I was in the thick of my fieldwork when Struggle Street aired in 2015. The television documentary about poverty in the western Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt was controversial from the outset. Before its release, residents who participated in the show accused it of ridiculing them in a promotional video that showed them passing wind, swearing and shouting. A convoy of garbage trucks converged on SBS studios – a public broadcaster – to protest the ‘garbage programme’ and to tell the public ‘we love Mount Druitt’. The Mayor of Blacktown City Council, which encompasses the suburb, accused the producers of encouraging participants to perform certain activities to manufacture the drama. After its release, public commentators debated whether the show was a classic example of ‘poverty porn’ or an unflinching portrait of ‘life on the fringes’.

Described by the producers as a ‘fly on the wall documentary’, Struggle Street relied on the candour, generosity and performance of the residents who told their stories and agreed to be followed by the camera. The details of their hardship – the everyday disruptions and obstacles – rang painfully true to my own experience of growing up poor, and living with friends and family who remained so. I was struck by how readily they lay bare the details of their lives before the camera, how the details were offered as justification of why they lived like they did, and why their lives hadn’t turned out differently.

Sixteen-year-old Bailee, for example, provides a matter-of-fact account of family violence, homelessness, depression and attempted suicide. She leads the film crew through her vandalised public housing flat, so trashed that the lease had been terminated, leaving her homeless again. Later, the camera stays with her as she explains to a local youth worker that she was raped after being kicked out of home at 13, and that she started using ‘ice’ (a form of methamphetamine). The male narrator (David Field), with his broad Australian accent, insists on a cliched commentary that imposes on the mundane directness of her account – ‘and that’s how it is when you’re on the fringe’.