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TV’s Dwindling Middle Class

100 points by rosser 11y ago

miiiiiike 11y ago
I grew up upper-lower-middle class in a dying manufacturing town near Chicago so the The Simpsons, Married with Children, Roseanne always felt like home. I can't agree with the article tho. I still see that same grasping in current shows like Better Call Saul, Shameless (which, aside from Season 2, is fantastic), and, in a different way, The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley. Most comedies are just joke delivery mediums with paper thin walls. But nothing has changed, shows have always been a reflection of their creators/runners and the networks fund people who've had hits.. Family Guy was a hit on DVD/[adult swim]? Ok! Order two more joke delivery vehicles from Seth MacFarlane! James L. Brooks had a string of hits with a strong emotional core. So after he helped get The Simpsons on the air it made sense that he essentially forced the 20-something writers to build the show around an emotional/sentimental core instead of letting it to devolve into a gag factory out of the gate.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  Better Call Saul is about a family of lawyers, the Big Bang Theory is about academics, and Silicon Valley is about tech millionaires. I'm not sure what you're seeing there.
  - miiiiiike 11y ago
    Better Call Saul is about a low-level grifter from Chicago who slept on a pull-out in his office after working his way out of a mail room. The Big Bang Theory has two characters who worked as waitresses. One a struggling actress, the other putting herself through school. The Silicon Valley guys were broke. Jared lived in a shed. Two of them are great shows, you should watch 'em!
    - gardano 11y ago
      I enjoyed that built-in ambiguity in your comment. I know which 2 I enjoy!
  - wccrawford 11y ago
    I've only watched the first ep of Silicon Valley and a few eps of Big Bang Theory, but... Better Call Saul is about a poor lawyer who works out of the back of a nail salon. Not exactly rich. Yes, his brother is, but the show is about Saul. Big Bang Theory is about guys that live in apartments, and they don't seem very rich to me. Maybe they're headed there, but they aren't there yet. I'll admit they don't lack for tech/nerd toys, though. Silicon Valley starts with a guy in an "incubator" who is clearly struggling, and then hits it big. It at least starts about a guy without money.
    - Cyph0n 11y ago
      Better Call Saul I agree with, the others are too whimsical. But Silicon Valley is damn hilarious, and even more so for us techies.
    - Pxtl 11y ago
      Not only that, but one of the main characters in BBT, the token non-nerd, works as a waitress and her lack of funds are a continuing plot-point of the show.
      - nommm-nommm 11y ago
        The problem is her lack of funds seems really fake though. She doesn't really seem to go through the type of real financial hardship I can identify with, it just seems haphazardly thrown in once in a while for laughs.
        Pxtl 11y ago
        > it just seems haphazardly thrown in once in a while for laughs. This also applies to the science and the social issues in BBT. It's not exactly a very heavy show.
  - panzagl 11y ago
    I use Big Bang Theory to try to convince my daughters that, despite what their schools are telling them, society values science so little that they can look forward to being in their 40's and still having to share an apartment with a roommate unlike the irregularly employed actress across the hall.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  Upper-lower-middle class huh? Makes me glad to live in the UK, where we have working class (manual labour, shop work, emergency/healthcare), middle class (anything in an office), and upper class (whatever you like, your income is from return on investments).
  - gauthr 11y ago
    "I was born into what you might describe as the lower-upper-middle class." -- The Road to Wigan Pier, Ch. 8. I'm fairly certain George Orwell lived in the UK as well. cf. http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/7.html http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/7.html
canuckintime 11y ago
Shameless (US version on showtime) is the best depiction of working-poor contrasted with middle class on TV today.
- thedaemon 11y ago
  I'll have to agree with you there. Both versions of the show are really great and seem like people I know.
roymurdock 11y ago
“Cheers,” which ran for 11 seasons on NBC, starting in 1982, was the first great hangout show: neutralizing the depiction of class and removing the pressures of work. Life is hard enough, “Cheers” said; let’s just make TV. Ever since, television started taking it easier on us. Bill Clinton was in the White House, and the economy had improved. On “Seinfeld,” “Living Single,” “Friends,” “Ellen,” “It’s Like, You Know,” “Sex and the City,” “Girlfriends” and, much later, “Happy Endings” and “New Girl,” the commingling, childless men and women might have had jobs, but almost none had consequential careers. How many jobs did Elaine and George have on “Seinfeld”? And in how many fields? And Kramer — how was he paying to live across the hall from Jerry? Hangout shows placed friendship above family, obviating the typical economic ecosystem. Belonging to a family of friends probably means you only have to support yourself. TV became — and still is — a medium struggling to understand “average,” “ordinary,” “normal.” Why would you go into any of these shows expecting anything resembling reality. They are all clearly entertainment in the form of light drama and inconsequential, whitewashed sexual tension. To expect anything else is to set yourself up for failure. Deeper shows exist - The Wire, Breaking Bad, House of Cards - but headlining TV shows are not created to address issues anymore. The shows reflect the main demographics of TV watchers, because that's what keeps them watching, and that's what generates ad revenue. So I'm not too concerned with the state of TV - it's an echo chamber for older, more conservative folk.
