Social Class on British and American Screens : Essays on Cinema and Television

Introduction / Nicole Cloarec -- Part One. The persistence of stereotypes: social classes in TV sitcoms and series -- Six decades of social class in American sitcoms / Richard Butsch -- Social class and class distinctions in "Britcoms" (1950s/2000s) / Renøe Dickason -- Authenticity and performance of class in British factual TV series / Jonathan Bignell -- Part Two. Going beyond stereotypes social classes in documentaries and docudramas -- "The only way is UP": social mobility in Michael Apted's UP documentary series / Sabine Hillen -- Race and class in Luisa Dantas's land of opportunity (2011) / Delphine Letort -- "Giz a job! I can do that!" the unmaking of the British working class in Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff / Carys Lewis -- From documentary to docudrama: "post-war British television and the social issues of the lower classes" / Georges Fournier -- Part Three. Representing class divisions in films -- The representation of strike in British cinema since 1956: from class to gender and ethnicity / Anne-Lise Marin-Lamellet -- In praise of the working poor: archeology of class struggle through the arts of representation in Comrades and The fool / Nicole Cloarec -- Ken Loach and the geographies of class / Wendy Everett -- Part Four. Social classes through a gender perspective -- Vanishing act: the sexualization of the workplace and disappearance of class in American television dramas (1990s/2010s) / Ava Baron -- The gender and class politics of social realism in The wire / T. Ann Kennedy -- Striking women: salt of the earth, Norma Rae and Bread and roses / Penny Starfield -- Art and the reversal of hierarchies: representing women in domestic service in Upstairs, downstairs / Delphine Lemonnier-Texier -- About the contributors.;"It is worth examining how the two most popular media of the 20th and 21st centuries have shaped the representation of social classes. This collection of new essays explores these and other questions through an analysis of a wide range of American and British productions from the 1950s to the present"-- At a time when debates about social inequality are in the spotlight, it is worth examining how the two most popular media of the 20th and 21st centuries--film and television--have shaped the representation of social classes. How do generic conventions determine the representation of social stereotypes? How do filmmakers challenge social class identification? How do factors such as national history, geography and gender affect the representation of social classes? This collection of new essays explores these and other questions through an analysis of a wide range of American and British productions--from sitcoms and reality TV to documentaries and auteur cinema--from the 1950s to the present. "It is worth examining how the two most popular media of the 20th and 21st centuries have shaped the representation of social classes. This collection of new essays explores these and other questions through an analysis of a wide range of American and British productions from the 1950s to the present"-- Provided by publisher