Representation and Attitudes to Class

Are current documentaries and reality TV fairly representing social classes?

The documentary movement of the 1930s celebrated the working class and was recognised because of it. Unfortunately, in the current documentary and television era we are seeing plenty of examples of where classes or groups are mocked and displayed for negative judgement. 

The reputations of Night Mail and Housing Problems survive to this day and stem from their positive attitudes to the working class of Britain. So why is it that we are seeing so many examples of where these attitudes have shifted to mockery? 

In Louis Theroux's first Weird Weekends series, he travels to South West America to explore alien believers, UFO seekers and a group named the Alien Resistance Movement. As demonstrated in the gif above, it is very clear that he is mocking them for their beliefs. Much of what he says to them is very condescending and pretends to play up to them whilst the ridicule is detected by only the audience. After spending a night out searching for aliens (with no luck), Theroux says to one of the alien believers: "If I had been flashing my lights right they would have come back... Maybe I scared them off with my Close Encounters theme." These subtle and sarcastic jokes, encouraging the audience to laugh at them whilst coming across as accommodating to the alien believers. 

He is not taking the issues of UFOs seriously. Whilst this may only be an issue for this particular group, their beliefs are not respected and are instead displayed for comedic value. As it suggests in the name of the documentary series, these people are portrayed as weird. 

Reality TV

The pattern is carried forward in reality television. This article suggests that once middle class filmmakers respected the working class, but today's middle class producers are creating series that ridicule the working class in programmes such as Geordie Shore and Big Brother - something that John Grierson would not have rejoiced. 

The characters in reality TV (RTV) are displayed to be judged, and usually not in a positive manner. An example of this is the quote from Geordie Shore pictured above. 

This is a programme that invites an audience to look down upon a group of 'ordinary' people from Newcastle as they go about their lives drinking, arguing and having sex. They are not there to be respected, as Charlie Brooker will tell you in his review. 

Class portrayal on screens in general is an issue. Documentary maker Ken Loach expresses that soaps are set in working class communities but 

"there's a patronising view of it in that here are people who are quaint and a bit raw and a bit rough and a bit funny. But you sense there is - and I don't think this was the original intension of Coronation Street - but there's now a kind of implies middle-class norm which views them and their antics and their fallings out and their fallings in love... as, well, 'characters'. It's like they're the rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream when there's always an implied other set of characters that look down on them."

To second this, former EastEnders writer David Yallop said that the show was "created by middle-class people with a middle-class view of the working class which is patronising, idealistic and untruthful". This skewed perception of other classes applies too with documentary making. A documentary maker could want to express their middle-class view of the working class and misrepresent them in the same way. 

When I spoke with documentary maker Sharon Woodward about what she thinks the current issues of documentary are, she said: 

I'm worried about the ethics and morality. This is why I want to keep having this conversation, what are we filming, should we be there and why are we filming it? I get a bit nervous that it's just to sensationalise something. It can be degrading to people and doesn't show a nice side to our society. We should be pushing a more positive idea about people. Where you’re born doesn't mean you have to stay there. We should show the truth but I find it very suspicious that we have a lot of white middle class men making films about people on council estates, people that have got no home. Why can’t you turn the camera on yourself and show everyone your privileged private education? 

This very much reflects the popular opinion that attitudes can be degrading and this is certainly having an impact on the audience. 
In this research article, an experiment with audiences reveals a number of findings on class representation in reality television, including excess and disgust.  

"Evaluations of the working class were particularly stark in group discussions of domestic-oriented RTV shows:
[Supernanny’s] quite funny, to see the little kids how they disrespect their mums. (Timmy, male, middle class, Drama)
[How Clean is Your House?] makes me laugh. [Why?] Because some people are just dirty that’s why. (Tom Graff, male, working class, Drama)
Timmy and Tom emphasised the pleasure they took in abhorring other people’s excesses. We can see disgust and shame directed at failings of moral personhood, namely a failure to care for and control your family and your home, and a lack of respect and respectability. Tom connected unclean homes with unclean people, who ‘are just dirty’. Such judgements were made in relation to behaviour in public and private domains. For example, other participants pointed to the failure of people on television talk-shows to participate economically and cope with life. Some re-enacted how they would shout at contestants through the screen, calling for them to ‘sort your life out’. Their responses illuminate how RTV invites audiences to make moral judgements of working-class participants and, in so doing, position them as Other."

It is a recurring theme that people are presented on screen to be judged and laughed at. RTV is centred around this, with shows such as Supernanny and How Clean is Your House  showcasing people from a particular class failing in life. Charlotte Moore, commissioning editor for the BBC at the time of this article said that My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding reflected Channel 4's "remit to entertain first and foremost" and was "judgmental of its people in its tone". However, she claimed that "had we made it I would have taken it deeper and deeper to ask bigger questions about how they live their life, what they believe and who they are. I would have wanted it more layered". Perhaps this may have been the case but with RTV and documentary series growing in popularity with successes such as First Dates, Love Island and the Educating series, there is potential for documentary continuing to ridicule people on screen and making negative judgements on social class. Celebrating human kind and respecting beliefs is what documentarians should be doing more of. It seems that in this area we have taken a step backwards in progress.