Task One

Research and write a 300-word summary of the political response to I,Daniel Blake during the film of the release of the film.

The political response to the film starts with the conservative party politician Iain Duncan Smith who worked as The Secretary of state for work and pensions (and is responsible for over £15 bn of cuts to the benefits system in five years since 2010) claiming that Ken Loach “painted an unrealistic picture and treated Jobcentre staff unfairly”. Many conservatives MPs such as Tim Laughton have also attacked the film and its creators for being “unrealistic” with its portrayal of the benefits system and the film has been mentioned in Parliament.

In the press at the time of the release of the film, many right-wing newspapers such as The Sun criticised the anti-conservative message behind it. Even to date, most articles written about the film cover the same negative aspects and very few compliment the film for its overall message. The Guardian reported that the film “doesn’t represent reality”, a common phrase found around the context of the film when looking through articles. This claim was made by the senior manager at Jobcentre Plus that the film focuses almost entirely on the very worst case. Reports like these all have the same element of denial to them, which is all part of the problem itself.

Right-wing viewpoints highly criticised the film yet put this further into the public’s view, not only the film itself but the message it brings. Likewise, many viewers of the film have had similar experiences with the benefits system and therefore it represents their untold story. Many of these people were glad that Ken Loach was raising this awareness, and left-wing politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn supported the film and told conservative Prime Minister Theresa May to watch it to understand the benefits system. This is not the first time Ken Loach has released a controversial piece, nearly 50 years ago he released ‘Cathy Come Home’, a drama (which was like a documentary) about a homeless woman and her family, which sparked its own controversy.

Task Two

Write a 400 word report on how the film I,Daniel Blake represents class and age.

The film represents people who have been cheated by the benefits system, and does so with two main characters Daniel Blake and Katie Morgan. Daniel represents a hard-working old man with ill-health being treated badly at the hands of the state and Katie, a single parent, being forced by the housing system to move 400km north away from her family to Newcastle with her children. These two characters portray both northern and southern working-class people having the same experiences and problems with the benefits system. This film was created with a working-class viewpoint to underline the issues with the state itself.

Daniel Blake is depicted living on a council estate to suggest that there are many people living like him and he is not as lonely as he may feel. The audience see many scenes in Katie’s house where it is badly damaged which Daniel attempts to repair for her, portraying a sense of community coming together to help each other, which is further reinforced by Daniel’s neighbour helping him as well. The food bank scene also shows many working-class people queuing outside beforehand to constitute the vast number of people living like this. This scene depicts the harsh reality of a single parent mother being so desperate and practically starving for food that she literally could not wait to eat it. Both Katie and Daniel are kicked out of the benefits agency at the same time which further regarded towards the discrimination of classes.

The prejudice against people using the benefits system is also presented in the film, from Daisy being bullied at school to Daniel being bullied by the employees at the Jobcentre. This is done to further highlight the issue of how poverty effects all ages. Many of the people throughout the film are close in age to Daniel and should therefore show a presence of sympathy towards him but do not. The inclusion of Katie’s children conveys the idea of pure and innocence in society and how future generations suffer at the hands of people older than them. Younger people offer to help Daniel throughout the film, particularly in scenes where he is trying to understand the concept of a computer as most of the services for the system were created online/over the phone. Daniel’s next door neighbour assists him online, developing the idea of the future generations taking control and dictating the present day. The ending of the film summarises that although Daniel Blake had died, Katie was still affected by poverty and consequently generations are still affected by this issue and will continue to be until governments take control.