BBC3 - Blood, Sweat and ... Takeaways

[The Idler]

Has anybody seen the BBC3 series Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts? There is a new one coming on called Blood, Sweat and Takeaways on Tuesday 19 May 9.00-10.00pm on BBC3. The blurb says "six young British consumers travel to South East Asia to see just what's involved in producing the food they take for granted".

The last one about clothing, seemed a very powerful condemnation of capitalism, albeit desperately trying to restrict its remit to mere consumerism. Instead, it tried and failed to present the western young people as a little bit lazy, but even this was clearly not the main problem by the end of the show. Viewers must have realised how strange and pathetic that the best happy ending they could attempt was to encourage more "fair trade". Even the participants probably realized how feeble and hopeless a solution that was. Its a shame the participants were so young, otherwise they might have been able to analyse more deeply this anti-capitalism message made vague and tame by the BBC. Funnily enough, there was no mention of unions or the elephant in the room, a complete alternative to a global market system.

Channel 4 were going to follow this (and even advertised it) with an expose of Primark called "The Devil wears Primark" presented by Alexa Chung, but this was quickly squashed by Primark (a statement damning the show even appeared in the newspapers) and disappeared off the schedules never to be seen again. Now the stores display a sign behind the checkout "Primark is committed to progressively improving the conditions of its workers" or something.

[Vanguard1917]

A short review of Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts which highlights that the documentary was really just about Western self-centredness.

Eco-glam and poverty tourism
Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, BBC Three, 9pm from Tuesday 22 April 2008

Ceri Dingle
posted 17 April 2008

BBC Three’s new four part series successfully represents the contemporary paradox that anti consumption trends are best expressed by well off shopaholics. ‘Clothes have never been more disposable, with the throwaway fashion phenomenon taking our High Street by storm’, we are told, but rather than celebrate the possibility of looking good on the cheap, this series takes us on the ultimate guilt trip.

Six young fashionistas head for the grim reality of backstreet workshops in India to make clothes for the British high street. In the first episode, the six start at the top, working for Shahi Enterprises in New Dehli, a multi-million pound factory that makes clothes for some of the biggest names on the UK high street. Some of the six are would be fashion designers, yet what is remarkable is their incapacity to sew, Tara being the honourable exception, and their phenomenal capacity to cry to camera at the mildest ticking off.

The Indian workers are not impressed by the witless Westerners, but the problem with the show is that it’s not about the Indian workers. It’s not about their hopes and dreams; it’s about six British youngsters coping on a poverty tourism trip. The sanctimonious spoilt brats are after all here to be taught a lesson that their throwaway fashion fads are brought to the shops by the sweat of the Indian poor who earn less than £2 a day, and, as Richard constantly points out, live in a ‘shit hole.’ While we can wince at the desperate living standards and low wages, what Indian workers think and are doing about it is not even asked. Their poverty is on display to earn our pity and big up the guilt. This is a classic ethical tale instructing us on the outcomes of our wasteful habits. There is even an accompanying online fashion magazine - Thread (http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread) – to accompany the series, offering tips on how to achieve an eco-glam look through a mix of shopping for new or vintage clothes, to swapping clothes with friends and customising existing clothes.

In their first week in the factory, because they can’t sew in a straight line despite training, three of the six are demoted. Richard, who earns fifty grand a year as a young ad exec back home, is probably the most obnoxious of the lot, assuming people who don’t make it in the UK are lazy and Indians are just dirty. Yet he does the worst of everyone in the factory and can just about manage to do up buttons. He is told off for turning round and talking, and Georgina for leaving her station without permission - and the tears keep coming. For Amrita, who suffers an identity crisis as a Brit Asian, it’s all too much. One of their hosts, factory worker Lalita, tells them the work force is not impressed by their lack of discipline and rudeness. A heady mix of Brat Camp-style give-them-a-hiding-and-take-away-their-luxuries, the incompetence of Alan Sugar’s Apprentice wannabes and the close ups on tears of Pop Idol, this is a clever, repugnant tale for our time.

Solidarity is evidently off the agenda, ‘how we feel’ is in, and what we do with our shopping trolleys is all. But before reaching for an ethical catalogue, let us consider what Indian workers want, and that is to have what we have. No amount of tears or ethical shopping will make that possible, it may even make things worse, demeaning the aspirations of our Indian peers and demonising productive industry and growth.

The shift from rural subsistence life to factories, sweatshops and slums makes for a grim life. Yet for millions in India life is improving, and no thanks to Western guilt, ethical eco-hemp wear, or clothes sharing and recycling. To develop an infrastructure capable of taking away the ‘smell’ Richard hates so much requires far more growth and productive industry. Celebrating and supporting India beginning to make it may do our peers more favours than ‘sharing’ and wallowing in their poverty.


