Class Dismissed [3/8]

Class Dismissed
How TV Frames the Working Class

Narrated by Ed Asner

Based on the forthcoming book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.

Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.

Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.

Featuring interviews with Stanley Aronowitz, (City University of New York); Nickel and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich; Herman Gray (University of California-Santa Cruz); Robin Kelley (Columbia University); Pepi Leistyna (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Michael Zweig (State University of New York-Stony Brook). Also with Arlene Davila, Susan Douglas, Bambi Haggins, Lisa Henderson, and Andrea Press.

Sections: Class Matters | The American Dream Machine | From the Margins to the Middle | Women Have Class | Class Clowns | No Class | Class Action

http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=411

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• class
• dismissed
• tv
• television
• working
• economic
• social
• political
• injustice
• capitalism
• globalism
• myth
• system
• individualism
• meritocracy
• critique

[32peartree]

in England we have a soap opera called 'Eastenders' obviously set in the East End of London. The majority of the cast are white - which is a total anachronism - and every single character runs their own little business - market trader, cafe owner, publican etc. Nobody claims unemployment benefit or works has a cleaner or in a factory. Which suggests the BBC (Bourgeois Broadcasting Corporation) are deliberately disseminating a post-Thatcherite simulacrum of self sufficiency and aspiration.

[MultiSmartass1]

THE COSBY SHOW was about African-American Exceptionalism-an important thread in television shows.

Try finding shows about everyman AAs as lead characters.

What characters you will find are either professionals or criminals.

Either are up the ladder or down the ladder.

When you compare African-American characters to whites you will find a lack of range even in this topic of class.

Thus it easy to make an AA character outstanding, head of their class, etc than an average working joe.

[cscorulz]

Jesus Monkey I wish Ed Asner narrated faster!! I would love to sit down and get smashed with PePi up in a Baaawwston Bawww and that mother fu%ker Freddy Barnes character looks like a blast to rage with yall see that suit! Yeah!.. I love coming across drunk professors its always a treat.

[shananagans5]

@koala8 Sure, some people are in a position to have it easier but it's open to anyone. You move if you need to, you go to school, you do what you need to do. You can't wait for things to fall in your lap. I guess there will be those that constantly make excuses as to why they can't do anything about their situation. That is not my business, just don't expect me to give them anything I worked for.

[koala8]

@shananagans5

of course you can do it if you have the opportunities and ur born into a circumstance which allows you to take advantage of those opportunities, giving you the choice to improve yourself..not everyone has this though, and the reasons for that is complex. i guess America is better than a third world country in civil war or something obviously...but things are not as simple as they seem and there are environmental factors that an individual cannot control

[shananagans5]

@koala8 Well, you have to be smart about it too. You can't get a basic job and go day after day like a drone and expect to advance. You have to improve yourself, make an effort to move up in society. You just have to do it. The American dream, whatever that may be, is open for everyone that lives here to go after. You assume you can't do it and make no effort to get there, it's not going to happen. You can go as far as your talent and ability allow.

[koala8]

@shananagans5

ur very naiive to think that...life is more complicated than just "working hard"...google "the meritocracy myth"...

[MultiSmartass1]

Good Times wasn't a bad show. Notice that there are no shows about African Americans in the Ghettos now. Apparently they don't exist-even though they do.

"Government rules can't be broken" "Unless you're running the government." True indeed.

[pedalero]

please elaborate

[Qwofacenosehead]

I would have loved to see a class analysis of Ugly Betty.