A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Etheses - Queen Margaret ...

Initially Ali confesses to watching programmes like this for their entertainment value. His
statement it‟s portrayed as interesting suggests that he is unconvinced by the suggestion that
such documentaries are primarily intended to be educational. His description this guy had a
really, really badly deformed face emphasises the ghoulish attraction such programmes hold
for viewers.
He then, however, questions himself, asking whether, after all, there may not be some useful
social purpose served in such portrayals of impairment. He suggests that perhaps watching
people with disfigurements like this on the TV screen will have some sort of normalising
impact: as if greater knowledge about the medical aspects of certain conditions will lead to
an easier public acceptance. In his concluding remark, I think now that maybe it is getting
better in that sense, he completes his reversal from his original position. From having started
off describing these documentaries as portraying freaks to be gawped at, he has moved to
suggesting that such representations are part of a general progressive shift in attitudes.
Similar uncertainty about how to regard this sort of programme is expressed by Ash:
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...there was a programme on very fat people and how they‟re so different from
everybody else… and here, we‟ve got Siamese twins and we‟ll film them being
separated… and everybody looks in and watches it… I know it‟s maybe helping in a
way to show these things, but… I don‟t know if it‟s like the circus, you know… you
pay to see the bearded lady and you go in and these people are different… they deal
with it sensitively… I don‟t know… maybe that is helping in a way… (l.2:431ff.)
Ash is undecided about whether documentaries are helpful, having a role in dispersing
socially useful knowledge, or whether they are more like circuses, drawing attention to
human abnormality for purposes of titillation and profit. His uncertainty seems to be
compounded by his perception that these subjects are dealt with sensitively: as if a difference
is made by the absence of gaudy paintwork, rolling drums and a man with a waxed
moustache in a top hat inviting us to roll up and take our seats. (A faceless link person now
performs this function.)
What I find interesting in Ash‟s statement is the impression that, while he seems initially
sceptical about programmes like Extraordinary Lives, he also appears to doubt his grounds
for scepticism. Maybe that is helping in a way... he says, wondering whether perhaps he is
wrong to dismiss something which is obviously factual.
Charles has no doubt about the nature of this type of documentary: