kyle's Marvellous World of Madfolk acceptable is one of class. Kyle is a militant member of the middle-class. Kyle makes his class war obvious - the frequency with which he abstractly calls on the state to intervene against his guests ('This, Mr. Brown, is what's wrong with this country') is truly frightening. The entire texture of the show pits his ill-fitting business suits and recieved pronounciation against the ill-fitting (in a different direction) brightly-coloured sportswear and regional accents of his guests. Kyle's show used to largely consist of him screaming "GET A JOB!!!" at poor and/or drug addicted and/or mental ill guests - although this has wisely desisted since The Crunch hit and unemployment rocketed.

Ultimately, class provides the key to comprehending the Jeremy Kyle Show. The late Aneurin Bevan once wrote that 'around the meagre tables, in the small rooms of the poor, bitter hells of wounded vanity and personal acrimony arise'. Stuck in an ex-industrial town (so many of the guests are from Yorkshire, urban Scotland or South Wales that it's frightening) with no job and little prospect of gaining one, short of escape, turning to drink, drugs or a drastically destructive relationship is all too attractive. In fact, aside from these broadcastable vices, the poorer or more (whisper it) working class you are, the younger you will die, after having led a less healthy more miserable life. The Jeremy Kyle Show's 'Bad Cop, Good Cop' routine mirrors that of New Labour, faced with the ongoing misery of the areas destroyed by Thatcherism - an ASBO, then a chromed city centre. The cause of this approach is a fundamental, and wilful ignorance of the roots and horrors of poverty. If Kyle and Brown don't understand, it's our job to make them understand that getting beaten up and getting flowers is demeaning, disgusting and should fucking stop.