'Chav': The emergence of a new Identity by James K. Walker
Continued...
popular culture has, as Hebdige has pointed out,
appeared whenever the 'levelling down' process is discussed and is
'swiftly and effortlessly absorbed into the existing vocabulary of
the 'Culture and Society' debate.' (1988:52)
The United States…began to serve as the image
of industrial barbarism; a country with no past and therefore no
real culture, a country rules by competition, profit and the drive
to acquire. It was soon used as a paradigm for the future threatening
every industrial democracy in the western world (ibid: 52-53)
So musical and television influences are deemed
dangerous, something which must be regulated by those who can ensure
'sweetness and light.' The chav is ridiculed and functions as a
warning to what happens when too much foreign and ethnic culture
is consumed. Underlying both these anxieties is the yearning for
the old class order, the Britain where everybody knew their place
and aspired to make it up the cultural pyramid. I cannot do justice
to this claim here except say that each media institution would
have to be examined separately to understand who is talking on behalf
of whom, but it is a claim worth further thought in light of processes
of transformation brought about by globalisation which like any
period of crisis and change arouse staple and familiar nodes of
identity.
I have discussed how and why the chav identity has emerged at this
particular historical moment by investigating the impact and reactions
to the consumption of elements of popular culture and how these
have allowed other anxieties to be heard. I have attempted to show
how the proliferation of information in a media saturated British
culture has allowed various types of identity and culture to be
labelled as chav. To give this investigation the kind of complexity
required to fully understand cultural processes it is necessary
to briefly let the Chav speak for 'itself' and to offer a brief
suggestion for this identity's future in light of what we have learned.
We must consider that the white trainers, the excessive jewellery
and the branded sportswear of the chav may be quite ostentatious
and perhaps a mockery of legitimate culture. To think that you are
better than somebody else based purely on economic credentials is
perhaps an outdated form of status for a globalising world in which
cultural borders are becoming ever more permeable and one set of
values less persuasive. Indeed as it becomes ever more apparent
that the world's economic resources are shrinking into the hands
of a small elite the whole capitalist myth of 'survival of the fittest'
and climbing the ladder to the top becomes more transparent. (Callinicos,
1994) As this dream is clearly unattainable yet pervasively pursued
through the media, the next best thing is to mock it and those that
still hold faith in it. So for example the Beckham's have been crowned
ultimate celebrity chav's because of their shameless acquisition
of copious amounts of money. The relentless sponsorship deals, the
staged photographs, the ever changing hair styles and media hype
seem almost
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