Sarah Myles
How is TV dealing with the idea of class? While I’m generally going to use UK examples, I think the trends are broadly similar around the world – particularly thanks to syndication deals and the selling of programme formats to other territories.
On the face of it, it could be suggested that there is a very specific strategy at play when it comes to non-fiction programming. There are shows about property and dinner parties, and there are shows that involve people airing their private grievances for the entertainment of an audience. There are shows about benefits claimants, and there are shows about cooking with ingredients from high-end grocery stores. These examples absolutely imply an extreme polarisation of attitudes toward class, in which lower income people and families are vilified, and higher income people and families are effectively coddled. It doesn’t seem to be much better in other countries, either.
But what about the rest of the TV landscape? We have game shows, in which people from all walks of life compete for all kinds of prizes. We have home renovation shows, in which people that cannot necessarily afford to update their homes themselves have a TV show do it for them. There are shows that portray the less affluent in negative terms, but those terms are used against other groups too – sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not. Who can overlook the horrors that are The Only Way Is Essex and Made In Chelsea? Or My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding? When vilification is the issue, we need look no further than The X Factor, or Britain’s Got Talent – both of which rely on a format that involves encouraging people to perform on national television, and have three or four very high-income, very privileged people literally judge them. The difference is, the people being judged are from every kind of lifestyle, every kind of background and every kind of income bracket themselves. The common denominator is that they are all just chasing their 15 minutes of fame.
Interestingly, children’s television in the UK is a great example of more inclusive programming. In the non-fiction category, people from all walks of life are encouraged to take part – in game shows, competitions and non-judgemental documentaries. In dramatic and comedy programming, representation is pretty good, too, with the BBC in particular having a long history of featuring realistic stories involving children within the care system, and families from less-affluent, inner city communities.
Fictional programming in the UK can generally be found to be without a classist agenda. Popular soap operas, such as Eastenders and Coronation Street, feature prime examples of social mobility – being set in a specific urban location, with unemployed people in receipt of benefits living alongside skilled and unskilled workers, as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. The drama series Misfits focused on a group of inner-city teenagers on probation essentially becoming superheroes. The comedy-drama Skins featured the lives of teenagers in Bristol dealing with wide-ranging issues that spanned the class spectrum. And how about the award-winning drama Shameless?
An important point to note, however, is the fact that TV is a business, with programming decisions based upon ratings – and people of all socio-economic positions are welcome to watch whatever takes their fancy. Nobody forces people to watch The Jeremy Kyle Show (or indeed, go on it), and yet it trends on Twitter most mornings. The X Factor elicits the same response in the evening. What does it say about society, that the most popular TV formats are those in which, not only do we sit in judgement of people as an audience, but that people willingly submit themselves to be torn to shreds in front of millions of people, by middle-aged, privileged, white men (Jeremy Kyle and Simon Cowell)?
Like the chicken and the egg, it is difficult to tell which came first – the influence of the media on public perception, or the influence of public perception on the media. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between. Does TV have a classist agenda? No – but certain aspects of it reflect the most base attitudes of society, and spew toxic vileness in response. Ancient civilisations would turn out in their thousands to watch gladiators annihilated in the arena. Medieval times saw throngs in their hundreds turn out to cheer the most gruesome and horrific public executions. Today, we have Kyle and Cowell. It’s not TV that’s the problem – it’s us.
