Social Class in the Media

     Over the past week, our class viewed a documentary called Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class (2005), directed by Loretta Alper.  The documentary discussed different examples in how social class is portrayed in the media.  Although media promotes the idea that moving from one social class to the next one is easily achievable with hard work, it seldom shows the realities of such.  There is a long history in media promoting the idea of this "American Dream" being attainable; however, it is not shown very often in the media where people fail to do so.  The mainstream media eventually strayed into highlighting the struggles of people in the working and poor social classes, but this is usually followed up by how they overcame that and ventured into a higher social class.  There are also consequences in the way media frames these identities around characters who are depicted in working and poor social classes.  The documentary explained and highlighted examples of these identities when discussing television shows like The King of Queens, The Simpsons, and Roseanne.  Going further into explaining how the identities are framed around these characters in the working social class, the documentary explained how they are often represented as inadequate, lack intelligence, or show social awkwardness.  They then integrated gender and race into the identities of working class people in the media.  The documentary explained that Roseanne was one of the first television shows that represented the struggles of a woman and her family on a low income, working social class.  Before this show media did not show the demand of most households requiring women to work to sustain a means of support.  Someone in the documentary had noted, "most women work because they have to, and television doesn't exploit work as a necessity to survive."  Roseanne highlighted this reality within the realistic culture of working class families.  The documentary had also discussed race integrated with poor or working class depicted different framed identities in media as well.  Colored people in the media who played characters in poor and working classes showed two different trivialized story lines.  It either showed colored people already situated in a middle or upper social class, that had to work to get there, but it often does not show their struggles, or hardships in the process.  This is showed in the storylines of television sitcoms like The Jefferson's and The Fresh Prince of Belair.  It shows colored people who aspire to reach the next social class, but their community they live in, people they surround themselves in, and lack of intelligence hold them back from ever being able to accomplish it.  This framed identities is shown in movies like Boyz N The Hood, and South Central.  Obviously media does not depict the realities of the working and poor social classes, because they always want to reinforce the idea that this "American Dream" is achievable and attainable with hard work and dedication.  Do not misunderstand me when I say that it possibly is, and there are very small number who do, but the reality is without the resources to succeed with the hard work and dedication, the likelihood of moving up in the framed economic classes are next  to a dream.
Boyz 'N The Hood