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  Why? Because any broadcast medium will be part of a normative ... structure. It's like a social pilot beacon. There's an "Independent Lens" about the breaking down of this effect in Romania under the Ceuchescau regime - "Chuck Norris vs. Communism." TV grew up under the Silent Generation. I recall distinctly when my parents stopped watching "The Smothers Brothers" because it got "too political".
- untog 11y ago
  Funny you should mention demographics and House of Cards - it was literally created because Netflix's data suggested that many subscribers enjoyed the Social Network (Fincher), Kevin Spacey movies and the British version of House of Cards. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-o... It's not demographics in the traditional sense, but make no mistake - Netflix and the like do not create unique pieces of art just because they feel like it. They are also making a show to fit a market, just with better data. > it's an echo chamber for older, more conservative folk. I'm not so sure about that. One of the best shows I saw last year, Mr. Robot, was made by the USA Network, of all people.
pionar 11y ago
I remember growing up as a lower-middle class midwestern kid, Roseanne was a show I loved, because I identified with it so much. Dan and Roseanne were my parents, and my friends were just like Darlene and Becky. Another similar show from that era is "Grace Under Fire". As a 35-yo upper-middle class guy still in the midwest, I look at what's on TV (both broadcast and Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and see none of that representation of middle class America. Besides "The Middle", which I still identify with, there are no successful middle-class sitcoms on TV.
- brightball 11y ago
  King of Queens is another
  - caseysoftware 11y ago
    That one never made sense to me.. she was way too hot for him.
- herbet_gayson 11y ago
  Huh? There wasn't anything remotely middle class about Dan and Roseanne in my memory. They were proudly working class. To me middle class means university educated, professional, two foreign holidays a year.
  - TillE 11y ago
    This is a difference between British and American English. In the UK, "middle class" basically means rich. In the US, it means that maybe you own a house.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      In the US middle class has always meant middle - not at top in income/wealth (mostly income) but not at the bottom. How they obtain the money (education, job) or how they spend it (house, holiday) is not important by definition - however there is some social expectations of the American middle class. Many Americans don't have the time off work for two holidays a year, even if they have plenty of money, which is another difference, which changes the American social expectations of the US "middle class." A family with nurse and a teacher for example (two professionals) would bring in somewhere around $100,000/yr and be upper class. There's a lot of variations by geography (cost of living) and stuff too, but I simplified it. In reality the amount of financial security a family has is often a function of how well they manage it (as long as you are making above a certain amount where it becomes possible for financial security). If the above mentioned family over spent on a big house, two cars, a motorcycle, and other luxuries they consider normal, or even needed, then they can surely feel like they are living without much financial security, which doesn't "feel" upper class. Unfortunately, middle class is a totally useless term because almost everyone describes themselves as middle class, I guess because they are somewhat out of touch with their spending and don't feel rich (previously mentioned family) or they are towards the bottom they don't want to feel poor. People who have a household income of $200,000 describe themselves as middle class. One of my coworkers, with a straight face, described me as middle class. I couldn't believe it - with a household income more than 3x the median household income in the US I can't with a straight face say I am middle class. That's why politicians pander to "the middle class," because the majority of Americans identify with the middle class - even poor ones who don't consider themselves middle class but feel they will be there soon. On the other side of the coin I have a friend who makes a middle class income, spends lavishly on consumer goods, and is always complaining about how poor she is. Like I said, totally useless term.
Touche 11y ago
I think television just reflects the career-obsessed nature with society today. Characters are not just competent employees, they tend to be excellent at their jobs (top of their field, seemingly) while spending very little time doing their job. I don't know if blue-collaredness is looked down upon, but it feels like writers go out of their way to let it be known that the characters we are supposed to like, are extraordinary.
