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TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

nytimes.com

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Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#41

Post by herbet_gayson »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #22
TillE wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a difference between British and American English. In the UK, "middle class" basically means rich. In the US, it means that maybe you own a house.

In the US middle class has always meant middle - not at top in income/wealth (mostly income) but not at the bottom. How they obtain the money (education, job) or how they spend it (house, holiday) is not important by definition - however there is some social expectations of the American middle class. Many Americans don't have the time off work for two holidays a year, even if they have plenty of money, which is anoth…

You'd describe a nurse, a teacher, and yourself as upper class? You'd put them in the same social strata as the Queen of the UK or the Prince of Monaco? That's absolutely crazy.

To me upper class means the literally Queen, or at least something like her cousin's son's uncle or something like that.

If you don't own a country estate or have any staff then you aren't upper class.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#42

Post by miiiiiike »

pessimizer wrote: post #38
miiiiiike wrote: post #25

I grew up upper-lower-middle class in a dying manufacturing town near Chicago so the The Simpsons, Married with Children, Roseanne always felt like home. I can't agree with the article tho. I still see that same grasping in current shows like Better Call Saul, Shameless (which, aside from Season 2, is fantastic), and, in a different way, The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley. Most comedies are just joke delivery med…

Better Call Saul is about a family of lawyers, the Big Bang Theory is about academics, and Silicon Valley is about tech millionaires. I'm not sure what you're seeing there.

Better Call Saul is about a low-level grifter from Chicago who slept on a pull-out in his office after working his way out of a mail room.

The Big Bang Theory has two characters who worked as waitresses. One a struggling actress, the other putting herself through school.

The Silicon Valley guys were broke. Jared lived in a shed.

Two of them are great shows, you should watch 'em!

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#44

Post by wccrawford »

pessimizer wrote: post #38
miiiiiike wrote: post #25

I grew up upper-lower-middle class in a dying manufacturing town near Chicago so the The Simpsons, Married with Children, Roseanne always felt like home. I can't agree with the article tho. I still see that same grasping in current shows like Better Call Saul, Shameless (which, aside from Season 2, is fantastic), and, in a different way, The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley. Most comedies are just joke delivery med…

Better Call Saul is about a family of lawyers, the Big Bang Theory is about academics, and Silicon Valley is about tech millionaires. I'm not sure what you're seeing there.

I've only watched the first ep of Silicon Valley and a few eps of Big Bang Theory, but...

Better Call Saul is about a poor lawyer who works out of the back of a nail salon. Not exactly rich. Yes, his brother is, but the show is about Saul.

Big Bang Theory is about guys that live in apartments, and they don't seem very rich to me. Maybe they're headed there, but they aren't there yet. I'll admit they don't lack for tech/nerd toys, though.

Silicon Valley starts with a guy in an "incubator" who is clearly struggling, and then hits it big. It at least starts about a guy without money.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#45

Post by aedron »

VLM wrote: post #13
pionar wrote: post #2

I remember growing up as a lower-middle class midwestern kid, Roseanne was a show I loved, because I identified with it so much. Dan and Roseanne were my parents, and my friends were just like Darlene and Becky. Another similar show from that era is "Grace Under Fire". As a 35-yo upper-middle class guy still in the midwest, I look at what's on TV (both broadcast and Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and see none of that represent…

Having lived thru that era, and having been a poor starving student around the time of Married with Children, my experience was they bolted on the poverty but never internalized it to the show. The characters clothing budget exceeded mine by a factor of perhaps 100, their house and possessions were fancier than my parents by a large factor (and my parents were pretty well off, wealthier than I'll ever be) and when th…

Even when I was 12 I found the show unbearably low-brow and condescending.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#46

Post by michaelt »

ap22213 wrote: post #34
pbh101 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to be too snarky here, but blue-collaredness and excelling at one's job are quite orthogonal in my head.

