PERSEVERANCE PORN
Media Frames Teen Using College Savings To Save Mom From Eviction as
Uplifting Puff Piece
Corporate media outlets appear to have so completely internalized the grim
logic of neoliberal capitalism that they see single mothers being evicted,
children in debt, or octogenarians working in the gig economy as
unremarkable facts of life, not damning indictments of a broken system.
Mint Press
by Alan Macleod
February 10th, 2021
By Alan Macleod
ATexas teenager has been forced to use her entire college savings to prevent
her single mother from being evicted after she lost her job amid a raging
pandemic. Alondra Carmona of Houston made the appeal on crowdfunding site
GoFundMe, noting that she had been accepted into prestigious New York
university Barnard College, but that she used the money she had saved for
tuition in order to save her mother.
Yet corporate media, including a host of ABC affiliates as well as soft news
website "Good Morning America, have presented the story as an uplifting tale
of generosity. Indeed, ABC published it in its "acts of kindness" section,
an area generally reserved for stories about kittens being rescued,
celebrities funding children's hospitals, and the like.
ABC published Carmona's story under their "Acts of Kindness" section
None of the outlets appeared interested in any of the worrying trends the
story brought up. Should single mothers really ever be evicted, especially
during a deadly pandemic? Why do working-class American children need to
self-fund their own college tuition when college in most other developed
nations is free or close to it?
Carmona's story could have been used to highlight many of the most pressing
problems in American society, including ever-rising rents, the exploitation
of the poor, the government's incompetent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the greed of landlords, or the enormous cost of attending college. But it
was not. Instead, corporate media invited readers simply to laud Carmona's
dedication to her mother without raising any tough questions that would
require them to scrutinize the economic and social order their owners and
advertisers promote and benefit from.
Judging by comments left on its social media, not everybody appeared to
accept ABC's uplifting framing of the story. "In what world should this be
normal?" and "Failed state" were the two highest-rated replies underneath
the news, while Lee Carter, a candidate for the Governor of Virginia claimed
that, "This is not heartwarming. This is a horrifying story of people having
to sacrifice because political leaders have failed us all."
Evictions are known to have led to around 11,000 extra COVID-related deaths
nationwide between June and November alone, with Texas responsible for 4,456
of those. The state recently hit a record high number of average daily
deaths, the pandemic killing over 300 people every day on average for the
past four weeks.
Thanks to a wave of public sympathy, Carmona was actually able to meet her
GoFundMe goal today, meaning that she will be able to attend college in the
future. But she is one of the lucky ones.
Perseverance porn
Unfortunately, corporate media appear so out of touch that they regularly
frame horrifying news of unnecessary struggling under capitalism as
inspirational, heartwarming, or uplifting. For example, in July, News Center
Maine presented news of an 84-year-old local woman taking a job as a motel
housekeeper as a "pick-me-up story," while in September, NBC10 Philadelphia
told the story of an 89-year-old pizza delivery driver receiving a huge tip.
Neither suggested that there was anything wrong with the elderly doing
dangerous, poorly paid, insecure manual labor during a deadly pandemic.
A local NBC affiliate touted the "feisty spirit" of an octogenarian forced
back to work
Going further back, media reported on a 60-year-old FedEx worker who walks
12 miles to and from work every day being gifted a car by her co-workers.
While they celebrated their generosity, they did not raise any questions
about why she was apparently paid so little that she could not afford a car,
nor explore any issues around a broken public transit system that forces
desperate workers into these situations. Instead, they presented the story
as what media critic Adam H. Johnson has labeled "perseverance porn."
Other recent examples of perseverance porn include NBC News' January report
on a South Carolina high school principal who works the night shift at
Walmart to buy food and supplies for his students, 90% of whom, NBC casually
noted, were living below the poverty line. Instead of presenting the finding
as a searing critique of a system that forces elderly men to work round the
clock to make sure children don't starve in the richest country in world
history, it invited readers to feel pride and honor at the man's selfless
actions, not bringing up any troublesome questions about the implications of
his work.
Meanwhile, a "feel good" story from The Hill about a 5-year-old child
selling snacks to pay off her classmates' "lunch debt" drew considerable
blowback online from outraged readers who seemed to be more concerned about
indebted toddlers than their generous friend. "This isn't a feel good story,
it's a dystopian nightmare," wrote podcast host and political commentator,
Kyle Kulinski.
Triumphing over adversity has been a standard trope of storytelling for
centuries. Therefore, it is not surprising that media fall back upon this
framework in their reporting. However, in today's world, so much unnecessary
adversity and suffering come as a direct result of how society is
structured. Yet journalists at corporate media outlets appear to have so
completely internalized the grim logic of neoliberal capitalism that they
see single mothers being evicted, children in debt, or octogenarians working
in the gig economy as unremarkable facts of life, not damning indictments of
a broken system. Because of this, they appear unaware that readers less
dedicated to free market fundamentalism might see something wrong with these
stories.
The fact that tales of needless suffering can be presented as light-hearted
perseverance porn actually tells us far more about the media itself than the
subjects of their articles.