- pbh101 11y ago
  Not trying to be too snarky here, but blue-collaredness and excelling at one's job are quite orthogonal in my head.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Sacho 11y ago
    That is true - blue collar is a type of job, while excellence is a measure of job performance. Perhaps parent just meant to say that the characters mostly work white collar jobs, and accidentally conflated the two. An interesting counter-example would be Friends, where one of the characters worked a blue-collar job, and none were explicitly "excellent".
    - icebraining 11y ago
      I don't see that implication in OP's post..?
      - Sacho 11y ago
        You are right, the implication is actually that "blue-collardness" cannot be extraordinary, but that flies in the face of common sense, considering all the stories about courageous and heroic policemen, firefighters, and so on.
        11y ago
binarymax 11y ago
Unfortunately, no mention of "Malcolm in the Middle" or "The Simpsons" (which admittedly I havent watched in about 10 years). Both of which continued the class contrasts of yesteryears' sitcoms. Overall though, I do agree with the article. It does seem like everyone has it really easy on American TV.
- atspruce 11y ago
  Perhaps a mention of Malcolm in the Middle would be part of a more complete history. But the author uses 2007 as the tipping-point between "yesteryear" and the modern sitcom; a show like Malcolm, which ended in 2006, would fall in place quite nicely in the author's argument and not prove an exception to the rule. I haven't seen The Simpsons in about 15 years, so I won't comment on it—except to note that it debuted only a year after Roseanne, and the two overlapped for about eight years.
moomin 11y ago
The article rather misses the opportunity to tie things together by pointing out that Laurie Metcalf was _in_ Roseanne.
moron4hire 11y ago
Let's assume that sitcoms aren't a complete travesty of expressive form to begin with. Just for the sake of argument, just for a minute. You know, there is the option to just stop watching TV. If, after skipping all the series that you don't find relevant to your life, you find there is nothing left to watch, then just turn it off. Nothing compels you to watch TV. You want to talk about class struggles, how about the modern depiction of feudal systems as fundamentally good, if not for a few "bad apples"? Disney/Pixar movies are particularly bad for this. I like to think the White Walkers in Game of Thrones are an allegory for democracy and capitalism, that as the aristocracy send more commoners to clash against the inevitable, unstoppable wave, it just creates more corpses and more converts. There is so much freely available content out there to spend your time on that you don't have to be beholden to the major production firms. Stop watching network television. They have perversely skewed incentives. It's like people who pass a local restaurant they've never heard of to go to McDonald's. Why not take a chance on a burger that will probably be better, rather than go eat a the burger you know, that you know will be shitty?
saturdaysaint 11y ago
There are lots of prominent counterexamples. The Office was a pretty direct attempt at making a modern middle class show. Breaking Bad at least started with one man's middle class problems. I think the main artistic factor here is that the sitcom, an awfully convenient medium for telling middle class stories, is dead. A 30 minute comedy where every episode was basically an island could be an oddly touching medium to talk about a teacher dying or a dad losing his job. But these tiny canvases were mostly the result of the constraints of 20th century TV. Without those constraints, consumers don't have that much interest in slices of everyday life, just as most consumers don't read Raymond Carver stories. Our imaginations go to the rich, powerful and supernatural. I'd argue that other mediums - podcasts, reality TV, social media - fulfill the basic human need behind the sitcom: to simply bask in the company of agreeable/relatable sounding human voices.
- dominotw 11y ago
  >consumers don't have that much interest in slices of everyday life Last weekend I watched amazon original 'catastrophe' and 'lilyhammer' a netflix original. Both of these revolved around ordinary people doing everyday stuff.
  - pavel_lishin 11y ago
    I'm not sure if I would classify the protagonist of Lillyhammer an "ordinary person" doing "everyday stuff". (I do, however, very highly recommend the series. I've only seen Season 1, but it was fantastic, and the character's slow immersion into the local language and culture was very well done.)
  - atspruce 11y ago
    Lilyhammer? The mafia and the Witness Protection Program have thankfully not become "ordinary" and "everyday." Certainly the main character tries to play the part of an everyday ex-pat in Norway convincingly, but the sustaining premise of the show is that he fails to do so.
- Touche 11y ago
  Didn't basically every character on The Office become the manager at some point? It felt like it. Jim left the company for a while to start a sports agency or something? The Office definitely fell into the modern trap of every character needing to be upwardly mobile.
jasonkostempski 11y ago
It's not dwindling, it just moved to cartoon format.
molsongolden 11y ago
Not disagreeing but Parks and Rec seems like a great counterexample.
atspruce 11y ago