Ceri Dingle is director of the education charity WORLDwrite (http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/). Two new films by WORLDwrite, presenting a positive perspective on immigration, will be launched at the Vibe Bar in London at 6pm on Sunday 20 April 2008. For details, see London Behind the Scenes (http://www.worldwrite.org.uk/londonbehindthescenes/films.html).

http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2008-04/teeshirt.htm

[Vanguard1917]

Also, here's a thought-provoking article about other similar documentaries and how they're motivated more by Western anti-development and anti-consumption prejudices than by solidarity with Indian workers. As the article points out: "From the perspective of the eco-evangelists, Indians should only be shown sympathy as long as they behave as victims. And even in such cases they have to accept salvation as meted out by Western consumer activists. Any aspiration to achieve a better, more prosperous life is viewed with disdain by the purveyors of ethical consumption."

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Tuesday 24 June 2008
This year’s must-have fashion: pity for Indians
Recent TV documentaries exposing that Primark’s clothes are made by Indian child labourers have been nauseatingly elitist.
Daniel Ben-Ami

Anyone who doubts the nauseatingly elitist character of campaigns for ‘ethical consumption’ would do well to watch the recent British TV documentaries on child labour in India closely. Although their styles differ, the underlying message of the documentaries is the same: those who buy cheap clothes are naïve, at best, but more likely are consumed by greed; and those who produce these clothes are ‘fashion’s real victims’ who need to be rescued by Western ethical activists.

The only people presented favourably in these programmes are Western consumer activists and their local allies in India. They are seen as running a heroic campaign against the forces of greed and ignorance. Everyone else is viewed with pity, contempt, or both.

The simple-minded starting point of the activists is that there is a straightforward relationship between cheap clothes in Western discount stores and cheap labour in India. Poverty in India is therefore reduced to a simple morality tale of corporate greed. Even a bright 10-year-old should be able to see that the question of economic development, or more precisely the lack of it, is a more complex problem.

Last night’s Panorama programme on BBC1 was the latest example in the genre (1). At the start, it showed YouTube footage of the scuffle that broke out when Primark opened its store on London’s Oxford Street recently (2). The scene was set to blame greedy Western consumers, with their crazed desire for cheap clothes, for poor working conditions and ultimately for child labour in India.

Much of the programme was filmed in India itself. Tom Heap – a white man who does not appear to speak any Indian languages – followed the brilliant ruse of going undercover in India. Perhaps he felt his superior journalistic skills would allow him to go unnoticed. He posed as a fashion buyer to allow him to visit Indian factories which supply Primark and their sub-contractors. Before long he found Indian children, often working from home, sewing beads and doing stitching on clothes destined for Primark.

Although investigative journalism is generally to be applauded, in this case the reporter had gone to a lot of trouble to prove a contention that should be blindingly obvious. A few minutes surfing the internet or a trip to the local library could have told him that child labour is prevalent in India – and not only in factories working for Primark. Child labour is always endemic in desperately poor countries. It also tends to disappear as they escape from poverty.

About 80 per cent of India’s 1.1billion people live on less that $2 (about £1) a day according to World Bank estimates. Over a third live on less than $1 a day (3). From such a perspective, the pay given to Indian garment workers may be terrible by Western standards, but it is not surprising or unusual. The tragedy is that the vast majority of Indians are dirt poor. Most of these work for Indian companies rather than foreign firms, and 60 per cent of the labour force is employed in agriculture alone (4).

In such circumstances of extreme poverty, child labour is prevalent, because sending children to work is the only way that the poorest sections of society can feed themselves and their families. If there are laws outlawing child labour – as there are in India – the poorest Indians have no choice but to try to find ways around them. Intervention by pious foreigners and the introduction of yet more regulations are only likely to make their plight worse.

The problem India faces is severe underdevelopment rather than corporate greed. Yes, it has grown fast in recent years, but it started from an incredibly low base. What India needs is even more economic growth rather than sanctimonious lectures from Western ethical evangelists.
Yet Heap can only moralise rather than get to the root of the problem. In some of the most excruciating scenes in last night’s Panorama, he showed video clips of child labour in India to young women who shop at Primark in Britain and Ireland. After considerable emotional pressure they conceded that they felt bad at having bought cheap clothes from Primark. It is the contemporary equivalent of forcing someone to confess to a sin.

If Panorama’s Heap can appear crass at times, then he is a model of sophistication next to the six British ‘fashion addicts’ who were at the centre of the BBC’s recent four-part series, Blood, Sweat and T-shirts (5). The six spent several weeks in India working in large factories, smaller factories, cotton fields and in a cotton mill. The last episode focused on child labour in a Mumbai slum.

Some of the six were openly contemptuous of India and their hosts; even those who were more sympathetic quickly adopted an air of smug superiority. They did not hesitate to hector Indians about their poor working and living conditions. As if Indians needed lectures from spoilt Westerners, some of whom do not appear to have even left home or worked for a living. The six seemed to see little difference between looking good on the outside, by wearing fashionable clothes, and flaunting their inner ‘goodness’ by sermonising to Indians about how they could live better.

