Do You Believe That The Media Is Responsible For Continuing To Create Stereotypical Representations Of Class

I believe that the media does create stereotypical representations of class, I believe that one of the reasons they do this is to give people a common enemy, for example it is easy for an upper class person to dislike the characters in the TV show 'Shameless' because the characters play up to the cultural stereotypes of the working class and inner city citizens as uneducated criminals. An upper class person would likely not enjoy 'Shameless' because they would view the characters as unruly and stupid, on the other hand a working class person may look past these characteristics and identify with other aspects of the show such as living in poor/dangerous area and not having much money or material goods and may enjoy the show for being an accurate representation of their surroundings. The creators of 'Shameless' clearly know their target audience (in this case the working class) and appeal to what they know and what their experiences of life are.

Another reason for these stereotypical representations is escapism, a working class person can watch a show such as 'Made In Chelsea' and fantasise about their own lives being similar to the lives of the characters in the show who are rarely shown working and instead often shown socialising and partying. Often people require outlets such as TV shows, movies and videogames to escape the tedium of their own lives which they consider boring and unstimulated, a show such as 'Made In Chelsea' allows people to forget about their regular lives and experience a totally different lifestyle that they find more interesting.

Often class differences are exploited for comedic effect, an older example of this is the cult classic 'The Young Ones'. In this show we are given two characters who are polar opposites, Vyvyan and Rick. Rick is a self obsessed hypocritical member of the middle class, desperately looking for attention and trying to associate himself with left wing political ideology, a topic that he has a very poor grasp of. Vyvyan is a typical working class punk rocker who is constantly wearing denim and has dyed orange hair, much of his behaviour borders on psychopathic as he regularly physically abuses his own friends for minor indiscretions and enjoys annoying people for no apparent reason. Although the class differences in 'The Young Ones' are often greatly exaggerated they still represent a vast cultural, political and social chasm between the two characters. Rick is obsessed with his own image and desperately attempts to study communist politics to be viewed as a 'left-winger', for example in one scene we see Rick asleep and clutching a copy of Karl Marx's 'Das Capital' apparently having fallen asleep while attempting to read it. Rick's actions and personality play up to the stereotypes of an upper/middle class person, an attention seeking yet largely aloof person with little understanding of how society functions.

In conclusion I believe that the media is responsible for creating class stereotypes, the media creates these stereotypes for a number of reasons, escapism, identification, comedic effect and to repulse people with a lifestyle that they are not used to, the reason for this stereotyping is to appeal to certain target audiences and repulse people who are not a member of that target audience.