BY BRAD JAMES
The Blunt Edge of Class Warfare:
It is a point felt keenly by the great unwashed. Supposedly dulled by the rust of social mobility, it still sticks in the craw of many and is a bone of contention ostensibly paraded innocuously in our faces. Classism is one of the final socially accepted and tacitly enforced taboos in Cruel Britannia, having a long and vibrant history threading through this nation, as salubrious today as in the days of Dickens and Medieval Serfdom.
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Today I was watching Mel and Sue. The revival of their late 90’s lunchtime show, rescheduled to 4pm. Styled in a light hearted dose of humorous chat – at least on the surface – yet scratch a tad beneath the harmless façade and you see the evidence of the sharp divide between “haves” and “have nots.” Both presenters Mel and Sue are Cambridge alums. Included in the day’s line up was former Coronation Street stalwart Julie Hesmondhalgh, who played Hayley Cropper in the soap for 16 years. She mentioned working on her latest project, Cucumber, Banana, Tofu, written by Russell T. Davies, whom – aside from two decades of TV writing pedigree – is an Oxford graduate. Therefore, even in the harmless buzz of an apparently innocent chat show, the din of class divide is palpable.
Those who should be sensitive to this, chiefly, should be our elected politicians. The notion of equal and fair opportunity for all should be a strong undercurrent slicing through our democracy:
“Society should be a net. Below which, none should fall and above which all are free to rise.” – Winston Churchill.
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Champions of that sentiment are, by their very definition, the Labour Party – a philosophy many detractors have accused the Party of forgetting since it’s New Labour incarnation and the tenure of Tony Blair. The recent bite of recession has gotten lockjaw in it’s grip over many segments of the populace and is belligerent in mauling the poor… there is a large pool of proletarian snacks to feast on. One escape route for many from working class backgrounds was often the arts, nothing acts as a more poignant catalyst for the soul than destitution, evolving into creative prostitution. Echoes of this belief (minus the whoring part) emanated from the new Shadow Culture Minister, Chris Bryant MP.
The MP’s censuring of elitism in the arts came in an interview discussing his new office, Bryant – himself an Oxford Graduate – vowed one of his ambitions of being in the role included fairer funding of the arts and encouraging diversity.
“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk,” he said. “Where are the Albert Finneys and the Glenda Jacksons? They came through a meritocratic system. But it wasn’t just that. It was also that the writers were writing stuff for them. So is the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, doing that kind of gritty drama, which reflects [the country] more? We can’t just have Downton programming ad infinitum and think that just because we’ve got some people in the servants’ hall, somehow or other we’ve done our duty by gritty drama.” – Source, The Guardian.
Eddie Redmayne was an alumni of Eton and James Blunt attended Harrow (like Redmayne’s thespian peer, Benedict Cumberbatch and the aforementioned Winston Churchill). Damian Lewis and Dominic West are also from the same backgrounds and it is a rot that infects the upper echelons, the “Good Jobs” in society. His comments come after reports by Rebalancing our Culture Capital and Place revealed that Londoners benefitted from £69 per head funding for arts provision, compared with a meagre £4.50 per head in other England regions:
“Sometimes it is just saying to arts organisations: what are you actually doing to extend your reach here, or is everyone just going to be an arts graduate from Cambridge?” – Chris Bryant.
James Blunt however, didn’t take kindly to being held up as a personification over the lack of meritocracy in the UK. Dubbing the MP a “classist, prejudiced wazzock,” in a letter, the former soldier actually claims his background made his attempts at music industry fame and success harder, as the industry regarded him as “too posh.” The musician added, in his letter to The Guardian, that Chris Bryant’s “populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas” as more harmful to the country than “my shit songs and my plummy accent.”
“And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it and that we must redress the balance,” Blunt wrote.
In a spat becoming worthy of Celebrity Big Brother, Chris Bryant responded to Blunt’s accusations of the MP being a “narrow-minded, classist gimp” and told the singer to not be so “blooming precious” and that he contributed himself to Blunt’s acclaim by buying one of his albums.
Chris Bryant’s criticism of the growing gap between rich and poor in the arts echo the voice of dissent coming from others. The closing of The UK Film Council in 2010 fitted the vice and it’s since been opening in an ever insurmountable gap. It’s always been a little more difficult for those from poor backgrounds to make it rich, Ricky Gervais was pushing 40 by the time he broke through, for example. Yet only recently, several of the great and good of Britain’s stage and screen have voiced their concern about a one-sided coin in UK talent, where the pound in the pocket is growing in prevalence. Julie Walters, who’s graduating class of Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre in 1974, included Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Matthew Kelly and Jonathan Pryce, feared a future where only the upper classes could afford to be actors, musicians, artists, writers and so on. Judi Dench also bemoaned how the death of Repertory Theatre was squeezing out the working classes. Furthermore, recently talking about his latest role as J.W. Turner in Mike Leigh’s latest film, actor Timothy Spall claimed that it was “sad” if nowadays one had to be posh in order to act. This itself coming off the back of a recent report claiming a high percentage of Oxbridge Graduates form the countries top judges, doctors, journalists, MPs, etc.
James Blunt and Chris Bryant are both correct on this issue, which is what makes the topic so convoluted, which in turn is often diluted by bias and emotion. The moral of the story is that someone’s gifts and ambitions shouldn’t be tempered by any external factors, such as class, social background, or money and only influenced by sole talent and ambition. As Julie Walters said: “in my day, poor kids would get a grant from the local council and it would fund them through college.” A more educated and gifted society is beneficial to all, surely? Art has to be awash with the influences of the poor, it’s creativity’s own affluence, ironically. Poverty is what gave punch to the power of Dickens’ words. Oasis, as a working class indie band from Manchester, had far more gumption and a keener, tenacious grasp on the British zeitgeist because of their background. I assume it would have been vaguer had the band hailed from the wealthy, nearby Cheshire region of Alderly Edge. When at rock bottom, art metamorphoses into a cry, wail, battle-roar, mewl or howl. It conveys our anger, disillusionment, misery, pessimism and optimism, there is (believe it or not) beauty in not having two pennies to rub together – some of my best work has been born from the pits of poverty.
There will always be instances where an artist utilises the advantages their parents give them. Timothy Spall’s own son, Rafe, has benefited from his father’s stage and screen success by ending up on stage and screen himself. A pertinent instance there, of social mobility in action. The salient difference between Rafe Spall and James Blunt, Eddie Redmayne et al. is that the latter are establishment and not socially mobile, ergo the positions of privilege are deemed theirs by rote. If a civilisation and planet is to be shared by all, then ‘shared’ has to become de rigueur… I feel there is definite merit in that.
(Sources: BBC and The Guardian)
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