Marx was as every bit as disparaging as reality television can be in his characterisations of the people in this problematic category – the ‘contemptible and irrational mob’ who are to be strictly differentiated for the ‘respectable masses’. Thus, he variously describes them as the ‘slum proletariat…the outcast, degenerate and submerged elements of the population…the passive putrefaction of the lowest strata of the old society…the human refuse of all classes…the swindlers, confidence tricksters, rag and bone merchants, vagabonds, gamblers, criminals, prostitutes and tricksters’ (2009, p. 498).
From this we can see that Marx, in the same way as television, found it easy and fine to make moral judgements on the part of society that fit into this class.
Moving on and now taking a look at gender, you can relate some of the aspects of its representation on television with US programming. Television played a big part in creating a particular construct on the world and gender in particular. Men were always represented as being very masculine, superior to women, intellectual (where in some cases they lacked brawn), independent, dependable and held a big presence. In some cases and more often then not, British televising of the working class men show characteristics of physical aggression as apposed to female’s verbal aggression. We often see this in British soaps such as ‘Eastenders’ where Miller explains that ‘while the emphasis on upon relationships remains, explosive action (usually in the form of crime) is a regular feature’ (2002, p.100). This element is usually added to dramas and soaps primarily for male audiences. It is particularly interesting to note that the masculine characteristic and representation of aggressiveness and action related to crime can be linked back to representations of class. Fiske (1987) mentions that masculine characteristics such as mentioned above are expressions of individualism or of power and control. Fiske then expands on this by noting that this is;
‘particularly true of men in lower socioeconomic groups and may well underlie the aggressiveness of much working class ‘style’. Because men’s idea of masculinity can rarely be realised at work they have developed a masculine style for their leisure and social activities that consists of excessive signs of masculinity in an exaggerated and compensatory display’ (1987, p. 201).
This can possibly be used to serve as an explanation for the representations of sections of the working class as ‘lumpen proletariat’ as in the terms of Marx.
Feminine roles would portray the exact binary opposite to masculine roles such as; being inferior to men, imaginative as of contrast to intellectual, and usually dependant on a male figure. However, these characteristics soon changed and female characters were also shown as being entrepreneurial and had to deal with the competing roles of work and family. Although this came with a price, as these ‘strong women were often portrayed as cold and calculating matriarchs or as women who were often confused about their proper priorities’ (Rabrenovic, 2006). These are just some of the many characteristics that are culturally constructed on gender and naturalised through television and are by no means the abstract truth.
Now, let’s take a look at the representations of family life on television. A common trend in British television would show that family life was often surrounded in conflict. One of the main reasons for this is because it provides more interesting television for viewers rather than watching perfect families. Mothers roles within the family moved from traditional representations of ‘superwomen’ perfection and instead ‘expected greater involvement of their husbands in both instrumental and emotional care of their family’ (Rabrenovic, 2006). This contrasts from the more traditional representations of wives as having the sole responsibility of emotionally caring and looking after the whole family. This change in family roles for women and men came about in the post-industrial economy. As Rabrenovic (2006) puts it, many working class men couldn’t fulfil their job roles as ‘bread winners’ of the family as it was harder to get jobs, therefore these men couldn’t show the same representations of power and masculinity that they held previously. What television did was move away from representations of working class father roles to representing roles of middle class fathers, in which this newly found middle class man would ‘discover’ the importance of bonding with the children. At an early age children are lot more emotionally connected to the mother but as mentioned above, today fathers are represented as having more of role in the children’s lives. Daughters in particular grow to be very dependable on their father as they will always remain ‘daddy’s little girl’ and always look to the dad for security and emotional support. Where as sons initially are more emotionally connected to their mums and then as they grow have to break that connection off in order to obtain some sense of masculinity and follow in their fathers footsteps.
