6 ms·

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

by 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.
      - alistairSH 11y ago
        Certainly true. However, note that the blue collar jobs you mention are "career" blue collar jobs. They occupy a different place in society than "just a job" blue collar roles. You don't often hear stories about heroic stock boys or shoe salesmen.
  - Touche 11y ago
    Yeah, that's what happened. You can be an excellent welder but I don't think I've ever seen such a character on television. Being successful = white collared work and upward mobility.
- ap22213 11y ago
  Could you give some examples? I've seen blue collar workers who excel, and I've seen white collar workers who don't. I haven't noticed any correlation either way.
  - michaelt 11y ago
    "orthogonal" means "at right angles" - or "statistically independent" Perhaps what pbh101 means is whether you're good at your job or not is unrelated to whether you're blue-collared or not. With that interpretation, you and he are in agreement.
    - pbh101 11y ago
      >Perhaps what pbh101 means is whether you're good at your job or not is unrelated to whether you're blue-collared or not. Yep :)
- wycx 11y ago
  How would you classify a tool-and-die maker?
  - pbh101 11y ago
    I am not familiar first-hand with the occupation, though after a quick scan of Wikipedia it sounds blue-collar to me. Not sure how this relates to my original comment. For clarity, do see my clarification under sibling comment at [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623522
    - wycx 11y ago
      With that clarification, it clear I misunderstood your point. My (now unnecessary) point was that whilst tool-and-die makers are blue collar, I consider that profession to be full of practitioners of excellence (at least the ones I have encountered).
VLM 11y ago
The career obsessed part is interesting, because in public its mostly unacceptable to discuss the topic. So people talk about jobs and income instead of culture and wealth. Aside from the great american fantasy that we're all equal other than the minor detail of where we go to work today, LOL. In literature its quite a bit different. "Class" by Paul Fussell goes over the cultural differences while glossing over mere employment. I enjoyed that book, it was fun reading it and seeing how accurately he called out various class behavior I observed growing up, he's pretty accurate top to bottom, from what I've observed. The book is about 25 years old and it would be interesting to see a more modern book. Seen in a Fussell point of view from 25 years ago, the whole social media fad sounds extremely middle class by his definitions of pathological desire for signalling and likes, for example, and has no appeal to what Fussell would describe as the extremes, although where I live twitter users seem exclusively the absolute lowest classes, which is strange. From a Fussell point of view TV has gone from mostly middle class culturally in terms of interests and attitudes in the 70s to exclusively prole feed. Its very unusual now to see anything on TV that isn't prole in attitudes and desires and outlook and values as defined by Fussell.
percept 11y ago
They don't go to the bathroom much, either.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  Going to the bathroom is rarely a defining characteristic of a person. A persons job or career, however, is a large part of their identity. By what they do and the motivation to do it (teachers, nurses, doctors that see it as a calling, versus those that see it as a job). By constraining their lives (same examples, nurses with 12 hour shifts 3 days a week, severely constrained and stressed, but then 4 days to decompress gives them some greater freedom to pursue other interests than a typical 9-to-5 employee, but the stress may be too much anyways). By defining who they're in contact with (constant contact with coworkers, do they become friends, enemies, merely people you work with). By defining how much time you can spend on holidays (1 week, 2 weeks, a month?), which determines what you can do with leisure time. Income levels, again defining what you can do with leisure time, or at least constraining it if income is too low. Unless someone's going to the bathroom frequently or painfully due to a medical condition (IBS, kidney stones, bladder infection, etc.), they likely aren't finding their lives terribly constrained or defined by that element of their existence. So in a drama it has little value, perhaps more in a comedy depending on the sort of humor they're going for (see Family Guy).
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
Career maybe but absolutely nobody actually works. One strategy for entertaining people is to make it easy for the audience to imagine themselves up there instead of the character. Indeed, the "Daddy's bad because he works too hard" trope is just about everywhere. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhenYouComingHomeDad http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhenYouComingHome...
jerf 11y ago
"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 think that's more "needs of drama" than anything else, though. It's basically impossible to show somebody doing a job on TV. You can show the social interactions, you can show very carefully selected highlights, you can show quick dramatized representations in the language of drama (e.g., a man holding a shovel in front of a ditch that wasn't there in the last scene, dirty from head to toe, taking a deep breath and blowing it out loudly, and wiping sweat from his brow; this is a man who just spent hours digging, but we don't have time to show that), but there's no way to truly show them doing the job, because who would watch that? And I'd also suggest that what it is is the extreme positions of their jobs; either they are very good or they are very bad. Again, standard-issue dramatic heightening. Though "average" comes up, but the way it is represented is simply to ignore the job. I can recall several instances where we are informed some character has a job, and maybe one episode will center around their job, but for the most part it's just completely unimportant.
- Touche 11y ago
  It's important because, on a lot of shows, the character's career is part of their identity. Yes, it's an unrealistic portrayal for dramatic effect. But that doesn't mean it's not a reflection of society. Even in shows where the career is not a big part of the plot it's still pervasive. On Modern Family everyone has upper middle class white collared jobs; small business owners, real estate agent, lawyers. On How I Met Your Mother; architect, news anchor, etc. Interestingly I don't think upward mobility is a big part of it. It's career achievement for the sake of career achievement. You hardly every see characters' lifestyle changing when they get big promotions.

