Title: Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous: Ideological Shifts in Popular Culture, Reagan-Era Sitcoms and Portrayals of the Working Class
Abstract: My research indentifies, through examination of popular culture, a major shift in meanings and values surrounding the working class at a vital time in US history: the Reagan years. During the Reagan Era, the working class was weakened economically, politically and ideologically. I explore three salient themes evidenced throughout the family-centered sitcoms analyzed in my research: Minimization of Working-Class jobs, Working Class Selfdeprecation and Defeat, and the Stigmatization of aid/assistance. These themes emerged from an inductive analysis of family based sitcoms (airing 1980-1988) which encompassed main characters who were both representatives of the corporate elite and had direct interactions with working class characters. During the Reagan Era, nearly the entirety of working class characters in US sitcoms were servants, laborers or adoptees of upper middle class families; whose only meaningful role was as a foil for the values, work ethic and behavior of the corporate class. Through my research I found that during the Reagan era, class representations on television contributed to an enervation of working class issues and thus bolstered Reagan administration policies. Ask a group of first generation college students in the U.S. to raise their hands if they identify as working class, and there will be a pause, an uncomfortable shift in seats, and a few hesitant hands in the air. This experiment is enlightening since it is indicative of how American society perceives class. Most Americans are unsure about class and we are hesitant to discuss it. This is not surprising, since class is not “a central category of cultural discourse” throughout American society. Since the discussion of class is missing and misrepresented in cultural discourse this in turn makes “class as class” difficult to understand. Rick Fantasia poignantly asked, what are the “cultural practices, collective actions, processes of organizational construction (and destruction)—that have been central to the sustenance (and weakening) of class cohesion and definition, yet that have been largely ignored in the study of class consciousness?” Class is an integral part of identity so these misunderstandings have a cumulative and negative effect not only on individuals but also in communities. Therefore, it is critical for historians and media scholars to analyze how class is reflected and defined over time and throughout culture. 3 One of the many answers to this thought provoking question is the way in which class is presented throughout popular culture, and most especially, how it is presented on television. During the Reagan era, class representations on television contributed to an enervation of working class issues and thus bolstered Reagan administration policies. Although many media and cultural scholars have examined class representation on television, only a few studies have concentrated on the class related messages of particular programs. This paper analyzes the representation of class difference and interaction in US primetime sitcoms from 1980-1988; focusing specifically on personifications of corporate capitalism and the working class. The shows 1 Julie Bettie, “Class Dismissed? Roseanne and the Changing Face of Working Class Iconography,” Social Text 45 (Winter 1995) 125. 2 Ibid. 142. 3 Rick Fantasia, “From Class Consciousness to Culture, Action and Social Organization,” Annual Review Sociology 21 (1995) 276. 4 Museum of Broadcast Television, “Social Class and Television,” Museum of Broadcast Television, http:www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=social class (accessed August 22, 2010).
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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