Could you give some examples? I've seen blue collar workers who excel, and I've seen white collar workers who don't. I haven't noticed any correlation either way.

"orthogonal" means "at right angles" - or "statistically independent"

Perhaps what pbh101 means is whether you're good at your job or not is unrelated to whether you're blue-collared or not. With that interpretation, you and he are in agreement.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#47

Post by CydeWeys »

herbet_gayson wrote: post #41
nommm-nommm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US middle class has always meant middle - not at top in income/wealth (mostly income) but not at the bottom. How they obtain the money (education, job) or how they spend it (house, holiday) is not important by definition - however there is some social expectations of the American middle class. Many Americans don't have the time off work for two holidays a year, even if they have plenty of money, which is anoth…

You'd describe a nurse, a teacher, and yourself as upper class? You'd put them in the same social strata as the Queen of the UK or the Prince of Monaco? That's absolutely crazy. To me upper class means the literally Queen, or at least something like her cousin's son's uncle or something like that. If you don't own a country estate or have any staff then you aren't upper class.

You're using words differently. Are you British? The person you're responding to was American.

I wouldn't call the Queen or Prince "upper class", I'd call them the nobility. You still have remnants of an actual feudal class system whereas we do not. Our classes go solely by income. Roughly speaking, the lowest 25% is poor, anything between 25-90% is middle class (a term which has expanded over the years), 90-99% is upper middle class, and the top 1% is upper class. Of course there is no hard and fast agreement on it, and others will disagree about the exact demarcation lines on those ranges, but it's the same gist.

So I personally wouldn't call a nurse and a teacher upper class, but they could easily be upper middle class.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#48

Post by ArkyBeagle »

roymurdock wrote: post #33

“Cheers,” which ran for 11 seasons on NBC, starting in 1982, was the first great hangout show: neutralizing the depiction of class and removing the pressures of work. Life is hard enough, “Cheers” said; let’s just make TV. Ever since, television started taking it easier on us. Bill Clinton was in the White House, and the economy had improved. On “Seinfeld,” “Living Single,” “Friends,” “Ellen,” “It’s Like, You Know,”…

Why? Because any broadcast medium will be part of a normative ... structure. It's like a social pilot beacon.

There's an "Independent Lens" about the breaking down of this effect in Romania under the Ceuchescau regime - "Chuck Norris vs. Communism."

TV grew up under the Silent Generation. I recall distinctly when my parents stopped watching "The Smothers Brothers" because it got "too political".

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#49

Post by arethuza »

herbet_gayson wrote: post #41
nommm-nommm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US middle class has always meant middle - not at top in income/wealth (mostly income) but not at the bottom. How they obtain the money (education, job) or how they spend it (house, holiday) is not important by definition - however there is some social expectations of the American middle class. Many Americans don't have the time off work for two holidays a year, even if they have plenty of money, which is anoth…

You'd describe a nurse, a teacher, and yourself as upper class? You'd put them in the same social strata as the Queen of the UK or the Prince of Monaco? That's absolutely crazy. To me upper class means the literally Queen, or at least something like her cousin's son's uncle or something like that. If you don't own a country estate or have any staff then you aren't upper class.

I think you are using the traditional UK definition of "upper class" while nommm-nommm is using the US definition - they are completely different things.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#50

Post by dboreham »

herbet_gayson wrote: post #3
pionar wrote: post #2

I remember growing up as a lower-middle class midwestern kid, Roseanne was a show I loved, because I identified with it so much. Dan and Roseanne were my parents, and my friends were just like Darlene and Becky. Another similar show from that era is "Grace Under Fire". As a 35-yo upper-middle class guy still in the midwest, I look at what's on TV (both broadcast and Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and see none of that represent…

Huh? There wasn't anything remotely middle class about Dan and Roseanne in my memory. They were proudly working class. To me middle class means university educated, professional, two foreign holidays a year.

The US has "class inflation" and middle class means what you and I call working class.
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