Class Identity Changed In Contemporary Britain
To what extent has the stability of class as a marker of identity changed in contemporary Britain? Discuss with reference to two examples from British television.
In this essay I will be discussing how class is considered in modern day Britain and how people see class in their lives, I will also discuss how the class system is treated by the media through TV sitcoms and reality TV programs. The examples of modern television programs I have chosen as my subjects are massively popular and critically acclaimed, I thought that I should use two different types of programming to show a contrast on how we as a whole, perceive what class we are. Reality television in theory is to hold a mirror to society and show us what we are but sadly this isn’t the case, producers to tend to steer toward the most extreme examples possible because they believe that is what the public want to see, though what we see can be entertaining is it really what we are? A massive example of this is the Jeremy Kyle Show which is a program were …show more content…
people who have problems with their friends and family go on to solve their disputes with the aid of DNA tests and Lie detector tests, though it may solve problems for these people we know why the producers choose them. British Sitcoms or situational comedy programs, tend to revolve around a group of character’s who find themselves in hilarious situations, and the characters tend to be over the top stereotypes that people can laugh at or with. I have chosen to look at the classic, popular sitcom ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ which is a sitcom about the life of middle class wannabe Hyacinth Bucket, I have chosen this program because it portrays two different social classes who interact with each other on a daily basis and the main character comes from a working class background and is trying desperately to be middle class which I think will be an interesting example of modern ideas of class identity “The great British sitcom characters (Captain Mainwaring, Basil Fawlty, Edina Monsoon, David Brent et al) tell us about the way we live, and not always things we would wish to hear.”(Wickham, P. nd.)
Before I start talking about class nowadays I should start on where it came from so we can see how it has changed over the years.
The first markers of social class came from the 1700s when Great Britain was formed from the similar class status already in place. The class structure status’s were made up of ‘Cottagers and Labours’ which was the lowest, mainly consisted of people who worked for other people, perhaps a servant, then there was ‘Husbandman’ who consisted of farmers and tradesman, they would actually have to pay the land owner to work on their land so they owned nothing, then there was ‘Yeoman’ which consisted of farmers who owned their own land instead of working on other peoples land, then there was the ‘Gentry’ which consisted of people who have wealth and assets to live on without working, examples being people who were priests or law enforcement officers of the time and politicians, then there was the ‘Knight’ class which in earlier times were honoured soldiers but in those times were people who were a senior part of the gentry, they would also hold a large amount of land, then there was a ‘Baronet’ which were very similar to ‘Knights’ but was just a bit higher up, then there were ‘Peers’ who were very large land owners and they would buy and sell off land to make money, they also has a seat at the house of commons, then the highest class was a ‘Royal’ which was of course a member of the royal family or a relative to the monarchy.
The social labels of working class, middle class and upper class first appeared in the 19th century as a way of identifying the social differences between an individual’s wealth and standard of living as Britain entered the industrial revolution, the class markers were as follows: the working class being the factory workers and manual labour workers, their managers being the middle class, and the owners being of the high class, so we should ask ourselves the question why is this class system still at work today? People nowadays consider there to be no social classes because of how diverse Britain is, but this isn’t the case, there are even more social class statuses and different variations.
