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'Chav': The emergence of a new Identity by James K. Walker
Continued...
of a 'wigga' (white nigger). This is the rhetoric of absolute identity
which has an excessive preoccupation with sameness that predates history
and culture. It is a view which grossly misunderstands the complex
patterns of flows which make up culture.
However by the same token Cheryl Tweedy of pop group Girls Aloud has
been named as a celebrity chav, this is partly as her music is 'manufactured'
which feeds back into that notion of what constitutes 'proper' music
and legitimate taste but also for fighting with a black toilet attendant.
Therefore my thesis of inverted white racism can only partly explain
the emergence of this identity at this particular historical moment,
which is something I accept. It would be completely naïve of
me to present an all encompassing theory, instead what I am hoping
to do is offer insights into the relations of culture and power and
the material forces which underpin culture; the production, consumption
and negotiation of lived experience.
The chav identity is also seen to emerge as a by product of the consumption
of low brow television programmes; in particular soaps, reality TV
and chat shows. This as previous research has shown is criticised
for its emotional rather than intellectual resolutions and through
the domestic spheres association with femininity. (Gerraghty, 1991,
Brunsdon 1984) Although this is questionable given the dynamic changes
in social roles and norms over the past decades, critics point to
the copying of styles of television celebrities by impressionable
youth as further evidence of a dumbing down of the medium.(Quinion,
2004) This echoes previously rehearsed debates, in particular those
of the Frankfurt School, who may sometimes 'be thought of' or 'be
characterised as' a reductionist theory as they often fail to take
into consideration how 'objects are assimilated into the subjective
experience of individuals…in the form of culture and production-by
appropriating them to human ends.' (Slater, 1997:102) To see consumers
as 'written' on by the culture industry or as 'passive dupes' is to
fail to acknowledge that pleasure is a 'consequence of use' and can
operate as a resistance to hegemonic or dominant forms of social organisation.
Let us take a few examples of what is commonly known as trash television.
The daytime TV chat show is criticised for airing in public what should
be kept in private. At its most mundane form is 'Trisha' at its most
extreme is 'Jerry Springer.' The resolution of problems through this
medium can be deemed harmful due to their potentially atomising effect
e.g. listen to TV rather than talk to each other, and as further evidence
of the 'process' of capitalism eating up all unmarked space e.g. commodifying
emotion and repackaging it as entertainment. (Postman, 1985) To come
to this conclusion is to do so from a very particular view of its
determination, but a view which is held by many and why I believe
the chav identity has emerged.
The chav identity is seen as emerging from this Jerry Springer type
dystopia and to this we can add reality TV programmes which, as some
critics claim, encourage a sadistic and anti social voyeurism. I do
not want to get into an argument as to the validity of such claims
but instead to flesh out what I think lurks beneath the criticisms;
anti-Americanism. The pernicious influence of American |
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