The author blames the modern sitcom's remoteness from working and lower-middle class concerns with their creators' immunity from the recent recession. In place of everyday situations, we have shows set in "soundstages and writers’ rooms," the haunts of the out-of-touch in New York and LA. So you wind up with a show with this sort of genesis: Our creator was once a prominent writer and performer on a comedy sketch show, which aired live every Saturday night from an NBC studio in New York. It ran for 90 minutes. After their time on the show came to an end, our creator decided to pitch a sitcom based on their experiences there. The lead character is the head writer on a comedy show, similarly produced in New York. They must balance their work in the writers' room and their personal life, though this turns out to be difficult. A pilot is made, and our creator plays the lead. Modern viewers may recognize this as 30 Rock, but it is in fact The Dick Van Dyke Show. It is based not on SNL but on a direct ancestor, Your Show of Shows. Carl Reiner's performance in the pilot may have dissuaded executives from casting him in the commissioned series (hence Dick Van Dyke), while Tina Fey remained the lead in her own version. But otherwise the parallel rings a sight near perfect. The author stumbles over himself insisting, however, that while The Dick Van Dyke Show did not give vent to working and lower-middle class concerns, it did at least feature characters who "had careers" and were definitely of a class. As if the same were not true of shows like 30 Rock (which is at times obsessed with class difference), or of Parks and Recreation and The Office. These do not depict realistic workspaces, but why place that demand on a sitcom? And why not place the same demand on, yes, The Honeymooners, Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, and on and on. In all cases the demands of the form—and in almost all cases the demands of overly long tenures—stretched the premises and the rare attempts at realism very thin. I think you can make an argument that the most popular comedies available right now—whether on TV or at the movie theaters—are unflinchingly escapist. (Though, as the article notes in its discussion of an episode each of Horace and Pete and Girls, this has not gone unnoticed or unremarked by all of the shows' writers. Still, these two are not the most popular things around by any stretch.) Similarly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen to traipse across exclusive resorts, high-class stages, ballroom floors, and Venice, in elaborate dresses and a "top hat, white tie, and tails"—all during the Great Depression. Sometimes hard circumstances produce a public clamoring for comment; sometimes the public just wants a reprieve.
humanrebar 11y ago
The article basically ignored reality television for some reason. Many, many shows include real-life middle-class people: Survivor, Naked and Afraid, Chopped, Ice Road Truckers, American Idol, Extreme Home Makeover, Amazing Race, Jersey Shore, Alaska: The Last Frontier, etc. The article mentions Dirty Jobs and Undercover Boss, but it's not clear to me the bountiful reality shows don't undermine the entire thesis of the article.
brnstz 11y ago
If you create a show with the set design of Roseanne or even the Cosby Show in 2016, you're missing out on opportunities for product placement: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/brett-ratner-comments-ads-marketing-x-men.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/brett-ratner-... The logic is, "Well, I need to have a car in this movie anyway. Why not get a free car instead of paying for one, and in fact, the manufacturer will pay me to place their brand new car?" The good news is more art is created at a lower cost. Great. But the bad news is you perpetuate the idea that everyone has a new car (or new kitchen or new 3000 square foot house or whatever) all the time, no matter what their financial situation would be like in reality. This is especially insidious when there is easy consumer credit. Here's a scene of a doctor buying a car from 1987: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMlx5p6n8k#t=1m58s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMlx5p6n8k#t=1m58s The premise, if you don't bother to watch, is he doesn't want the car salesman to know his job, because then he won't get a good deal. The quaint part is that 30 years ago, a doctor and lawyer raising a family in New York City were considered almost unimaginably rich by TV standards. Now they would be "middle class." The sad part is it would be hard to justify a scene like this on a modern prime time TV show. "So, we're going to have a car in this scene? Great! I'll call up Ford. Wait, but what do you mean the car salesman would overprice the car? Don't you know they're running 0% APR or $2000 cash back for President's Day?" Sure, there are shows that try hard to be more authentic. But for every Breaking Bad, there are 10 spinoffs of lawyer / doctor / detective shows where the characters live in a bubble of perpetual newness the article describes. And even Breaking Bad did its share of product placements: http://www.bustle.com/articles/5963-how-breaking-bad-product-placement-helps-or-hurts-products-like-stevia http://www.bustle.com/articles/5963-how-breaking-bad-product...
wldcordeiro 11y ago
Isn't this really a result of TV showing us "what we wish we were" vs "what we are"? I swear part of why they pick to have these well off characters is to give you a sense of "this is what I want for myself."

