West Ham United, not Millwall. Let’s not blame Millwall for everything ;). Spot on point though.
Apart from the shows I’ve already mentioned, I’m sure you could take elements from Trading Places or even Legally Blonde to make a comedy about a person who doesn’t come from a preppy, Ivy League, Country Club background but aspiring to fit in with their set and being made to feel out of place. It wouldn’t necessarily be funny, of course, but then I don’t like Keeping Up Appearances.
Herge: we could debate the relative profit and loss for working people under the Thatcher government, but the growth of the working class Tory was certainly a feature of the '80s.
It seems to me that, yes, America and the UK have class systems, but posters here from both sides of the Atlantic are missing the contrast between money and breeding–there are two different class systems in operation and that seems to be cuasing some confusion.
Take Richard Branson. He’s rich, famous, handsome, accepted in all the right circles, and yet, well, he’s not of Us, surely?
In one system, money is the only qualification required to enter the very highest circles of privilege. A jumped-up yob with a red brick school degree who has worked his way up to a CEO-ship can count on being invited to hang with the GOP or Tory leadership, invited to the best parties, and enjoy all the accoutrements of the rich.
Yet there is another system, in which even the richest and most accomplished folks may be scorned (sotto voce, of course) because they speak with the wrong accent and their daddies didn’t send them to Choate or Eton.
If you saw the movie To Die For, based on the book by Joyce Maynard, you’d remember that Nicole Kidman’s character wanted to be in broadcasting. Not because she loved journalism, or even understood much about politics and society beyond what gets good ratings, but because she was an attention whore, and broadcasters get constant exposure.
To this end, everything she did was modeled after TV people. Her wedding veil was an exact replica! of the one Maria Shriver wore when she married Arnold. She had a dinner party for her inlaws, and served some ridiculously elaborate stuff (actually bought ready-made) because “They had this at Johnny Carson’s house!” She kept her maiden name because Jane Pauley had done so. And like that.
So her motivations were not markedly dissimilar to Hyacinth’s. She just got better results because she was younger, better-looking, and much more shrewd.
Britain doesn’t really have a class system anymore. The only real differention is between those that work and those that don’t need to. People rise and fall on their own merit.
** qts ** I wouldn’t agree with that, the class system is stronger than it ever was, the emphasis has simply shifted. Rather than title, we hanker after celebrity, look at the reality TV shows.
There is a whole class system of celebrity, people like Jorden are down on the bottom, Serina McKellen is way up on top (you go girl). Going back to the op discussion of HB one could compare her to, say, the Hilton girls, trying to enter a society that aint gonna have 'em because (IMHO at least) they are jerks.
I don’t agree that there is a new celebrity-based class system. How many people are actively seeking celebrity? How many of those “celebrities” vanish into obscurity after 15 minutes, and how many actually last? I can honestly say I don’t seek celebrity, and while an anecdote is pretty worthless as wider evidence I’d be surprised if that isn’t true for the majority of Britons if they genuinely thought about it.
No, there may be remnants of the older class system, particularly in some communities and occupations, but it’s about poverty and other defining characteristics these days.