Analysis of Shameless
Shameless, Paul Abbott’s creation of a TV series based on a fictional estate in Manchester called Chatsworth Estate represents the disorderly lives of the working class. The Channel 4 television series centres itself on the main character Frank Gallagher and his unruly and dysfunctional family. Frank Gallagher is an unemployed alcoholic single farther and leaves his children in a poverty stricken estate to fend and look after themselves. From this, peoples initial ideas on stereotypes and representations of working class life, fit dominant traditional ideologies. However, Shameless does a good job of disrupting the dominant ideologies of working class, some of which we mentioned in the previous section. Below we will be looking at some of the individual characters and the families as a whole over two episodes (the pilot episode and last episode of series 7) of the TV series. We aim to look at how everyone within the programme works to go against the dominant ideologies of this section of the working class as being how Marx describes it, ‘lumpen’.
While the Gallagher family and others around them are dysfunctional, chaotic and sometimes cruel, one of the main features that stand out from beginning to end of almost each episode and especially within the pilot is the strong sense of community. Each member of the family stick by each other through the thick and the thin and are very loyal to each other although it may not seem it at first. This large sense of community is so strong you could almost class majority of the people there as living together as one big family. This element of community is something that upper and middle class families could never obtain and thus Shameless do a very good job of portraying the working class in a positive light using this one key element. Traditional ideologies would never portray working class people such as the Gallagher’s in such a positive light. We are first introduced to this idea of togetherness and community when we begin to realise that everyone knows each other. For example when a police officer, someone who usually would have no connection to working class families, carries drunken Frank back to his house and asks for Franks eldest daughter Fiona by name to come to the door and take him in. Without being told who it is Fiona already knows and makes her way to the door. At this point it is obvious that this occurrence happens on a regular basis. This is reinforced when we see the Gallagher’s close neighbour Veronica helping to heal Frank’s son, Lipp, when injuring his leg whilst trying to escape from a girls farther when being caught having sexual relations with her. There is always a sense of care from the neighbours, especially from Veronica who claimed to have previously trained as a nurse.
Frank, the father, is represented exactly how you would stereotype a male of his age that lives on an estate, an unemployed alcoholic. One thing he is not though is aggressive; in fact Frank is shown as very welcoming in the pilot episode, especially when Fiona’s new man, Steve arrives at the house. However, this seems to go against traditional representations on TV as fathers tend to look after their family in terms of providing financial support as the ‘bread winner’ and showing displays of masculinity. But yet somehow without any parental guidance from the absent mum or father the family still mange to cope with day to day life and show great feats of unity. This is largely down to the fact that the eldest daughter, Fiona keeps the family afloat and in someway acts as the mother figure of the whole family. This representation of the eldest daughter is very unusual in television but shows working class life in a positive way as the daughter has been brought up well enough to take care of the family when called for. In more modern television females who take up this role of being the mother are also shown to be entrepreneurial but Fiona actually shows the representation of more traditional ‘superwomen’ like roles that were shown in early television.
Steve, Fiona’s new boyfriend also plays a role in disrupting stereotypes of working class ideologies and cleverly manages to portray him and Fiona in a positive light. When Steve and Fiona go out for a meal in a posh upper class restaurant Fiona is told to kindly wait outside so that she could smoke whilst Steve pays the bill. To her surprise Steve then exits the building in a valet parking uniform, takes the keys of a Mercedes off an old but wealthy man and drives off with the car. Steve then proceeds by ringing Fiona who is still outside looking rather confused at this point, whilst reversing back to her and tells her that he doesn’t buy and sell cars but in fact just sells them. Fiona’s initial reaction was of shock and explains how it was wrong to do that to an old man but Steve convincingly justifies his actions by explaining that the old man drives whilst drunk. She then gets in the car and they both drive off whilst laughing. Although what Steve has done is wrong, the dominant message that the audience are left with is that he has done society a favour by taking a drunken driver off the road. Paul Abbott has managed to twist what would have been seen as unacceptable but expected behaviour of the working class into something that is in fact actually a good deed.
Another positive aspect would be the relationship between the eldest brothers of the Gallagher household, Lipp and Ian. When Lipp find out Ian is gay he expectedly argues with him out of shock. However, as the pilot episode progresses Lipp shows understanding and comes to terms with his brother’s sexuality. This defies all traditional representations of working class men being masculine and the acceptance of his sexuality from his brother is something that would be completely unexpected. This is reinforcing the strong relationships that this working class family have, something that could not be found in middle or upper class families.