100 points by rosser 11y ago

I grew up upper-lower-middle class in a dying manufacturing town near Chicago so the The Simpsons, Married with Children, Roseanne always felt like home. I can't agree with the article tho. I still see that same grasping in current shows like Better Call Saul, Shameless (which, aside from Season 2, is fantastic), and, in a different way, The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley. Most comedies are just joke delivery mediums with paper thin walls. But nothing has changed, shows have always been a reflection of their creators/runners and the networks fund people who've had hits.. Family Guy was a hit on DVD/[adult swim]? Ok! Order two more joke delivery vehicles from Seth MacFarlane! James L. Brooks had a string of hits with a strong emotional core. So after he helped get The Simpsons on the air it made sense that he essentially forced the 20-something writers to build the show around an emotional/sentimental core instead of letting it to devolve into a gag factory out of the gate.

pessimizer 11y ago
Better Call Saul is about a family of lawyers, the Big Bang Theory is about academics, and Silicon Valley is about tech millionaires. I'm not sure what you're seeing there.
- miiiiiike 11y ago
  Better Call Saul is about a low-level grifter from Chicago who slept on a pull-out in his office after working his way out of a mail room. The Big Bang Theory has two characters who worked as waitresses. One a struggling actress, the other putting herself through school. The Silicon Valley guys were broke. Jared lived in a shed. Two of them are great shows, you should watch 'em!
  - gardano 11y ago
    I enjoyed that built-in ambiguity in your comment. I know which 2 I enjoy!
- wccrawford 11y ago
  I've only watched the first ep of Silicon Valley and a few eps of Big Bang Theory, but... Better Call Saul is about a poor lawyer who works out of the back of a nail salon. Not exactly rich. Yes, his brother is, but the show is about Saul. Big Bang Theory is about guys that live in apartments, and they don't seem very rich to me. Maybe they're headed there, but they aren't there yet. I'll admit they don't lack for tech/nerd toys, though. Silicon Valley starts with a guy in an "incubator" who is clearly struggling, and then hits it big. It at least starts about a guy without money.
  - Cyph0n 11y ago
    Better Call Saul I agree with, the others are too whimsical. But Silicon Valley is damn hilarious, and even more so for us techies.
  - Pxtl 11y ago
    Not only that, but one of the main characters in BBT, the token non-nerd, works as a waitress and her lack of funds are a continuing plot-point of the show.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      The problem is her lack of funds seems really fake though. She doesn't really seem to go through the type of real financial hardship I can identify with, it just seems haphazardly thrown in once in a while for laughs.
      - Pxtl 11y ago
        > it just seems haphazardly thrown in once in a while for laughs. This also applies to the science and the social issues in BBT. It's not exactly a very heavy show.
- panzagl 11y ago
  I use Big Bang Theory to try to convince my daughters that, despite what their schools are telling them, society values science so little that they can look forward to being in their 40's and still having to share an apartment with a roommate unlike the irregularly employed actress across the hall.
jon-wood 11y ago
Upper-lower-middle class huh? Makes me glad to live in the UK, where we have working class (manual labour, shop work, emergency/healthcare), middle class (anything in an office), and upper class (whatever you like, your income is from return on investments).
- gauthr 11y ago
  "I was born into what you might describe as the lower-upper-middle class." -- The Road to Wigan Pier, Ch. 8. I'm fairly certain George Orwell lived in the UK as well. cf. http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/7.html http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/7.html

canuckintime 11y ago

Shameless (US version on showtime) is the best depiction of working-poor contrasted with middle class on TV today.

thedaemon 11y ago
I'll have to agree with you there. Both versions of the show are really great and seem like people I know.