In the 20th century about 50 years ago there was a popular class system that was widely used but instead of naming them working class, middle class ETC, a grading system of A, B, C1, C2, D and E were used within the marketing and government statistics. E was the lowest grade and you were given this is you were a casual, low paid worker or a pensioner. D was given to semi-skilled manual labour workers such as builders and factory workers, C2 as given to skilled manual labours such as plumbers and electricians, C1 was given to supervisors and degree level professionals also the clergy, B was given to lower managerial positions and A being the highest were given to the highest position one could get to in a company. This survey was revisited in 2001 and the more grades were created to give more descriptive and accurate grades, E being the lowest applied to the long term unemployed, D applied to two different groups being the routine and semi-routine workers meaning mainly factory workers, C1 and C2 applied to supervisory positions, Employers or self-employed workers and intermediate occupations, B applied to Lower managerial positions and professional workers and A being the highest applied to higher managerial and professional workers
In 4th April 2013, sociologists and leading universities teamed up with the BBC to conduct a survey called The Great British Class Survey, the survey was taken by 161,000 UK residents and they were put into their class by means of looking at their income and economic status, who they socialise with and how cultured and educated they are, here are the class markers and the percentages: in the Elite which is the highest consisted of people with a high income and a large amount of savings such as dentists, barristers, judges and bankers, it covered only 6% of the population, Established Middle Class which covered people of a high income and very high up contacts and their would have professions such as therapists, midwives, specialised tutors etc., it covered 25% of the population, Technical Middle Class which covered people of a moderately high income such as scientists, pilots, pharmacists etc., it covered 6%, New Affluent Workers which covered people of a moderately good income but a low amount of contacts which included electricians, postal workers plumbing engineers etc., which covered 15%, Traditional Working Class which included people who had a low income but some housing assets which included care workers, cleaners, van drivers etc. which covered 14%, Emergent Service Sector which applies to people of a reasonable income which included nurses, bar staff, chefs etc., which covered 19%, and Precariat which applied to people of a low income such as carpenters, caretakers, shop keepers etc., which covered 15%.
According to the survey on the BBC website which is where you can use a calculator to find out where you are, I am considered to be part of the Emergent service sector.
Of course there is the established class system we know that is broken down in to sub categories to be more accurate.
At the lowest is the ‘Underclass’ which consists of the long term unemployed and people who live on benefits and in a council estates, the term is put on people that have been unemployed for generations and there is a lot of hatred for them in modern British society, they were blamed by the media and the government for the 2011 England riots, youth of this social class are often referred to as ‘Chavs’.
Above the ‘Underclass’ in the social ladder is the ‘Working Class’ which is split into two sections the lowest being the ‘Unskilled and Semi-Skilled Working Class’ and the ‘Skilled Working Class’. The ‘Unskilled and Semi-Skilled Working Class’ would work as factory workers and industrial and manual labours which would be their job for the rest of their life in most cases, children would leave school at the age of 16 and apply to work as semi-skilled labours on assemble lines at major British industrial factory’s, coal mines, metal work mills and textile mills, this would normally apply in major city’s such as London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester etc. Though in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher came into power, de-industrialisation due to trade deals with China caused many of members of this class to fall out of work and become redundant without another trade to fall back on which caused a downfall in living general standard of living which caused many to fall onto government welfare which caused the ‘Underclass’ to rise in population. Since manufacturing in Britain has fallen so much, low paid office workers and call centre employees are now considered the new working class, TV shows such as ‘The Call Centre’ on BBC3 show that the call centre is the factory or mill of today for young people “By some estimates there are now some 200,000 people involved in such "call centres" - easily outstripping the number employed in steel, coal and in vehicle manufacture. In fact, there are now more call-centre staff than coal miners.” (Clement, B. and Woodford, S. 1998. The Independent.).
The ‘Skilled Working Class’ are people who would be skilled in their own trade such as plumbing, decorating and other industrial jobs that are domestic.
Above the ‘Working Class’ is the ‘Middle Class’ which splits into 3 different sections, there is the ‘Lower Middle Class’, the ‘Middle Class’ and the ‘Upper Middle Class’. The ‘Lower Middle Class’ mainly consists of Office workers, travel agents, building owners or civil jobs, they are typically well-educated and have a mild local accent, the ‘Lower Middle Class’ is often thought to be from suburban areas, an example of a TV character from the lower middle class is Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping up appearances, I will elaborate on her role in the sitcom later on. They are also the most represented social class on TV and in the media.
