TALLAGHT NATIVE AL Porter is mostly known for his unrelenting sense of humour.
However, there were few jokes from the 24-year-old comedian as he criticised the media’s portrayal of working class people on the first episode of The Tonight Show with Matt Cooper and Ivan Yates.
He spoke about how shows like The Tonight Show frustrated him for years, long before he made a name for himself on television.
The thing that always frustrated me about watching programmes like this, as a working person, is that – and it’s not a competition about which one of us is more working class – is that those people feel talked about. I always feel that the working class people are talked about.
Indeed, there are very few voices in the media who address regular working class people as human beings much less actual working class people given a voice by the media.
Al addressed the way that working class people are spoken about not just by the media, but by the government:
Working class people are talked about like some mythical creatures that feed off of the state and they’re marginalised because of that. I believe that they are [demonised]. I also believe that things like the social welfare fraud campaign that Leo fronted was ridiculous.
It’s such a small percentage of people that actually [partake in fraud], to actually use that as your flagship campaign was ridiculous.
In that campaign, the government claimed that €500 million was saved through anti-fraud activity last year, when the figure was in fact between €50-80 million. Meaning that the figures could have been exaggerated up to ten times what the actually were.
If the video won’t play, you can watch it here.
Porter then commented on how City West is now being referred to as Tallaght after a shooting in the area.
I read about City West, for the first time in my life experience, is now Tallaght because somebody was shot there yesterday. All of a sudden, City West is a part of Tallaght.
The way that people talk about these areas, as if they were a burden on the middle classes – a burden on politicians [I'd like them to see] working people for what they really are – which is people who want opportunity. People who want to work. People who want to lead successful lives.
