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How TV portrays the working class







BadFish

Huge Member
Oct 19, 2003
17,102
Excellent BBC lecture on the subject.

Owen Jones argues against what he sees as a growing strain of malevolent British TV programming denigrating the working class.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod..._Shameless_How_TV_Portrays_the_Working_Class/

I can't view that but will try and find it elsewhere.

On this subject though I find it horrendous how the TV currently portrays men. Maybe this is just Australia but we are shown as bumbling fools who women need to deal with like children. It makes me so cross i stamp my feet and throw my toys out of my pram.
 


Stumpy Tim

Well-known member
I can't view that but will try and find it elsewhere.

On this subject though I find it horrendous how the TV currently portrays men. Maybe this is just Australia but we are shown as bumbling fools who women need to deal with like children. It makes me so cross i stamp my feet and throw my toys out of my pram.

I hate this. Even Daddy Pig is made out to be a bumbling fool on Peppa Pig. It's ridiculous.
 




Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 11, 2003
59,501
The Fatherland
I like Owen Jones.
 




Simster

"the man's an arse"
Jul 7, 2003
54,187
Surrey
I hate this. Even Daddy Pig is made out to be a bumbling fool on Peppa Pig. It's ridiculous.

Daddy Pig is an interesting one. I wouldn't say he represents all men. He represents the cuddly jolly fella that some kids like. There is something quite endearing and warming about a man who can portray the image that it is OK to be harmless and bumbling to the innocent, because the unsaid statement is that he is a ROCK where it matters. You'll note that it is NOT ok for the kids in Peppa Pig to belittle or show a lack of respect to their father. Mummy Pig wouldn't have that. She'd be PROPER cross.

It's television adverts appealing to adults where the men are portrayed as incompetent and useless that really REALLY irritate me.
 




Doc Lynam

I hate the Daily Mail
Jun 19, 2011
7,200
It is not only the working class who get denigrated;so called toffs appear to be fair game to all and sundry,if the mood takes.

The difference is one is usually highly educated and empowered, with financial independence and mobility but you are right both are crass generalisations.
 




ezzoud

New member
Jul 5, 2003
226
It's television adverts appealing to adults where the men are portrayed as incompetent and useless that really REALLY irritate me

Wise words indeed. James Nesbitt in the Thomas Cook adverts is my latest "favourite" - look he's so stupid he can't keep stop his trunks from falling down on the water slide (like anyone would care) and look at his pathetic puny pasty body compared to the hunky lifeguard :tosser:
 


Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Patron
Jul 23, 2003
34,121
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
Daddy Pig is an interesting one. I wouldn't say he represents all men. He represents the cuddly jolly fella that some kids like. There is something quite endearing and warming about a man who can portray the image that it is OK to be harmless and bumbling to the innocent, because the unsaid statement is that he is a ROCK where it matters. You'll note that it is NOT ok for the kids in Peppa Pig to belittle or show a lack of respect to their father. Mummy Pig wouldn't have that. She'd be PROPER cross.

It's television adverts appealing to adults where the men are portrayed as incompetent and useless that really REALLY irritate me.

On Peppa Pig this. Daddy Pig seems to cope in all sorts of child rearing situations that drive me a bit mental.

Re the Owen Jones thing - haven't had a chance to watch it yet. In general he annoys me immensely. He can't help only looking sixteen. Unfortunately his brain also still seems to be occupied by a GCSE Sociology student. It's like watching a small child impersonate Rik from the Young Ones. I might have to have a go just to see if for once it's not a politically correct rant. And to prove I'm open minded obvs.
 
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cunning fergus

Well-known member
Jan 18, 2009
4,745
Owen Jones has conveyed a consistent message about the deningration of the working class for a number of years now, and whilst his disposition can be patronising he is in the very political space that the Labour heirachy should be occupying. It is to his credit that he understands this is an important political issue if you value socialism.

That said (unlike Owen Jones) the working class have not had the privilidge of an Oxford education and tend to be in jobs where they are competing in a mass labour markets which are pushing their wages down. Owen Jones directs plenty of criticism towards the tories and big business for the ills of the working class but not Labour for failing to controlling our labour markets. This is a shame because whilst he has some of the old Labour sensibility, but is unwilling to confront the reality such is the dogma of modern liberal socialism.

Labour (and now the Tories and Lib Dems) spent years inferring that British workers were lazy and unreliable, so they have played as much a role as the media in selling out the British working class......................as with most problems it is the politicians that are at the root.
 




Pavilionaire

Well-known member
Jul 7, 2003
30,566
The bloke raises some very good points.

Especially important how he recognises that the stigmatising of the "underclasses" has led to regular people accepting that welfare should be slashed - when in reality this is absolutely unacceptable.

Unacceptable to who? I watched that TV programme a couple of months back where they applied the welfare rules of 1948 to benefit claimants, only uplifting the amount by inflation. The original welfare state only paid out to cover basic need, and only then on a very short-term basis. The Welfare State was never designed so that people could live their whole life on it, but that is what it has become for many.

I don't see any particular adverse portrayal of working class people, if anything quite the opposite, i.e. the series about Gregg's The Bakers extolled the work ethic of its nationwide workforce, giving several employees regular spots in the series to speak their mind. There are countless reality shows following ordinary working people around - police, traffic wardens, airport staff, hospitals, in some respects the TV portrayal of ordinary working folk has never been so positive.
 


Doc Lynam

I hate the Daily Mail
Jun 19, 2011
7,200
Unacceptable to who? I watched that TV programme a couple of months back where they applied the welfare rules of 1948 to benefit claimants, only uplifting the amount by inflation. The original welfare state only paid out to cover basic need, and only then on a very short-term basis. The Welfare State was never designed so that people could live their whole life on it, but that is what it has become for many.

I don't see any particular adverse portrayal of working class people, if anything quite the opposite, i.e. the series about Gregg's The Bakers extolled the work ethic of its nationwide workforce, giving several employees regular spots in the series to speak their mind. There are countless reality shows following ordinary working people around - police, traffic wardens, airport staff, hospitals, in some respects the TV portrayal of ordinary working folk has never been so positive.

I think the difference is there is no political agenda to those programmes, they are mostly edited to entertain and fill air time in the cheapest possible way under the title of "reality."
 






Nibble

New member
Jan 3, 2007
19,238
Ah yes, the working class. Take the rise out of everyone but themselves. Bernard Manning syndrome. Qute a good lecture but distracting watching Doogie Howser in his Rupert Bear shirt and talking like Wallace & Gromit.
 




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