Know what I mean, John?
Given a choice between being stranded in the Sahara Desert or spending a night drinking in The Queen Vic I would without hesitation start to pack my flask. The Queen Vic, focal point for the gathering of all those lovable East Enders, is Hell on earth. Its resident drinkers are amongst the most unlovable lowlives ever to have stained a television screen.
There are the vicious Mitchell brothers (Grant the ex-army psychopath and Phil the cheating lout); there is their moronically empty sister, Sam, whose big aim in life is to make it on to Page Three; and her pathetic wimp of a wage-slave husband, Ricky; not forgetting her spite-filled wastrel of a best mate, Mandy. Then there are the older East Enders: "Arfur" Fowler who has graduated from nicking the Christmas fund to cheating on his boring wife; Pete Beale, the bar-stool philosopher worthy of the National Front; the anti-social, self-pitying Pat Butcher who drove while over the limit and then expects sympathy because she killed a girl; the Bible-bashing Dot Cotton and her thieving, murderous family; and Tricky Dicky, the conniving northerner who isn't fit to clean the pavements down Coronation Street. The characters in East Enders are all detestable specimens of the worst in humanity. "So don’t watch it", I hear you cry. But that is not the point. Millions do. And they are shown the images which they are shown for a reason. Of course, part of the reason is to entertain: keep the proleys amused with simple dramatic episodes twice a week. But why these characters, why this image of humanity?
The East Enders are how they are because that is how the makers of TV (mainly "educated” people who imagine themselves to be creative and middle class) think that the working class is. When they see young working-class men they expect to see the Mitchell crooks, when they see young female wage-slaves they expect the Sams and Mandys and Sharons, when they see middle-aged proles they are surprised if they do not find a Pete Beale or a Frank Butcher — or better still a Big Ron. a huge proletarian lump who never speaks in more than monosyllabic grunts.
It is well known that if teachers expect non-whites or girls to be inferior learners their prejudiced prophecies will often result in reality: the non-whites or the girls fail in line with the prediction. And if the TV producers expect the workers to be mindless low-lives and they transmit that image twice a week it has the same effect.
East Enders is an insult to the working class. There are working-class pubs, some of them in the East End, where people discuss music and films and books and even political ideas. Some of them do it intelligently — more intelligently than in the pretentious late-night "culture" discussions on BBC2. But it does not suit the makers of East Enders to depict that image of our class. Let the workers think they're dumb and they're more likely to act dumb.
Without a doubt, there are pubs like the Queen Vic. There are plenty of nasty, narrow and mean-minded wage-slaves. Just as there are plenty of bent cops. But it is rather more than an accident that The Bill shows us only the occasional bent cop, whereas East Enders shows us nothing but working-class trash. The choice is political.
Know what I mean, Boris?
The cultural journey from Albert Square to Red Square is not all that far these days. Last summer Russian TV showed a 24-part Mexican soap opera made in the 1970s. Seventy percent of the Russian viewing audience watched it: a staggering 200 million daily viewers, making it the most popular TV drama in the history of the world. Set amongst the privileged echelons of Mexican society, it was called The Rich Also Cry. Something handy to think about when you’re queueing for sausages, eh?
Capitalist nonsense for beginners
Germany Means Business (BBC2, Tuesday, 2 February) was a rather dull documentary about how the Dresdner Bank is becoming the largest banking instituted in eastern Germany and is training young east Germans to become good little bank employees. The thrill of these poor wage-slaves at the chance to be trained to work in a bank (which is a lot more rewarding than learning the thrills of mass unemployment) was pathetic to see. The trainers were teaching them all the nonsense of how to see themselves as being part of the prosperity of the bank. In the final scene the trainees were shown at a dinner which was laid on for them. As for the growing number of unemployed workers in eastern Germany, one fast-learning girl explained that their trouble was that they didn't want to work hard. She could go far.
Killers on the box
Last month saw a set-piece moral debate about whether it was ethical to have shown a TV interview with a serial killer. In the same month both BBC and ITV carried interviews with Malcolm Rifkind, the Minister of Defence. After the bombing of Baghdad they interviewed the glorified mass killer. Storming Norman. What is the difference?
Steve Coleman
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