The ‘Middle Class’ typically are people who speak in Received Pronunciation or ‘RP’, who are privately educated or attended grammar schools and who come from moderately wealthy backgrounds, the careers most associated with them are doctors, office managers, accountants, bankers and property owners. The ‘Middle Class’ make up most of the media and some of the government. The ‘Upper Middle Class’ consist of people that were born into wealth and are given the most opportunity’s in life, they speak in ‘RP’ natively and are very well educated from prep and private schools, most go into politics as a career and consider themselves to come from pedigrees dating back hundreds of years, a notable example is David Cameron.
At the highest in social class is the ‘Upper Class’, they mainly consist of the gentry and come from families of extravagant wealth dating back hundreds of years such as dukes and barons some related to the royal family. They are typically brought up by nanny in the early years of their lives and educated in private and prep schools and are able to go to any university of their choosing. Many take careers in the British army and Royal navy but also academia in prestigious universities.
All classes have a presence of some sort in the media but the working class and the lower middle class are the predominant examples used. The Jeremey Kyle show is a prime example of working class representation but I’m not saying this as positive, since it is a reality program things need to be over-exaggerated to keep audiences entertained, on the Jeremy Kyle show they aim to help people and discourage the underclass from remaining unemployed and in some ways they do help people beat alcoholism and drug addiction and help families and friends get back together but what does this paint as a picture for the underclass? The show has been described in a dissertation by Hannah Murphy as ‘Poverty Porn’ which basically means people watch this program to feel better about themselves and to laugh at other’s which shouldn’t be right “Misrepresentations of poverty in the media are argued to support the existence of an underclass group culturally separated from mainstream society. The Jeremy Kyle Show has been specifically utilised in the political sphere to encompass this concept through the assertion of a criminal, workshy and disenfranchised “Jeremy Kyle generation”. (Murphy, H. 2013. p.1). In a perfect world or a perfect Britain there wouldn’t be a Underclass but there most certainly is and the class’s above are mocking them, so this in proof of there being a new class marker and how other class’s see them.
Now on a less depressing note I would like to pick up on my point about the sitcom ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ as I said earlier the main character Hyacinth is part of the Lower Middle Class marker but she wasn’t always, in the show you can see that she has other family members that could be described as Working Class or even Underclass, there’s her sister Daisy lives with a Onslo, an unemployed lay about who only wants to eat and watch television, Now back to Hyacinth, she is as the show is named trying to keep up appearances with her neighbours and peers by appearing to be a well-educated and cultured individual who can make polite conversation and host extravagant party’s or ‘Candle light suppers’ as she calls them, she often boasts about her fine china and her possession of a un-corded telephone. Now my point about this show is how well they satirize the two classes by making them both act as ridiculous as the media stereotypes are, there is a belief about the middle class that they will never be satisfied or happy because they always strive for better things but can’t get them, that belief is ripe within Hyacinth as she often gets herself into comedic situations as she climbs the social ladder but also trying to forget what she was, and she is determined to drag her husband Richard with her, also to forget her working class past she often hides her family away when she has company and even goes as far to shun them in public but the show does a great job of letting Daisy and Onslo not care and get on with their lives in ‘happiness’. So to sum my point up this show satirizes the middle class while providing a true portrayal or the working and underclass, but this was in the 1990s.
In conclusion Social Class is still a marker of identity in contemporary Britain and the media are a large part of keeping that in our heads, maybe there will be a day when class doesn’t matter or when class becomes even more so discriminate.
But I think I have shown you how class has changed over hundreds of years to where we are now. (2542 words)
Bibliography:
Clement, B. and Woodford, S. 1998. The Independent news website: Phone Factories- Brains New boom industry work houses phone factory. [Online]. [11/05/2014]. Available From http://www.independent.co.uk/news/phone-factories--britains-new-boom-industry-work-houses-phone-factory-1162391.html
Murphy, H. 2013. Representations of an ‘othered’ underclass: the Jeremy Kyle Show as ‘poverty porn’?. BSc Dissertation, University of Portsmouth.