The pilot episode is then concluded with the whole family sitting around the table eating breakfast with the acceptance of Frank who is passed out on the floor. This ends the episode on a positive note with the element of a strong family relationship that has dominated throughout the episode.
Now, let’s move on and look at our next episode of Shameless, the last of the latest series (S.1, Ep.16). Within this episode the sense of community still remains at large but we shall be also concentrating on other characters around the Gallagher family to give us an insight into how Shameless represents the working class as a whole unit.
This episode starts off with a scene in the local bar, where Frank’s new girlfriend Libby has set up a programme named ‘guns for amnesty’ in which each gun that is handed in will be rewarded with a bottle of vodka. This shows that the people of Chatsworth estate are working together to help stop crime. This representation plays a huge role in disrupting the traditional stereotype of all working class people being involved in criminal activity. It is also important to mention at this point that Libby is a very free, intelligent and strong willed character which also goes against dominant representations of working class women as being dependant on their male counter parts. This notion of feminine independence is also backed up by the bar maid and former wife of local gangster Paddy Maguire, Mimi, when rival gangster Roscoe comes to the pub in assumption that Mimi will be venerable and insecure without her husband. Roscoe was proved wrong when she rejects his offer of ‘protection’. Mimi is a female character but with very masculine traits, in fact her display of masculinity sometimes out does that of her three sons. Mimi confirms her total independence towards the end of the episode where she unexpectedly gives birth to a baby completely by herself after months of complaining about stomach pains.
Later on in the episode a death of character, Joe, somewhat also manages to shed a positive aspect on the life of working class society. Joe plays a character that tends to disconnect and separate himself from the rest of inhabitants of Chatsworth estate. Although he still regularly interacts with members of the community he always detests the area and the community and regularly talks about running away from the ‘dump’ with his married lover, Karen, and his supposed son. Joe, although not all the time, is looked upon as a villain and betrayer of the community so when Joe attempted to kill Karen after a dispute Ian murdered him in order to save her life and protect her. This in someway shows a moral story in which loyalty and community will always prevail.
Just as the pilot episode finished, the last episode finished on the same element of community. When Roscoe, rival gang member and outsider attempts to kill the two of the Maguire children in the pub, the remaining son of the Maguire family, Mickey, manages to steal the guns that were handed in to the police at the pub. These guns were then sneakily passed around to all the characters in the pub and when called for, everyone drew their guns out and pointed them at Roscoe and his gang. Everyone in the community came together to help fellow members of their community, and they succeeded. It is also important to mention that Frank Gallagher also played his part in assisting which was the first time he showed guts and determination to help other members of his community. This was probably the biggest representation of community and positive light in Shameless to date.
Conclusion
In summary Shameless does a very good job of disrupting the negative stereotypes and stereotypes in general of working class ideologies. ‘The series is made in such a way as to be particularly uncomfortable for respectable middle class viewers, involving them in the lives of people who they would never encounter in their own neighbourhoods and challenging conventional assumptions about what constitutes normality and morality’ (Morley, 2009, p. 501). Although the lives of families on Shameless are chaotic and dysfunctional, the bonds of loyalty between community and family always prevail to show an aspect of working class life that go against dominant representations and largely tops aspects of respectable middle class society. Shameless deserves credit for encouraging us to think about representations of working class on television in more complex ways (Morley, 2009).
Bibliography
Benson, J. (1989) The Working Class In Britain. New York, Longman.
Fiske, J. (1987) Television Culture. London, Routledge.
Miller, T (ed.). (2002) Television Studies. London, British Film Institute.
Morley, D. (2009) Mediated Class-ifications: Representations of Class and Culture in Contemporary British Television. European Journal of Cultural Studies vol.12, no. 4, pp. 487–508.
Rabrenovic, G. (2006) Mediating the Family: Gender, Culture and Representation. European Journal of Communication vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 117-118.
White, M. (1992) Ideological Analysis and Television. In Robert C. Allen (ed.), (1992) Channels of Discourse, Reassembled. London, Routledge.