< Back to previous page
Publication
"The only way is UP": social mobility in Michael Apted's UP documentary series
Book Contribution - Chapter
According to Owen Jones, the demonization of working class started at the end of the seventies with the politics of Thatcher. In Chavs he is stating that her promotion of individual effort caused the destruction of the community feeling among the miners. We would like to investigate if this demonization of workers was really absent before Thatcher’s access to Downing Street in 1979.
To do so, we will focus on one particular case: the 7UP-documentaries which started in 1964 and followed fourteen British children when they were seven years old: “The children were selected to represent a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future”. The original hypothesis of 7UP was that class structure was so strong in the UK that a person’s life path was already set at birth.
By analyzing several parts of the series (1964, 1970 and 1977) I make a description of all facts and opinions that portray working class and migrants in this documentary and question if the image we see is indeed as positive as Owen Jones wants us to believe. After this I investigate if the opposition between “aspirational” and “non-aspirational” is really absent during the period 1964-77; and finally, if the community feeling Owen Jones is referring to was indeed obvious. Even if it seems true that nowadays industrial manufacturing jobs tend to disappear to make place for a new kind of working class, I don’t think the irony used in series like Little Brittain is fundamentally a sing of “demonization” and aggression.
To do so, we will focus on one particular case: the 7UP-documentaries which started in 1964 and followed fourteen British children when they were seven years old: “The children were selected to represent a broad range of socio-economic backgrounds in Britain at that time, with the assumption that each child’s social class predetermines their future”. The original hypothesis of 7UP was that class structure was so strong in the UK that a person’s life path was already set at birth.
By analyzing several parts of the series (1964, 1970 and 1977) I make a description of all facts and opinions that portray working class and migrants in this documentary and question if the image we see is indeed as positive as Owen Jones wants us to believe. After this I investigate if the opposition between “aspirational” and “non-aspirational” is really absent during the period 1964-77; and finally, if the community feeling Owen Jones is referring to was indeed obvious. Even if it seems true that nowadays industrial manufacturing jobs tend to disappear to make place for a new kind of working class, I don’t think the irony used in series like Little Brittain is fundamentally a sing of “demonization” and aggression.
Book: Social Class on British and American Screens
Pages: 76-88
ISBN:978-1-4766-6234-3
Keywords:margins, banlieue, documentary