To its credit, the series did occasionally show Indians responding to the criticisms. In one scene, an Indian woman had a go at the fashionistas for sneering at her home in which she had allowed them to stay. Their response was to claim, indignantly, that they did not mean it. In another scene, an Indian garment worker pointed out that child labourers generally have little choice but to do what they do - yet such scenes were rare and almost lost in the young Westerners’ whingeing about India and the Indians.

Channel 4 has yet to broadcast its contribution to the theme, The Devil Wears Primark, but it sounds like it will be more of the same. It was due for broadcast on 1 June, but was pulled without explanation (6). The title probably reveals much about the programme: those who wear Primark clothes are seen as representing satanic forces.

There is an illuminating contrast between these apparently sympathetic attitudes towards Indian ‘fashion victims’ and the hostility towards any sense of aspiration amongst Indian people. The recent launch of the Tata Nano, the cheap ‘people’s car’ being produced by one of India’s largest companies, gave rise to expressions of dismay and outrage from the West. The car is seen as potentially harmful to the environment and inappropriate for a poor country such as India. Presumably Indians are supposed to stick to walking and riding bicycles (see One short drive for a man, one giant leap for mankind (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4256/), by Brendan O’Neill).

From the perspective of the eco-evangelists, Indians should only be shown sympathy as long as they behave as victims. And even in such cases they have to accept salvation as meted out by Western consumer activists. Any aspiration to achieve a better, more prosperous life is viewed with disdain by the purveyors of ethical consumption.

In this sense, ordinary Indians and shoppers at Primark in the UK have something in common: both sets of people have a desire to become better off. The Westerners may be starting from a higher base but, like their Indian counterparts, they want more cheap clothes, cheap food and cheap transport. These are things that only a richer, more productive society can provide.

By contrast, the purveryors of ethical consumerism see the popular desire for increased consumption as the ultimate sin. It is hard to imagine a more patronising and childish attitude.

Daniel Ben-Ami is a journalist and author based in London. Visit his website here (http://ww.danielbenami.com/).

(1) Ministers pressed on child labour (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7467846.stm), BBC News, 22 June 2008
(2) Footage of the opening of Primark’s Oxford Street store (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUh1GEPHSwA), YouTube
(3) Data is available from the World Bank (http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2005/Table2_5.htm)
(4) Data is from the CIA World Fact Book entry on India (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/in.html)
(5) Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts (http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/blood-sweat-tshirts/), BBC; Ceri Dingle of Worldwrite reviewed the programme for Culture Wars (http://www.culturewars.org.uk/2008-04/teeshirt.htm)
(6) Broadcaster pulls Devil Wears Primark Documentary (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/02/channel4.television), Guardian, 2 June 2008


reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5376/

[Angry Young Man]

How does Primark stop channel 4 putting on a documentary?

[The Idler]

Thanks to Vanguard1917 for those articles, but I think most viewers of Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts would have found ethical consumerism insufficient in spite of the producers intentions.

I think The Devil Wears Primark was stopped with an injunction. There was an article about Primark at Socialist Appeal recently. (http://www.socialist.net/primark.htm)

[brigadista]

i really dont like watching documentaries which show the effect on self indulged and self absorbed protaganists from the west. These progammes show the effect on the westerners as the most important thing and at the core of the programme rather than actually talking to the people in the countries concerned and asking them about their situation. It seems that the sort of working condtions in these films only become unacceptable because they are being experienced [usually with revulsion resulting in tantrums] by the westerners

[brigadista]

i really dont like watching documentaries which show the effect on self indulged and self absorbed protaganists from the west. These progammes show the effect on the westerners as the most important thing and at the core of the programme rather than actually talking to the people in the countries concerned and asking them about their situation. It seems that the sort of working condtions in these films only become unacceptable because they are being experienced [usually with revulsion resulting in tantrums] by the westerners

[brigadista]

sorry for double post

[osdan]

Programme like this blame ordinary consumers for the plight of third world workers instead of scruitinizing the political system which forces people in the third world to work for poverty wages and in terrible conditions.
Although the people in the programme are preety well off the programme makers do not realise how for most working class people living on low incomes cheap food is a neccesity not a luxury.
The political system forces poor people in the West to live of cheap unhealthy food produced by poor people in the third world.
It's easy for upper middle class media types to snear at people's food chocies but they can afford the so called "ethical" food. They need to realise that it isn't people's consumer choices that are to blame for slave labour but the corperations and governments who allow human rights abuses of workers the world over to carry on.

[The Idler]

Just watched the last episode, it was a cut above your regular populist TV.

[Killfacer]

yeah i like curry.