by Touche 11y ago

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.
    - alistairSH 11y ago
      Certainly true. However, note that the blue collar jobs you mention are "career" blue collar jobs. They occupy a different place in society than "just a job" blue collar roles. You don't often hear stories about heroic stock boys or shoe salesmen.
- Touche 11y ago
  Yeah, that's what happened. You can be an excellent welder but I don't think I've ever seen such a character on television. Being successful = white collared work and upward mobility.
ap22213 11y ago
Could you give some examples? I've seen blue collar workers who excel, and I've seen white collar workers who don't. I haven't noticed any correlation either way.
- michaelt 11y ago
  "orthogonal" means "at right angles" - or "statistically independent" Perhaps what pbh101 means is whether you're good at your job or not is unrelated to whether you're blue-collared or not. With that interpretation, you and he are in agreement.
  - pbh101 11y ago
    >Perhaps what pbh101 means is whether you're good at your job or not is unrelated to whether you're blue-collared or not. Yep :)
wycx 11y ago
How would you classify a tool-and-die maker?
- pbh101 11y ago
  I am not familiar first-hand with the occupation, though after a quick scan of Wikipedia it sounds blue-collar to me. Not sure how this relates to my original comment. For clarity, do see my clarification under sibling comment at [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11623522
  - wycx 11y ago
    With that clarification, it clear I misunderstood your point. My (now unnecessary) point was that whilst tool-and-die makers are blue collar, I consider that profession to be full of practitioners of excellence (at least the ones I have encountered).

VLM 11y ago

The career obsessed part is interesting, because in public its mostly unacceptable to discuss the topic. So people talk about jobs and income instead of culture and wealth. Aside from the great american fantasy that we're all equal other than the minor detail of where we go to work today, LOL. In literature its quite a bit different. "Class" by Paul Fussell goes over the cultural differences while glossing over mere employment. I enjoyed that book, it was fun reading it and seeing how accurately he called out various class behavior I observed growing up, he's pretty accurate top to bottom, from what I've observed. The book is about 25 years old and it would be interesting to see a more modern book. Seen in a Fussell point of view from 25 years ago, the whole social media fad sounds extremely middle class by his definitions of pathological desire for signalling and likes, for example, and has no appeal to what Fussell would describe as the extremes, although where I live twitter users seem exclusively the absolute lowest classes, which is strange. From a Fussell point of view TV has gone from mostly middle class culturally in terms of interests and attitudes in the 70s to exclusively prole feed. Its very unusual now to see anything on TV that isn't prole in attitudes and desires and outlook and values as defined by Fussell.

percept 11y ago

They don't go to the bathroom much, either.

Jtsummers 11y ago
Going to the bathroom is rarely a defining characteristic of a person. A persons job or career, however, is a large part of their identity. By what they do and the motivation to do it (teachers, nurses, doctors that see it as a calling, versus those that see it as a job). By constraining their lives (same examples, nurses with 12 hour shifts 3 days a week, severely constrained and stressed, but then 4 days to decompress gives them some greater freedom to pursue other interests than a typical 9-to-5 employee, but the stress may be too much anyways). By defining who they're in contact with (constant contact with coworkers, do they become friends, enemies, merely people you work with). By defining how much time you can spend on holidays (1 week, 2 weeks, a month?), which determines what you can do with leisure time. Income levels, again defining what you can do with leisure time, or at least constraining it if income is too low. Unless someone's going to the bathroom frequently or painfully due to a medical condition (IBS, kidney stones, bladder infection, etc.), they likely aren't finding their lives terribly constrained or defined by that element of their existence. So in a drama it has little value, perhaps more in a comedy depending on the sort of humor they're going for (see Family Guy).

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

Career maybe but absolutely nobody actually works. One strategy for entertaining people is to make it easy for the audience to imagine themselves up there instead of the character. Indeed, the "Daddy's bad because he works too hard" trope is just about everywhere. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhenYouComingHomeDad http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhenYouComingHome...

jerf 11y ago

"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 think that's more "needs of drama" than anything else, though. It's basically impossible to show somebody doing a job on TV. You can show the social interactions, you can show very carefully selected highlights, you can show quick dramatized representations in the language of drama (e.g., a man holding a shovel in front of a ditch that wasn't there in the last scene, dirty from head to toe, taking a deep breath and blowing it out loudly, and wiping sweat from his brow; this is a man who just spent hours digging, but we don't have time to show that), but there's no way to truly show them doing the job, because who would watch that? And I'd also suggest that what it is is the extreme positions of their jobs; either they are very good or they are very bad. Again, standard-issue dramatic heightening. Though "average" comes up, but the way it is represented is simply to ignore the job. I can recall several instances where we are informed some character has a job, and maybe one episode will center around their job, but for the most part it's just completely unimportant.

Touche 11y ago
It's important because, on a lot of shows, the character's career is part of their identity. Yes, it's an unrealistic portrayal for dramatic effect. But that doesn't mean it's not a reflection of society. Even in shows where the career is not a big part of the plot it's still pervasive. On Modern Family everyone has upper middle class white collared jobs; small business owners, real estate agent, lawyers. On How I Met Your Mother; architect, news anchor, etc. Interestingly I don't think upward mobility is a big part of it. It's career achievement for the sake of career achievement. You hardly every see characters' lifestyle changing when they get big promotions.