In a conversation with someone who is considered an expert in the context of my project, I was told that there is no class problem in universities in general, let alone in arts universities. I found this interesting because this person comes from the same town as me and is very working class. Whereas another expert I spoke to who is middle class, admitted to noticing less obviously working class students.
On further reflection, I think this actually makes sense. People who have risen from the working classes to a more eminent position are often quick to distance themselves from their background. For example, Hyacinth Bucket in the tv show Keeping Up Appearances who was desperate to avoid her working class sister and brother in law, going so far as to ignore them in public and clamber over brick garden walls to hide from them.
And why wouldn’t you want to distance yourself from your working class roots when “Despite the occasional ‘rags to riches’ storyline, most media representations of working-class communities tend to focus on what these communities lack—not just financially, but also in knowledge, taste and morality. They are constantly depicted as uneducated, poorly dressed and more likely to become criminals.”
Stephanie Lawler, a British sociologist, said in 2005 that “at the heart of middle-class identity, is a feeling of disgust towards working class existence,” and I think that if one has been socially mobile and is now middle class rather than working class, there is an element of disgust towards your roots rather than pride about how far you’ve come.
Whilst there are a lot of tv shows that satirise the working classes eg Little Britain and Shameless, there are shows such as the long running Jeremy Kyle Show or Benefits Street that aim to humiliate or demonise the working classes. Instead of being actually entertaining, the public are expected to laugh at the so called misfortune of the millions of people who are working class. Jeremy Kyle in particular was a vicious show – a live studio audience laughing at families imploding and the guests being incited to violence against each other.
This is a far cry from the hardworking, working class men and women who work multiple jobs so they can feed their families and who do all the jobs that other people turn their noses up at.
But which portrayal of working class society is more memorable?