roymurdock 11y ago

“Cheers,” which ran for 11 seasons on NBC, starting in 1982, was the first great hangout show: neutralizing the depiction of class and removing the pressures of work. Life is hard enough, “Cheers” said; let’s just make TV. Ever since, television started taking it easier on us. Bill Clinton was in the White House, and the economy had improved. On “Seinfeld,” “Living Single,” “Friends,” “Ellen,” “It’s Like, You Know,” “Sex and the City,” “Girlfriends” and, much later, “Happy Endings” and “New Girl,” the commingling, childless men and women might have had jobs, but almost none had consequential careers. How many jobs did Elaine and George have on “Seinfeld”? And in how many fields? And Kramer — how was he paying to live across the hall from Jerry? Hangout shows placed friendship above family, obviating the typical economic ecosystem. Belonging to a family of friends probably means you only have to support yourself. TV became — and still is — a medium struggling to understand “average,” “ordinary,” “normal.” Why would you go into any of these shows expecting anything resembling reality. They are all clearly entertainment in the form of light drama and inconsequential, whitewashed sexual tension. To expect anything else is to set yourself up for failure. Deeper shows exist - The Wire, Breaking Bad, House of Cards - but headlining TV shows are not created to address issues anymore. The shows reflect the main demographics of TV watchers, because that's what keeps them watching, and that's what generates ad revenue. So I'm not too concerned with the state of TV - it's an echo chamber for older, more conservative folk.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
Why? Because any broadcast medium will be part of a normative ... structure. It's like a social pilot beacon. There's an "Independent Lens" about the breaking down of this effect in Romania under the Ceuchescau regime - "Chuck Norris vs. Communism." TV grew up under the Silent Generation. I recall distinctly when my parents stopped watching "The Smothers Brothers" because it got "too political".
untog 11y ago
Funny you should mention demographics and House of Cards - it was literally created because Netflix's data suggested that many subscribers enjoyed the Social Network (Fincher), Kevin Spacey movies and the British version of House of Cards. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-o... It's not demographics in the traditional sense, but make no mistake - Netflix and the like do not create unique pieces of art just because they feel like it. They are also making a show to fit a market, just with better data. > it's an echo chamber for older, more conservative folk. I'm not so sure about that. One of the best shows I saw last year, Mr. Robot, was made by the USA Network, of all people.

pionar 11y ago

I remember growing up as a lower-middle class midwestern kid, Roseanne was a show I loved, because I identified with it so much. Dan and Roseanne were my parents, and my friends were just like Darlene and Becky. Another similar show from that era is "Grace Under Fire". As a 35-yo upper-middle class guy still in the midwest, I look at what's on TV (both broadcast and Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and see none of that representation of middle class America. Besides "The Middle", which I still identify with, there are no successful middle-class sitcoms on TV.

brightball 11y ago
King of Queens is another
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  That one never made sense to me.. she was way too hot for him.
herbet_gayson 11y ago
Huh? There wasn't anything remotely middle class about Dan and Roseanne in my memory. They were proudly working class. To me middle class means university educated, professional, two foreign holidays a year.
- TillE 11y ago
  This is a difference between British and American English. In the UK, "middle class" basically means rich. In the US, it means that maybe you own a house.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    In the US middle class has always meant middle - not at top in income/wealth (mostly income) but not at the bottom. How they obtain the money (education, job) or how they spend it (house, holiday) is not important by definition - however there is some social expectations of the American middle class. Many Americans don't have the time off work for two holidays a year, even if they have plenty of money, which is another difference, which changes the American social expectations of the US "middle class." A family with nurse and a teacher for example (two professionals) would bring in somewhere around $100,000/yr and be upper class. There's a lot of variations by geography (cost of living) and stuff too, but I simplified it. In reality the amount of financial security a family has is often a function of how well they manage it (as long as you are making above a certain amount where it becomes possible for financial security). If the above mentioned family over spent on a big house, two cars, a motorcycle, and other luxuries they consider normal, or even needed, then they can surely feel like they are living without much financial security, which doesn't "feel" upper class. Unfortunately, middle class is a totally useless term because almost everyone describes themselves as middle class, I guess because they are somewhat out of touch with their spending and don't feel rich (previously mentioned family) or they are towards the bottom they don't want to feel poor. People who have a household income of $200,000 describe themselves as middle class. One of my coworkers, with a straight face, described me as middle class. I couldn't believe it - with a household income more than 3x the median household income in the US I can't with a straight face say I am middle class. That's why politicians pander to "the middle class," because the majority of Americans identify with the middle class - even poor ones who don't consider themselves middle class but feel they will be there soon. On the other side of the coin I have a friend who makes a middle class income, spends lavishly on consumer goods, and is always complaining about how poor she is. Like I said, totally useless term.