Wickham, P. nd. BFI Screen Online: Sitcom. [Online]. [10/05/2014]. Available from
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/445368/
In this essay I will be discussing how class is considered in modern day Britain and how people see class in their lives, I will also discuss how the class system is treated by the media through TV sitcoms and reality TV programs. The examples of modern television programs I have chosen as my subjects are massively popular and critically acclaimed, I thought that I should use two different types of programming to show a contrast on how we as a whole, perceive what class we are. Reality television in theory is to hold a mirror to society and show us what we are but sadly this isn’t the case, producers to tend to steer toward the most extreme examples possible because they believe that is what the public want to see, though what we see can be entertaining is it really what we are? A massive example of this is the Jeremy Kyle Show which is a program were …show more content…
people who have problems with their friends and family go on to solve their disputes with the aid of DNA tests and Lie detector tests, though it may solve problems for these people we know why the producers choose them. British Sitcoms or situational comedy programs, tend to revolve around a group of character’s who find themselves in hilarious situations, and the characters tend to be over the top stereotypes that people can laugh at or with. I have chosen to look at the classic, popular sitcom ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ which is a sitcom about the life of middle class wannabe Hyacinth Bucket, I have chosen this program because it portrays two different social classes who interact with each other on a daily basis and the main character comes from a working class background and is trying desperately to be middle class which I think will be an interesting example of modern ideas of class identity “The great British sitcom characters (Captain Mainwaring, Basil Fawlty, Edina Monsoon, David Brent et al) tell us about the way we live, and not always things we would wish to hear.”(Wickham, P. nd.)
Before I start talking about class nowadays I should start on where it came from so we can see how it has changed over the years.
The first markers of social class came from the 1700s when Great Britain was formed from the similar class status already in place. The class structure status’s were made up of ‘Cottagers and Labours’ which was the lowest, mainly consisted of people who worked for other people, perhaps a servant, then there was ‘Husbandman’ who consisted of farmers and tradesman, they would actually have to pay the land owner to work on their land so they owned nothing, then there was ‘Yeoman’ which consisted of farmers who owned their own land instead of working on other peoples land, then there was the ‘Gentry’ which consisted of people who have wealth and assets to live on without working, examples being people who were priests or law enforcement officers of the time and politicians, then there was the ‘Knight’ class which in earlier times were honoured soldiers but in those times were people who were a senior part of the gentry, they would also hold a large amount of land, then there was a ‘Baronet’ which were very similar to ‘Knights’ but was just a bit higher up, then there were ‘Peers’ who were very large land owners and they would buy and sell off land to make money, they also has a seat at the house of commons, then the highest class was a ‘Royal’ which was of course a member of the royal family or a relative to the monarchy.
The social labels of working class, middle class and upper class first appeared in the 19th century as a way of identifying the social differences between an individual’s wealth and standard of living as Britain entered the industrial revolution, the class markers were as follows: the working class being the factory workers and manual labour workers, their managers being the middle class, and the owners being of the high class, so we should ask ourselves the question why is this class system still at work today? People nowadays consider there to be no social classes because of how diverse Britain is, but this isn’t the case, there are even more social class statuses and different variations.
