Essay on Laughing with you, not at you, reactions to contemporary scripted Working-class comedy
Introduction
Em: And so, we discovered that Ralph Little isn`t working-class. So, yeah, I know you probably all need a minute, we needed a minute!
Seleena: He never like shouted that he is, but also, it’s just assumed init. He’s Antony!
Em: I mean we want him to be one of us you see, so that`s why I wouldn`t question it, because he`s Antony. Alas, he went to private school and the thing is when we were looking into it, like we’re some sort of personal private investigators, we notice…
Seleena: …We went on his Wikipedia…
Em: …We really dug deep, Wikipedia, and it’s there and his parents were accountants, so
anyway now that we`ve ruined your day, will hope to bring it right back up with some lol’s.
(Ledger and Laverne Daye, Poor Lass Podcast Ep.15, 2021).
Some of the best loved British comedies have been written and star people from working-class backgrounds, for example Only Fools and Horses or The Royal Family, well excluding Ralph!
However, the overwhelming success of these shows has not significantly paved a way for others into the industry. Neither has it signalled a notable increase in people from these backgrounds making more comedy programmes, until more recently. There is a growing body of research that recognises issues of social and economic inequalities as an often-overlooked barrier to arts and media participation. (Friedman and Laurison, 2020; Deery and Press, 2017; Jarness and Friedman, 2017; Savage, 2015; Lockyer, 2010; Brook et al., 2020). The Panic Report (2018) highlighted significant inequalities in the arts and media workforce, finding just 12.4% of people working in Film, TV and Radio were from working-class backgrounds (Brook et al., 2018 p.12)
With attention on diversity rising, for some broadcasters over the past 6 years there has been several comedies produced, written and starring people from working-class backgrounds. Raised by Wolves, written by Caitlin & Caroline Moran ran for two series between 2013-2016. It was then
cancelled by Channel 4 as ‘it would not be recommissioning the show due to its commitments to
new programmes’ (Jackson, 2016). Caitlin has been vocal about representation in comedy saying the programme was the ‘only TV series in Britain by and about working class women, which is pretty damn poor when you think about it’ (Radio Times, 2016).
There has been a move towards collecting workforce class diversity statistics from major television broadcasters. For the first time in 2019, Ofcom reported on social mobility. Some major broadcasters made no contribution to the study as ‘only three of the five main broadcasters are
collecting any social mobility data’ (Ofcom, 2019, p.10). This highlights how different broadcasters view the importance of this issue. There is a lack of available data around how improvements in the diversity of the workforce affects programming and audience satisfaction. The BBC is committed to authentic portrayals believing that ‘portraying different identities and communities in a genuine, knowledgeable way is central to enabling audiences to truly connect with the BBC`s content…(having a) variety of voices who speak directly to audiences.’ (BBC, 2020 p.11)
This research will seek to find answers to the research questions: does an audience’s own class background affect which shows they choose to watch? How do they react to these programmes featuring and written by working class people and why? I will argue there are some fundamental
differences that are affected by people’s class origins. Class and comedy are complex areas to study and categorise, through the course of this research some larger questions were unveiled such as, do
people prefer to watch programmes they relate too? Do people care who is writing and acting in the comedy they watch? I believe more research in this area would further enrich understanding of comedy audiences and class identity.