Touche 11y ago

I think television just reflects the career-obsessed nature with society today. Characters are not just competent employees, they tend to be excellent at their jobs (top of their field, seemingly) while spending very little time doing their job. I don't know if blue-collaredness is looked down upon, but it feels like writers go out of their way to let it be known that the characters we are supposed to like, are extraordinary.

pbh101 11y ago
Not trying to be too snarky here, but blue-collaredness and excelling at one's job are quite orthogonal in my head.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Sacho 11y ago
  That is true - blue collar is a type of job, while excellence is a measure of job performance. Perhaps parent just meant to say that the characters mostly work white collar jobs, and accidentally conflated the two. An interesting counter-example would be Friends, where one of the characters worked a blue-collar job, and none were explicitly "excellent".
  - icebraining 11y ago
    I don't see that implication in OP's post..?
    - Sacho 11y ago
      You are right, the implication is actually that "blue-collardness" cannot be extraordinary, but that flies in the face of common sense, considering all the stories about courageous and heroic policemen, firefighters, and so on.
      - 11y ago

binarymax 11y ago

Unfortunately, no mention of "Malcolm in the Middle" or "The Simpsons" (which admittedly I havent watched in about 10 years). Both of which continued the class contrasts of yesteryears' sitcoms. Overall though, I do agree with the article. It does seem like everyone has it really easy on American TV.

atspruce 11y ago
Perhaps a mention of Malcolm in the Middle would be part of a more complete history. But the author uses 2007 as the tipping-point between "yesteryear" and the modern sitcom; a show like Malcolm, which ended in 2006, would fall in place quite nicely in the author's argument and not prove an exception to the rule. I haven't seen The Simpsons in about 15 years, so I won't comment on it—except to note that it debuted only a year after Roseanne, and the two overlapped for about eight years.

moomin 11y ago

The article rather misses the opportunity to tie things together by pointing out that Laurie Metcalf was _in_ Roseanne.

moron4hire 11y ago

Let's assume that sitcoms aren't a complete travesty of expressive form to begin with. Just for the sake of argument, just for a minute. You know, there is the option to just stop watching TV. If, after skipping all the series that you don't find relevant to your life, you find there is nothing left to watch, then just turn it off. Nothing compels you to watch TV. You want to talk about class struggles, how about the modern depiction of feudal systems as fundamentally good, if not for a few "bad apples"? Disney/Pixar movies are particularly bad for this. I like to think the White Walkers in Game of Thrones are an allegory for democracy and capitalism, that as the aristocracy send more commoners to clash against the inevitable, unstoppable wave, it just creates more corpses and more converts. There is so much freely available content out there to spend your time on that you don't have to be beholden to the major production firms. Stop watching network television. They have perversely skewed incentives. It's like people who pass a local restaurant they've never heard of to go to McDonald's. Why not take a chance on a burger that will probably be better, rather than go eat a the burger you know, that you know will be shitty?

saturdaysaint 11y ago

There are lots of prominent counterexamples. The Office was a pretty direct attempt at making a modern middle class show. Breaking Bad at least started with one man's middle class problems. I think the main artistic factor here is that the sitcom, an awfully convenient medium for telling middle class stories, is dead. A 30 minute comedy where every episode was basically an island could be an oddly touching medium to talk about a teacher dying or a dad losing his job. But these tiny canvases were mostly the result of the constraints of 20th century TV. Without those constraints, consumers don't have that much interest in slices of everyday life, just as most consumers don't read Raymond Carver stories. Our imaginations go to the rich, powerful and supernatural. I'd argue that other mediums - podcasts, reality TV, social media - fulfill the basic human need behind the sitcom: to simply bask in the company of agreeable/relatable sounding human voices.

dominotw 11y ago
>consumers don't have that much interest in slices of everyday life Last weekend I watched amazon original 'catastrophe' and 'lilyhammer' a netflix original. Both of these revolved around ordinary people doing everyday stuff.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  I'm not sure if I would classify the protagonist of Lillyhammer an "ordinary person" doing "everyday stuff". (I do, however, very highly recommend the series. I've only seen Season 1, but it was fantastic, and the character's slow immersion into the local language and culture was very well done.)
- atspruce 11y ago
  Lilyhammer? The mafia and the Witness Protection Program have thankfully not become "ordinary" and "everyday." Certainly the main character tries to play the part of an everyday ex-pat in Norway convincingly, but the sustaining premise of the show is that he fails to do so.
Touche 11y ago
Didn't basically every character on The Office become the manager at some point? It felt like it. Jim left the company for a while to start a sports agency or something? The Office definitely fell into the modern trap of every character needing to be upwardly mobile.

jasonkostempski 11y ago

It's not dwindling, it just moved to cartoon format.

molsongolden 11y ago

Not disagreeing but Parks and Rec seems like a great counterexample.

