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Poverty porn, also known as pornography of povertyShahghasemi, E. (2020). Pornography of Poverty: Celebrities’ Sexual Appeal at Service to the Poor?. The 2nd International Conference on Future of Social Sciences and Humanities, Prague. or stereotype porn, has been defined as "any type of media, be it written, photographed or filmed, which exploits the poor's condition in order to generate the necessary sympathy for selling newspapers, increasing charitable donations, or support for a given cause". It also suggests that the viewer of the exploited protagonists is motivated by gratification of base instincts. It is also a term of criticism applied to films that objectify people in poverty for the sake of entertaining a privileged audience.
In the 1980s, the media used what some believed to be inappropriate use of children in poverty. However, towards the end of this era more positive images emerged to tell their stories, although, in the 2010s, it was noticed that the disturbing images were being highlighted once more.
The term "poverty porn" itself was introduced years later. One of the earliest examples was the review of the film Angela's Ashes (1999) published in the January 2000 edition of the e-newsletter Need to Know. (2025). 9783110367935, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 9783110367935 In this review, the term was not defined but was used to describe the film's depiction of poverty as a "ponderous vomit-packed poverty porn".
It is a common debate to have as to whether it is justifiable or not to portray stereotypes and to use sensationalism in order to generate empathy. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian people writer, said that "The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
Throughout fundraising campaigns, charities attempt to interview those who they are trying to help, in order to get the word across to the general public. However, it is common for them to encounter ongoing refusal from those in desolated situations to take pictures or to publicly share their traumatic story. This further emphasizes the concept that being in an uneasy, not to say miserable, situation is a shameful one, and poverty porn in media exposes those who do not necessarily have the desire to be exposed.
In one case, this "need" for voices to justify this style of fundraising resulted in an organization creating fictional "needy children", and sending out emotional letters, "written by" these nonexistent individuals. CNN exposed a school in South Dakota that raised millions of dollars by using "the worst of poverty porn," "They are raising money in the name of Indians, using the worst of poverty porn of all Indian country to raise money on all our social ills" - Michael Roberts, president of the First Nations Development Institute saying that "a school run by non-Indians is raising a fortune off of racial stereotypes."
The use of one photo to label an entire country as destitute makes the audience falsely assume that the entire country share the same story.
Alli Heller, a Nigerian writer and anthropologist says: "Imagine for a minute that you were chronically incontinent. Now imagine that you didn't have access to adult diapers or sanitary napkins ... Imagine how the acidity of the unremitting flow of urine burned away at your thighs, cracking your skin and leaving you vulnerable to painful infections. Imagine the shame you'd feel – a grown adult incapable of avoiding the small pool of urine you'd leave behind on a friend's chair after a visit ... Why must we highlight the extreme cases when the norm is bad enough?"
BBC Two replied to these accusations by affirming that it would be a "serious social experiment to show just how hard those part of the low-wage economy work" as well as "tackling some of the most pressing issues of our time: why is British productivity low?"
A spokesman from the show's production company, Twenty Twenty, stated that: "the show will challenge and shatter all sorts of myths surrounding the low-paid and unemployed sector."
Broome, a reality TV show creator, states that it exposes the hardship of some families and their ability to keep on going through values, love and communication. He assures that he would much prefer to create these shows rather than those like Jersey Shore which depicts "a group of strangers from New Jersey as they party throughout six seasons."
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