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An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons

An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons), a teacher, and a news reporter.

dmclain 10y ago
I don't think a show featuring a lawyer, college professor, media personality and whatever the heck it is Barney does is a counterpoint at all. All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. Other than a few episodes where Marshal (the lawyer) contemplates a job he doesn't love to pay off the massive consumer debt accrued by his wife (the teacher), the money problems and job tradeoffs on the show are very much in the classless hanging out genre the article describes. Even the consumer debt is from spending on luxury goods, which is surprising for a teacher supporting a law school student in New York, ostensibly the arrangement in the first few seasons.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. No, they are middle class roles (either independent business owners dependent on their own labor rather than primarily renting other's labor to apply to their capital -- the classic petit bourgeoisie -- or elite educated workers with likely some personal capital but still dependent on wage labor for support, but not as immediately at risk as the working class without reserves are.) The upper class in a capitalist society are the owners of capital who primarily rent labor to apply to that capital, they are occasionally major characters on TV shows, but I can't think of many shows with more than one as a significant protagonist. Generally, most of the protagonists are middle class, or notionally working class but somehow living a middle class lifestyle.
RyanMcGreal 10y ago
The characters in Friends nominally had jobs too (chef, fashion manager, masseuse, archaeologist, accountant, actor), but the show centred around them hanging out, either in their improbably large apartments or at the coffee shop. In HIMYM, the apartments are still improbably large, the coffee shop has been recast as a bar, and the show still centres around the characters hanging out with only the occasional plot reference to the fact that they do things for a living.

An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons), a teacher, and a news reporter.

dmclain 10y ago

I don't think a show featuring a lawyer, college professor, media personality and whatever the heck it is Barney does is a counterpoint at all. All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. Other than a few episodes where Marshal (the lawyer) contemplates a job he doesn't love to pay off the massive consumer debt accrued by his wife (the teacher), the money problems and job tradeoffs on the show are very much in the classless hanging out genre the article describes. Even the consumer debt is from spending on luxury goods, which is surprising for a teacher supporting a law school student in New York, ostensibly the arrangement in the first few seasons.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions. No, they are middle class roles (either independent business owners dependent on their own labor rather than primarily renting other's labor to apply to their capital -- the classic petit bourgeoisie -- or elite educated workers with likely some personal capital but still dependent on wage labor for support, but not as immediately at risk as the working class without reserves are.) The upper class in a capitalist society are the owners of capital who primarily rent labor to apply to that capital, they are occasionally major characters on TV shows, but I can't think of many shows with more than one as a significant protagonist. Generally, most of the protagonists are middle class, or notionally working class but somehow living a middle class lifestyle.

RyanMcGreal 10y ago

The characters in Friends nominally had jobs too (chef, fashion manager, masseuse, archaeologist, accountant, actor), but the show centred around them hanging out, either in their improbably large apartments or at the coffee shop. In HIMYM, the apartments are still improbably large, the coffee shop has been recast as a bar, and the show still centres around the characters hanging out with only the occasional plot reference to the fact that they do things for a living.