In the 20th century about 50 years ago there was a popular class system that was widely used but instead of naming them working class, middle class ETC, a grading system of A, B, C1, C2, D and E were used within the marketing and government statistics. E was the lowest grade and you were given this is you were a casual, low paid worker or a pensioner. D was given to semi-skilled manual labour workers such as builders and factory workers, C2 as given to skilled manual labours such as plumbers and electricians, C1 was given to supervisors and degree level professionals also the clergy, B was given to lower managerial positions and A being the highest were given to the highest position one could get to in a company. This survey was revisited in 2001 and the more grades were created to give more descriptive and accurate grades, E being the lowest applied to the long term unemployed, D applied to two different groups being the routine and semi-routine workers meaning mainly factory workers, C1 and C2 applied to supervisory positions, Employers or self-employed workers and intermediate occupations, B applied to Lower managerial positions and professional workers and A being the highest applied to higher managerial and professional workers
In 4th April 2013, sociologists and leading universities teamed up with the BBC to conduct a survey called The Great British Class Survey, the survey was taken by 161,000 UK residents and they were put into their class by means of looking at their income and economic status, who they socialise with and how cultured and educated they are, here are the class markers and the percentages: in the Elite which is the highest consisted of people with a high income and a large amount of savings such as dentists, barristers, judges and bankers, it covered only 6% of the population, Established Middle Class which covered people of a high income and very high up contacts and their would have professions such as therapists, midwives, specialised tutors etc., it covered 25% of the population, Technical Middle Class which covered people of a moderately high income such as scientists, pilots, pharmacists etc., it covered 6%, New Affluent Workers which covered people of a moderately good income but a low amount of contacts which included electricians, postal workers plumbing engineers etc., which covered 15%, Traditional Working Class which included people who had a low income but some housing assets which included care workers, cleaners, van drivers etc. which covered 14%, Emergent Service Sector which applies to people of a reasonable income which included nurses, bar staff, chefs etc., which covered 19%, and Precariat which applied to people of a low income such as carpenters, caretakers, shop keepers etc., which covered 15%.
According to the survey on the BBC website which is where you can use a calculator to find out where you are, I am considered to be part of the Emergent service sector.
Of course there is the established class system we know that is broken down in to sub categories to be more accurate.
At the lowest is the ‘Underclass’ which consists of the long term unemployed and people who live on benefits and in a council estates, the term is put on people that have been unemployed for generations and there is a lot of hatred for them in modern British society, they were blamed by the media and the government for the 2011 England riots, youth of this social class are often referred to as ‘Chavs’.
Above the ‘Underclass’ in the social ladder is the ‘Working Class’ which is split into two sections the lowest being the ‘Unskilled and Semi-Skilled Working Class’ and the ‘Skilled Working Class’. The ‘Unskilled and Semi-Skilled Working Class’ would work as factory workers and industrial and manual labours which would be their job for the rest of their life in most cases, children would leave school at the age of 16 and apply to work as semi-skilled labours on assemble lines at major British industrial factory’s, coal mines, metal work mills and textile mills, this would normally apply in major city’s such as London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester etc. Though in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher came into power, de-industrialisation due to trade deals with China caused many of members of this class to fall out of work and become redundant without another trade to fall back on which caused a downfall in living general standard of living which caused many to fall onto government welfare which caused the ‘Underclass’ to rise in population. Since manufacturing in Britain has fallen so much, low paid office workers and call centre employees are now considered the new working class, TV shows such as ‘The Call Centre’ on BBC3 show that the call centre is the factory or mill of today for young people “By some estimates there are now some 200,000 people involved in such "call centres" - easily outstripping the number employed in steel, coal and in vehicle manufacture. In fact, there are now more call-centre staff than coal miners.” (Clement, B. and Woodford, S. 1998. The Independent.).
The ‘Skilled Working Class’ are people who would be skilled in their own trade such as plumbing, decorating and other industrial jobs that are domestic.
Above the ‘Working Class’ is the ‘Middle Class’ which splits into 3 different sections, there is the ‘Lower Middle Class’, the ‘Middle Class’ and the ‘Upper Middle Class’. The ‘Lower Middle Class’ mainly consists of Office workers, travel agents, building owners or civil jobs, they are typically well-educated and have a mild local accent, the ‘Lower Middle Class’ is often thought to be from suburban areas, an example of a TV character from the lower middle class is Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping up appearances, I will elaborate on her role in the sitcom later on. They are also the most represented social class on TV and in the media.