atspruce 11y ago

The author blames the modern sitcom's remoteness from working and lower-middle class concerns with their creators' immunity from the recent recession. In place of everyday situations, we have shows set in "soundstages and writers’ rooms," the haunts of the out-of-touch in New York and LA. So you wind up with a show with this sort of genesis: Our creator was once a prominent writer and performer on a comedy sketch show, which aired live every Saturday night from an NBC studio in New York. It ran for 90 minutes. After their time on the show came to an end, our creator decided to pitch a sitcom based on their experiences there. The lead character is the head writer on a comedy show, similarly produced in New York. They must balance their work in the writers' room and their personal life, though this turns out to be difficult. A pilot is made, and our creator plays the lead. Modern viewers may recognize this as 30 Rock, but it is in fact The Dick Van Dyke Show. It is based not on SNL but on a direct ancestor, Your Show of Shows. Carl Reiner's performance in the pilot may have dissuaded executives from casting him in the commissioned series (hence Dick Van Dyke), while Tina Fey remained the lead in her own version. But otherwise the parallel rings a sight near perfect. The author stumbles over himself insisting, however, that while The Dick Van Dyke Show did not give vent to working and lower-middle class concerns, it did at least feature characters who "had careers" and were definitely of a class. As if the same were not true of shows like 30 Rock (which is at times obsessed with class difference), or of Parks and Recreation and The Office. These do not depict realistic workspaces, but why place that demand on a sitcom? And why not place the same demand on, yes, The Honeymooners, Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Andy Griffith Show, and on and on. In all cases the demands of the form—and in almost all cases the demands of overly long tenures—stretched the premises and the rare attempts at realism very thin. I think you can make an argument that the most popular comedies available right now—whether on TV or at the movie theaters—are unflinchingly escapist. (Though, as the article notes in its discussion of an episode each of Horace and Pete and Girls, this has not gone unnoticed or unremarked by all of the shows' writers. Still, these two are not the most popular things around by any stretch.) Similarly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen to traipse across exclusive resorts, high-class stages, ballroom floors, and Venice, in elaborate dresses and a "top hat, white tie, and tails"—all during the Great Depression. Sometimes hard circumstances produce a public clamoring for comment; sometimes the public just wants a reprieve.

humanrebar 11y ago

The article basically ignored reality television for some reason. Many, many shows include real-life middle-class people: Survivor, Naked and Afraid, Chopped, Ice Road Truckers, American Idol, Extreme Home Makeover, Amazing Race, Jersey Shore, Alaska: The Last Frontier, etc. The article mentions Dirty Jobs and Undercover Boss, but it's not clear to me the bountiful reality shows don't undermine the entire thesis of the article.

brnstz 11y ago

If you create a show with the set design of Roseanne or even the Cosby Show in 2016, you're missing out on opportunities for product placement: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/brett-ratner-comments-ads-marketing-x-men.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/brett-ratner-... The logic is, "Well, I need to have a car in this movie anyway. Why not get a free car instead of paying for one, and in fact, the manufacturer will pay me to place their brand new car?" The good news is more art is created at a lower cost. Great. But the bad news is you perpetuate the idea that everyone has a new car (or new kitchen or new 3000 square foot house or whatever) all the time, no matter what their financial situation would be like in reality. This is especially insidious when there is easy consumer credit. Here's a scene of a doctor buying a car from 1987: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMlx5p6n8k#t=1m58s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMlx5p6n8k#t=1m58s The premise, if you don't bother to watch, is he doesn't want the car salesman to know his job, because then he won't get a good deal. The quaint part is that 30 years ago, a doctor and lawyer raising a family in New York City were considered almost unimaginably rich by TV standards. Now they would be "middle class." The sad part is it would be hard to justify a scene like this on a modern prime time TV show. "So, we're going to have a car in this scene? Great! I'll call up Ford. Wait, but what do you mean the car salesman would overprice the car? Don't you know they're running 0% APR or $2000 cash back for President's Day?" Sure, there are shows that try hard to be more authentic. But for every Breaking Bad, there are 10 spinoffs of lawyer / doctor / detective shows where the characters live in a bubble of perpetual newness the article describes. And even Breaking Bad did its share of product placements: http://www.bustle.com/articles/5963-how-breaking-bad-product-placement-helps-or-hurts-products-like-stevia http://www.bustle.com/articles/5963-how-breaking-bad-product...

wldcordeiro 11y ago

Isn't this really a result of TV showing us "what we wish we were" vs "what we are"? I swear part of why they pick to have these well off characters is to give you a sense of "this is what I want for myself."