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'Chav': The emergence of a new Identity by James K. Walker
Continued...
alien in a world ever more
aware of poverty and famine. If this is the standard set by the elite
why on earth should those at the bottom not flaunt their wealth, be
it imitation or real. Perhaps because of this we see 'positive' representations
of chav's emerging such as the Manchester family in Shameless (C4)
who may have no money, steal to survive, despise conventional authority
but are united as a family. In a strange way there is something honest
about their dishonesty, real rather than staged, truthful rather than
false in comparison to say Beckham inc. Although the programme fetishizes
and romances poverty by 'looking', rather than 'living' in such conditions,
it is another example of the chav identity being contested, negotiated
and its theoretical brackets widened.
I would suggest that the chav identity has emerged at this particular
historical moment as both a celebration and reaction of the superficial
and fake aspects of an expanding information economy. Celebrities
such as 'Posh Spice' and Jordan are an almost celetariat, the new
labour force to be exploited by the new owners of production, the
media. (Rojak, 2001) They may be photographic for certain media outlets
but for others the 'celebrity' chav, as with Jordan, is constructed
as anti-woman. Just as it is virtually impossible to achieve the American
dream so to it is impossible to achieve this types of body. The fake
plastic breasts and collagen stuffed lips are a residual throwback
to the Hollywood glamour and American dream that money can buy success
in anything. Perhaps then this kind of identity functions as an almost
binary opposite through which new identities emerge and are negotiated.
This may be a more self accepting identity; one where the 'natural'
body is championed over the 'fake', difference over uniformity, ethical
living over personal acquisition. Time will tell.
To conclude, a few clusters of gold on the fingers of a teenager in
a shopping centre do not make them a bad person but when taken out
of context and placed in unfamiliar categories by media institutions
intent on producing ever new categories of information to consume,
they can. Today this is called chav, previously it was scallies, Ned's,
Townies, smicks, spides, moakes… As I write there is talk of
the Shav, an 'uppercrust' rural version. It would appear we are entering
a new stage of information in which a mass production of niche identities
recycles and reinvents 'types' at each and every opportunity. Watch
this space for Chav Academics… |
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