The ‘Middle Class’ typically are people who speak in Received Pronunciation or ‘RP’, who are privately educated or attended grammar schools and who come from moderately wealthy backgrounds, the careers most associated with them are doctors, office managers, accountants, bankers and property owners. The ‘Middle Class’ make up most of the media and some of the government. The ‘Upper Middle Class’ consist of people that were born into wealth and are given the most opportunity’s in life, they speak in ‘RP’ natively and are very well educated from prep and private schools, most go into politics as a career and consider themselves to come from pedigrees dating back hundreds of years, a notable example is David Cameron.
At the highest in social class is the ‘Upper Class’, they mainly consist of the gentry and come from families of extravagant wealth dating back hundreds of years such as dukes and barons some related to the royal family. They are typically brought up by nanny in the early years of their lives and educated in private and prep schools and are able to go to any university of their choosing. Many take careers in the British army and Royal navy but also academia in prestigious universities.
All classes have a presence of some sort in the media but the working class and the lower middle class are the predominant examples used. The Jeremey Kyle show is a prime example of working class representation but I’m not saying this as positive, since it is a reality program things need to be over-exaggerated to keep audiences entertained, on the Jeremy Kyle show they aim to help people and discourage the underclass from remaining unemployed and in some ways they do help people beat alcoholism and drug addiction and help families and friends get back together but what does this paint as a picture for the underclass? The show has been described in a dissertation by Hannah Murphy as ‘Poverty Porn’ which basically means people watch this program to feel better about themselves and to laugh at other’s which shouldn’t be right “Misrepresentations of poverty in the media are argued to support the existence of an underclass group culturally separated from mainstream society. The Jeremy Kyle Show has been specifically utilised in the political sphere to encompass this concept through the assertion of a criminal, workshy and disenfranchised “Jeremy Kyle generation”. (Murphy, H. 2013. p.1). In a perfect world or a perfect Britain there wouldn’t be a Underclass but there most certainly is and the class’s above are mocking them, so this in proof of there being a new class marker and how other class’s see them.
Now on a less depressing note I would like to pick up on my point about the sitcom ‘Keeping Up Appearances’ as I said earlier the main character Hyacinth is part of the Lower Middle Class marker but she wasn’t always, in the show you can see that she has other family members that could be described as Working Class or even Underclass, there’s her sister Daisy lives with a Onslo, an unemployed lay about who only wants to eat and watch television, Now back to Hyacinth, she is as the show is named trying to keep up appearances with her neighbours and peers by appearing to be a well-educated and cultured individual who can make polite conversation and host extravagant party’s or ‘Candle light suppers’ as she calls them, she often boasts about her fine china and her possession of a un-corded telephone. Now my point about this show is how well they satirize the two classes by making them both act as ridiculous as the media stereotypes are, there is a belief about the middle class that they will never be satisfied or happy because they always strive for better things but can’t get them, that belief is ripe within Hyacinth as she often gets herself into comedic situations as she climbs the social ladder but also trying to forget what she was, and she is determined to drag her husband Richard with her, also to forget her working class past she often hides her family away when she has company and even goes as far to shun them in public but the show does a great job of letting Daisy and Onslo not care and get on with their lives in ‘happiness’. So to sum my point up this show satirizes the middle class while providing a true portrayal or the working and underclass, but this was in the 1990s.
In conclusion Social Class is still a marker of identity in contemporary Britain and the media are a large part of keeping that in our heads, maybe there will be a day when class doesn’t matter or when class becomes even more so discriminate.
But I think I have shown you how class has changed over hundreds of years to where we are now. (2542 words)
Bibliography:
Clement, B. and Woodford, S. 1998. The Independent news website: Phone Factories- Brains New boom industry work houses phone factory. [Online]. [11/05/2014]. Available From http://www.independent.co.uk/news/phone-factories--britains-new-boom-industry-work-houses-phone-factory-1162391.html
Murphy, H. 2013. Representations of an ‘othered’ underclass: the Jeremy Kyle Show as ‘poverty porn’?. BSc Dissertation, University of Portsmouth.
Wickham, P. nd. BFI Screen Online: Sitcom. [Online]. [10/05/2014]. Available from
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/445368/