I watched Wife Swap on Channel 4 yesterday night, and it featured two couples, one from Norwich and the other from Doncaster. The Norwich couple seemed well-mannered, but as for the Doncaster couple, the less said, the better. The wife was foul-mouthed - every second word was a swear word, her own home was a rubbish-strewn hovel and looked as if it hadn't been cleaned for months, her kids were ill-disciplined. She showed herself up every minute of that programme, whilst her husband brought the mates round to get p***** up. From that, people from the rest of the country who watched that programme will get the impression that South Yorkshire in general and Doncaster in particular is populated by rough, common, uncultured, uncouth, foul-mouthed slappers and drunken oiks who live in hovels, and this family have not only let themselves down, they've let their town down, and South Yorkshire as well.

The programme makers will have chosen this couple deliberately, representative of a working class ex coal mining, poverty striken stereotype. They achieved it.

Don't worry, the country won't think badly of Yorkshire just because of this. Programmes are shown depicting many different genres and classifications and stereotypes. We are governed by what we watch. We are pretty much told how we should respond to extreme characteristics by these programme makers. It's called Power without Responsibility, and there's a book about it.

Isn't it terrible when people on tv don't conform to the ideal middle class stereotype promoted by mass media?
What will people think?

Originally posted by CrabTorso
Isn't it terrible when people on tv don't conform to the ideal middle class stereotype promoted by mass media?
What will people think?

I'm sorry - I come from a working class background - council house, street on the edge of the rough bit of a Notts. mining town. My father was a labourer and my mum a cleaning lady.

The house was reasonably clean and tidy. I never heard my mother swear. The number of times I ever saw my father drunk in 30 odd years could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Most working class folks are clean and tidy - but they don't make good television. I object to my background being portrayed in that way, not because of some middle class angst but because it's a lie.

Joe

Originally posted by firecracker
people from the rest of the country who watched that programme will get the impression that South Yorkshire in general and Doncaster in particular is populated by rough, common, uncultured, uncouth, foul-mouthed slappers and drunken oiks who live in hovels, and this family have not only let themselves down, they've let their town down, and South Yorkshire as well.

Carcrash telly at its worst (or is that at its best?), but after watching the programme, I don't think the woman - I can't bring myself to use the word lady - gives a F****** B***** F****** F*** :|

dont worry - lizzi bardsley was worse (how do i remember her name?!!) and she was from the other side of the pennines!

Yes the woman from Doncaster was a loud, foul mouth but she seemed to have more idea about what was important when bringing up children.

The other couple were weirdos who left their little boy downstairs to occupy himself while they went upstairs for nookie. He was allowed a ten minute period at the same time every night to 'play'.

Neither couple should have had children IMO.

Originally posted by JoeP
I'm sorry - I come from a working class background - council house, street on the edge of the rough bit of a Notts. mining town. My father was a labourer and my mum a cleaning lady.

The house was reasonably clean and tidy. I never heard my mother swear. The number of times I ever saw my father drunk in 30 odd years could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Most working class folks are clean and tidy - but they don't make good television. I object to my background being portrayed in that way, not because of some middle class angst but because it's a lie.

Joe

Well said mate. I am working class and proud, but I reckon there are two different types of working class - decent people and scum. Unfortunately, because the normal, decent working class types' lives aren't that interesting - my parents don't drink or swear either - it's always the white-trash ones who get the media attention.

i don't think something like this gives an area a bad reputation. if i see a programme about some idiots i don't immediately assume all the people from that town are the same !

everyone i know thinks yorkshire is a beautiful county! mainly because i tell them so! and i'm from lancashire !!

At least you don't think of something along the lines of (k)nickers Off Ready When I Come Home (Norwich) whenever you hear Doncaster mentioned :)

Originally posted by JoeP
I'm sorry - I come from a working class background - council house, street on the edge of the rough bit of a Notts. mining town. My father was a labourer and my mum a cleaning lady.

Yes. What I said was literally dripping with sarcasm though.
On a side note - how is it possible to be proud to be working class? It's like being proud to wake up and find you are an otter. Your socio-economic status is merely an accident of birth.

Most of the folk who live South of Leicester thing we Yorkshire folk are uncouth, wear flat caps and keep whippets and ferrets. Nothing new there then. What makes this worse are the latest statistics on drinking which put Humberside and Yorkshire in a very bad light compared to the rest of the country.

Of course when you have very little job security or satisfaction and the local Council is screwing you on a regular basis it is enough to make anyone take to drink. To be honest all the really bad language you can here from both men and women these days doesn't in itself put us in a very good light. Even little kids tell you to "go forth and multiply".

I know that the way people carried on when I was a young bloke was completely different. I prefer the old system.

CrabTorso (brilliant name, btw) - I wouldn't just be proud to wake up to discover I was an otter, I'd be delighted . Just imagine!

And if you take the assumption - not necessarily correct, I'm just playing devil's advocate here - that the ruling classes think of the working classes as scum and would wish to have them exterminated, there is a certain rebellious pride which can be gleaned from being working class and not crushed spiritually and physically.

Just a thought though ;)

Why would the 'ruling classes' wish for the 'working classes' to be destroyed? Surely the working class is the essential contributing consumer which allows the capitalist state to perpetuate?

Relax everyone.

Being originally from Ipswich, I can assure everyone here and across the globe that it is actually people from Norwich who are scum, and I am quite prepared to shout it from the rooftops.

P.s. CrabTorso, you are clearly a comedy genius, with your name and your analogy about otters. Pride is a strange idea isn't it? But people have pride in all sorts of things that are either accidental or their own invention.

Originally posted by Mo
Yes the woman from Doncaster was a loud, foul mouth but she seemed to have more idea about what was important when bringing up children.

The other couple were weirdos who left their little boy downstairs to occupy himself while they went upstairs for nookie. He was allowed a ten minute period at the same time every night to 'play'.

Neither couple should have had children IMO.
At the end of the day, only one couple showed themselves up on television, though.

I don't know, as I said I'm just playing devil's advocate. Traditionally the class system in Britain involved all the classes hating each other.

And as seen by the media depiction of the working classes, we are clearly demonised (in very much the same way that the upper classes often are, to be honest). So to be proud of one's background, and the fact that you haven't allowed yourself to become a stereotype, is a perfectly acceptable outlook.

One could also make the point that your socio-economic status is not simply something you're born with; many people change their class throughout their life. Perhaps your socio-economic background can never be changed, but your class certainly can, if you have the means and desire to do so.

Originally posted by mattyh
to be proud of one's background, and the fact that you haven't allowed yourself to become a stereotype, is a perfectly acceptable outlook.

But that's a stereotype in itself, isn' it? 'Working Class Pride'.
Why would you allow yourself to be defined by something which was never your choice in the first place?

Good point, but I wouldn't say I allow myself to be defined by it any more than I allow myself to be defined by the fact that I live in Sheffield.

Like most people, who I am is made up of lots of different things. The fact that I am proud - perhaps proud was the wrong word to begin with, maybe I meant happy, or unashamed - of my roots is merely extra skins of the onion.

This is a wonderful debate, don't you think? You don't get to have conversations like this on many fora :D

nor, indeed, on many flora.

More's the pity; I quite fancy sitting in a gigantic rose speaking of such weighty matters. We could be like Engels and Marx in the library at Manchester, except with a more pleasant aroma.