Letters to the Editor
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anonymous wrote:
I just want to put in a little shout-out for "Everybody Hates Chris", working class to the bone.
Add me as another Chris hater, er lover. Nice, simple, old-fashioned working class family sit-com. My son swears he's living Chris' life over again. Even though we're not working class my husband is still penny pinching, right down to "that's 30 cents worth a milk you just threw out". Well worth checking out and good for at least one good laugh a show.
The only other sit-com we watch is The Office. They're just not that funny. Mike Rowe is one of the funniest things on TV. I don't plan on watching any of the new shows HH mentioned. We're more sci-fi fans than anything. We'll watch those.
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Rich ... oh yeah, I'm next!
The goal of the powerful is for everyone who isn’t rich to be able to imagine being rich but not possess the skills or opportunity to actually compete and become rich. That would threaten established wealth. Remember, if you can imagine it, you can have it (What? You haven’t read "The Secret"?). If you can learn on TV how the rich operate, you’ll be all ready to blend when you get there.
These shows are brought to you by the same folks who call the inheritance tax the “death tax,” and have lowered the top tax bracket from Eisenhower’s 90% to 35% hoping that some poor working (or not working) schmoe will not notice his declining relative income and available social services, and vote with the wealthy because, “If I win the lottery, I don’t want the government taking it all away.”
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Wow! all these letters and not one plug for Veronica Mars?
Admittedly it fell off in season three, but for its first two years VM was delightfully upfront about class, and not in a simplistic rich people are all ebil, poor people are all virtuous (or the reverse) way.
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I hope it's just a passing creative phase
At this point I wouldn't get too wound up about how TV is putting the spotlight on America's wealthiest citizens. This is probably a creative phase, just like Lost (sci fi) and Desperate Housewives (suburban dark comedy) have been the "in" thing in the past several years. One network creates a show about a caveman lobbyist, and all the other networks have to do something similar to stay "relevant."
I think Havrilesky hit on something though - reality TV is all about the middle and working class clawing each others' eyes out to win some minor prize. Since viewers can watch real people like themselves do crazy and entertaining things, when it comes to fiction they want to see characters and settings they could never experience in real life.
Yes, we may all look back on these series in the same way we now look at The Great Gatesby - as a powerful snapshot of America's haves and have-nots right before the nation's economy gave out. But I guess I still hold out hope that workaday joes are still get the chance to be superheroes on at least one network show.
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TV represents wasted time that cannot be recovered later
TV is good once in a while to relax and unwind. It is one activity that does that pretty simply. But for the most part, it is a waste of time. Of course it is cheapened as has everything else because it all comes down to money. Costs the less and yields the most profit with very little regards to other things that are not materially driven. It seems that too many people just want to lounge around and buy stuff. That's where they derive their pleasure. It's not from doing things because the people in power care only about themselves and the bottom line. They have become completely detached. I think it will only get worse until another generation that sees it for what it is and makes a change.
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tv and wealth
Thanks. Exactly right. This has been going on for some time, however. In movies and on tv, cops and waitresses live in vast and glistening loft apartments, middle-class homes are monumental piles two and three stories high with manicured lawns. How do these supposedly ordinary types pay for these splendors? Two things worth observing: Wealth has become the only recognized morality. (1)If you are not wealthy, it is assumed that you are at fault. (2)Related: The role of the honest, clean, hardworking person respected in his or her community despite not having much money has disappeared. If you do not have money, you do not get respect.
Sick, sick, sick.
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One Working Class Sitcom Left
The show "My Name is Earl" is probably the most prominent 'live' program representing lower working class people on TV, though it's a comedy of course. Earl is a pretty good guy, but not quite so bright. It is right before the Office, which so dwells on the idiotic 'boss' that the other white collar working-class characters just fade into the twilight.
Never saw Ugly Betty, so there could be two... No way HH can classify these people in the same class as twits like every Frasier spin-off.
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softdog makes an significant cultural observation
"He gives off the tone of someone who is no stranger to privilege". but what does he know about me? that i have access to a computer?(shared among three). it's that i can string words together to make a sentence. i don't sound like a katrinite. this is one of the important things i learned after losing my money - in america you can't be smart AND poor. (the other three possibilities are conceivable to the american mind). i had a comfortable middle class upbringing. my father was a family doctor and my mother a schoolteacher. but we lived below our means in a working class neighborhood in the bronx. why? i think it was the effect of the depression(not mental, economic). i went to public school and was taught nothing, just like the other kids. but there was a britannica in the house and i liked learning. i just sailed along in life. my parents were generous and i had enough money. then they got sick. i took care of them and when the inheritance came through i got married and had children. finally the money ran out. it was HORRID. when you are young money is not that important but when older and with responsibilities (whether you live up to them or not) it's essential. i found i couldn't earn enough. i learned i was foolish and stupid and subject to smirks. i found that if a tooth broke i couldn't get a crown like i would earlier, i had to have it pulled. i found that i couldn't go to a good doctor but one who, used to the general run of moron, would say the equivalent of "there there, just trust me", in heavily accented "english". common purchases like books and films, had to be justified, budgeted. it was, after all, my children's turn. fortunately, my kids love me and have told me "just wait ten years, and we'll take care of you". once you have no money you learn what it is like, till then you just don't. you can't. i HATE being poor and i dislike anyone who jests at wounds who hasn't felt the scar. i have nothing against havrilesky per se, just her smug attitude that she *knows*. or so it seems to me.