Re: Working-class kitsch

[colewood@xxxxxxxx (tom wood)]

>On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, John Gulick wrote, in part:
>
>> Here in S.F. where I live, young white men who _look_ like Michael Moore's
>> stereotyped depictions of the working class (bowling shirts, tattoos, into
>> car repair, etc.) are rarely themselves from a working-class background, hold
>> working-class jobs, or have any sense of working-class identity. More likely,
>> they derive from a middle-class background and already are members of or
>> are heading toward the technical-professional salariat, and are merely
>> "slumming" and riding the latest sardonic and demeaning capitalist culture
>> industry trend, "working-class kitsch," which itself derives from a
>> stereotyped depiction of "Joe Six-Pack."
>
>This sort of trip is, of course, not unique to San Francisco, but one can bet
>that it's more of a blatant hothouse plant there than in, say, Pittsburgh.
>
>                                                                     valis

Let's get real here.  Most of San Francisco is working class.  The worker
may put on a tie or a blouse and work at a keyboard (though most of San
Francisco's employed don't, and most of those who do dress like that to
work in SF don't actually live in SF), but the power relations, the
security, the pay, the benefits (lack of), the possibilities, the
aspirations, are all working class.  The one difference may be a lack of a
working class identity, though the above affectations may be an attempt to
put an old style working class appearance on a new style working class job.
But maybe if an effort was made to show how these jobs really are a new
urban working class, instead of pointing out how ridiculous the people who
have these jobs are for attempting to look like they are rust-belt working
class, there may begin to develop a true working class identity.
Anyway, believe me, growing up working class in Michigan in the sixties and
early seventies never guaranteed a working class identity, either.  Unless
you think someone in a t-shirt sitting in a car with a beer after work and
ridiculing an equally powerless individual in a suit in a car after work,
while never looking beyond to those who really have the power and to how
the power is used, has a working class identity.
This from one who grew up working class in Michigan in the 60's and early
70's and who now has a working class job (without a tie) and lives a
working class life in San Francisco.  And wears bowling shirts and owns a
15 year old car that needs constant repairs.  And is a graduate student
with aspirations toward a life with fewer financial concerns, and is white,
so probably would be reflexively lumped in with the above berated (though I
may be too old).
tom wood