TV’s Dwindling Middle Class • Hacker News Board

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#131

Post by ghaff » Tue, May 03, 2016, 11:45 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #122

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not snobbery, no one is looking down [well few are] on Beckham saying "oh he's only working class". Football is a working class game, it's players are primarily working class; that's a great source of pride for many. I'm (lower) middle class, earn less than a lot of working class people; there are different cultural circles that follow different lines to financial worth. That's how the class system is seen here.…

> It's not snobbery, no one is looking down [well few are] on Beckham saying "oh he's only working class" On Beckham no. On working class people but not Beckham-rich, many. I've had some experience with BBC people. All the technicians and lower level staff were working class. All the journalists were public school people (in UK, "public school" actually means: expensive prestigious school). They didn't seem to have a…

>Which shows what it took to be on TV back in the day. You don't get that in the US either.

Not to the same degree certainly. But historically, the eastern journalism establishment (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the network news operations) drew very heavily from the Ivy League and related schools

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#132

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, May 03, 2016, 11:59 PM UTC

dmclain wrote: post #101

CocaKoala wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons), a teacher, and a news reporter.

I don't think a show featuring a lawyer, college professor, media personality and whatever the heck it is Barney does is a counterpoint at all. All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. Other than a few episodes where Marshal (the lawyer) contemplates a job he doesn't love to pay off the massive consumer debt accrued by his wife (the teacher), the money problems and job tradeoffs on the show…

> All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions.

No, they are middle class roles (either independent business owners dependent on their own labor rather than primarily renting other's labor to apply to their capital -- the classic petit bourgeoisie -- or elite educated workers with likely some personal capital but still dependent on wage labor for support, but not as immediately at risk as the working class without reserves are.)

The upper class in a capitalist society are the owners of capital who primarily rent labor to apply to that capital, they are occasionally major characters on TV shows, but I can't think of many shows with more than one as a significant protagonist. Generally, most of the protagonists are middle class, or notionally working class but somehow living a middle class lifestyle.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#133

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, May 04, 2016, 12:07 AM UTC

TillE wrote: post #4

herbet_gayson wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Well, yeah, British usage has some hangovers from pre-capitalist class structures wherein the nobility constitute the upper class, and what became the capitalist upper class is part of the middle class between the nobility and the peasantry.

Whereas American English mostly, when it adopted class language, got it from traditional discussions of capitalist class structure, but its since evolved to where frequently "middle class" is used to mean "middle income" (solidly in the working class in the classical divide of classes in capitalist society), and the traditional capitalist middle class is "upper middle class" (or sometimes even "upper class"), and the capitalist upper class -- the owners of capital who rent labor -- are mostly just not discussed at all as a class of people, but as abstract institutions if at all.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#134

Post by coldtea » Wed, May 04, 2016, 12:20 AM UTC

et2o wrote: post #130

coldtea wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it simple ? most working class jobs are boring. That wasn't a problem in the past. Besides, nothing more boring than being a regular cop, lawyer, doctor etc. It's the treatment that makes it look exciting, not the patrolling around for 8 hours and eating doughnuts reality of being a cop. And you wouldn't believe how tedious being a doctor is, either in a private practice or at a hospital. Nothing like ER or H…

Tedious but mostly not boring. Tedious for reasons other than why it makes good TV.

No, I mean tedious of the boring variety.

There's nothing very exciting about a day at the hospital or a day on patrol.

Yeah, you get to have some nice interactions now and then, but if you filmed the actual day to day life it would be like watching paint dry.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#135

Post by wycx » Wed, May 04, 2016, 10:26 AM UTC

pbh101 wrote: post #129

wycx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you classify a tool-and-die maker?

I am not familiar first-hand with the occupation, though after a quick scan of Wikipedia it sounds blue-collar to me. Not sure how this relates to my original comment. For clarity, do see my clarification under sibling comment at [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623522

With that clarification, it clear I misunderstood your point.

My (now unnecessary) point was that whilst tool-and-die makers are blue collar, I consider that profession to be full of practitioners of excellence (at least the ones I have encountered).

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#136

Post by pbhjpbhj » Wed, May 04, 2016, 10:53 AM UTC

nommm-nommm wrote: post #72

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you'd day you were "upper class"? What I don't understand is why you'd turn class into a proxy for personal wealth, there are already lots of ways to refer to that - wages, household income, net worth - whereas class [in the UK] is a far more nuanced measure of ancestry, culture, occupation and attitudes to all of those things.

Probably because our history and collective cultural values are very different in that regard. And we don't have, like, actual royality. The US has a very "anyone can get rich" kind of cultural ethos so it makes sense our definitions would be very different. There's also a distinction between upper class and the "frigging filthy rich" (salary in the millions) in the US. Lately they've been called "the 1%."

Would you say that the "1%" is above "upper class" or an upper-upper-class? Why not just say "he earns $200k" or "he inherited $10M" rather than "he's a part of the upper class"? The former examples seems to provide much more info.

[Answer is probably "language isn't logical" but I'd settle for your reason not to use the more informative approach.]

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#137

Post by elsurudo » Wed, May 04, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

takno wrote: post #103

Touche wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't basically every character on The Office become the manager at some point? It felt like it. Jim left the company for a while to start a sports agency or something? The Office definitely fell into the modern trap of every character needing to be upwardly mobile.

To be fair even Creed was made manager for a while, but I don't think he ever showed any signs of being upwardly mobile.

Creed transcends class, though. And basically any other societal norms and pressures.

Re: TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

#138

Post by et2o » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:15 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #134

et2o wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tedious but mostly not boring. Tedious for reasons other than why it makes good TV.

No, I mean tedious of the boring variety. There's nothing very exciting about a day at the hospital or a day on patrol. Yeah, you get to have some nice interactions now and then, but if you filmed the actual day to day life it would be like watching paint dry.

And this is from your personal experience as a physician? I disagree.