Secret Millionaire: Who benefits?

Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire prides itself on bringing to light the social inequalities in Britain and highlighting the importance of ‘modern day philanthropy’.

By sending an undercover millionaire into deprived areas looking for worthy causes to give their money to, the program aims to uncover the secret heroes of deprived areas.

But who is it really for?

Is the focus ordinary people who daily struggle with poverty or the emotional journey of the millionaires themselves?

Though undoubtedly moving, this program disenfranchises the local people it tries to help but by making them lucky receivers of charity, grateful that one ignorant rich person has been educated in how hard it is to be poor. Rather than forcing the viewer to question a society where so much social inequality exists, it simply makes the millionaires feel better about being rich because they have helped a few poor people.

There is very little that is ‘modern’ about this ‘modern day philanthropy’. Is it not just the same as Victorian philanthropy where the wealthy would give alms to the poor and if this is the case what does it say about ‘modern-day Britain?’.

Watch a clip from The Secret Millionaire below and let me know if you agree or disagree