Abstract
This chapter examines the principal ways that carers are represented in a range of media. Although not offering an exhaustive media scan, this chapter explores significant interventions and trends in the representation of UK care workers over the period pertinent to this book (1989–2019). The first section charts the representations of care workers in the news media and highlights that often they are portrayed in negative ways. It then explores television representations in Waiting for God, Grandpa’s Great Escape and the Panorama documentary Behind Closed Doors: Elderly Care Exposed, the latter proving to be an influential context for the experiences of the carers interviewed in Chap. 4. These are contextualised by two British produced films, Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We argue that understandings of care work practices are tainted as a consequence of dominant media depictions.
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Grist, H., Jennings, R. (2020). Little More Than Fools and Monsters: Care Workers in the UK Media. In: Carers, Care Homes and the British Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35768-9_3
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