A very quick and hasty rant.
Did anyone see Law and Disorder last Sunday? Louis Theroux was shadowing a private security firm in Jo’burg in order to show how they dealt with the ongoing problem of crime and violence in the city. I was really looking forward to it but the programme left me bitterly disappointed.
Not only did he fail to truly investigate the issues raised, the use of subtitles throughout the programme left me angry with programme producers.
Ok, I understand that sometimes English needs to be subtitled. For example, if you are filming undercover and the sound is bad or when somebody has a particulary thick accent. But neither could be applied to Sunday’s programmes, and yet subtitles were used time and time again, which eventually detracted from the whole programme.
It seemed to me that the subtitles were used on purely racial grounds. Black South Africans were almost always subtitled regardless of how comprehensible they were. On the other hand, one white South African, who I did have great trouble understanding, was not.
To make matters worse the programme didn’t really seem to offer any substance. I have recently come back from South Africa and I decided to watch the programme in order to see how a British reporter would tackle the issues surrounding crime in the country. Unfortunately for a piece of investigative reporting, I don’t think that he did any sort of investigation. At one point in the programme Louis interviewed a known gang member who had just been released from prison. Coming from a trainee journalist’s standpoint, this was the perfect opportunity to delve deeper into the issue – not only was he able to talk to someone with first hand experience, they were willing to talk openly on camera. Unfortunately the opportunity was missed, although Louis did manage to extract some fairly graphic descriptions of the crimes the guy had committed.
Actually this summed up the programme for me. In the end it seemed to be less of an investigative piece and more one designed to shock the viewer. A “Look how bad Africa is” programme, which just maintains the West’s common misconception about the continent.
I have actually sent a comment to the BBC about the programme. I’ll update you if and when I get a reply.
I would also appreciate any feedback from anyone else who watched the programme.
Louis is brilliant at his job. His “investigative journalism” rarely provides *reasons* for the antagonists’ crimes – these would be irrelevant and mostly untrue justifications anyway – but instead he gets what the average public member wants: the gruesome.
You won’t get a response from the BBC. They don’t care about you, provided you pay your license fee. Why would they? They don’t provide a service to you – they provide a service to themselves and they can take you to court if you watch channel 4 and don’t support them. You provide a service to them by paying them. You’re not paying them for service – you *have* to pay them whether or not you use them as a service.
We are the only nation in the world to have such a backward, backward system, and the sooner we get rid of it the better.
Thank you for your comment.
I’m not denying that Louis Theroux is a fantastic reporter, it’s just I felt that Law and Disorder: Johannesburg, was lacking his usually insightful touch.
As regards the BBC, I think we will have to agree to disagree. Normally I enjoy a lot of the BBC output, but this time I felt that the programme had been ruined by the addition of subtitles.
For me the programme was an eye-opener. I always thought of Jo’burg as pretty advanced as far as African cities go, so the sheer inadequacy of the police force surprised me. It was fascinating to learn that the police are spread so thinly as to allow armed gangs to hold entire tower-blocks to ransom and to rely on the services of dubious private security firms.
Theroux does have the tendency to point a finger and look disapproving, but I agree with John that that’s why people watch him. He does aim to shock, but he also represents the moral views of Middle England. What I like about his interviewing style is that he plays dumb – almost like Ali G – which loosens his interviewees’ tongues.
The people he did interview actually talked, but unfortunately these were mostly private security officers. He needed more from the police, criminals and ordinary citizens to give a balanced picture. ‘Law and Disorder in Johhanesburg’ was possibly too grand a title for what it actually offered, but I think it was worth watching nonetheless.
Subtitles didn’t bother me really.