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Mockery and Morality in Popular Cultural Representations of the White, Working Class

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  • Jayne Raisborough
  • Matt Adams

Abstract

We draw on ‘new’ class analysis to argue that mockery frames many cultural representations of class and move to consider how it operates within the processes of class distinction. Influenced by theories of disparagement humour, we explore how mockery creates spaces of enunciation, which serve, when inhabited by the middle class, particular articulations of distinction from the white, working class. From there we argue that these spaces, often presented as those of humour and fun, simultaneously generate for the middle class a certain distancing from those articulations. The plays of articulation and distancing, we suggest, allow a more palatable, morally sensitive form of distinction-work for the middle-class subject than can be offered by blunt expressions of disgust currently argued by some ‘new’ class theorising. We will claim that mockery offers a certain strategic orientation to class and to distinction work before finishing with a detailed reading of two Neds comic strips to illustrate what aspects of perceived white, working class lives are deemed appropriate for these functions of mockery. The Neds , are the latest comic-strip family launched by the publishers of children's comics The Beano and The Dandy , D C Thomson and Co Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Jayne Raisborough & Matt Adams, 2008. "Mockery and Morality in Popular Cultural Representations of the White, Working Class," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 13(6), pages 1-13, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:13:y:2008:i:6:p:1-13
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.1814
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ruben Flores, 2013. "When Charity Does Not Begin at Home: Exploring the British Socioemotional Economy of Compassion," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(1), pages 50-60, February.
    2. Kathy Arthurson & Michael Darcy & Dallas Rogers, 2014. "Televised Territorial Stigma: How Social Housing Tenants Experience the Fictional Media Representation of Estates in Australia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(6), pages 1334-1350, June.
    3. Karen Soldatic & Helen Meekosha, 2012. "The Place of Disgust: Disability, Class and Gender in Spaces of Workfare," Societies, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-18, September.
    4. Elias Le Grand, 2015. "Linking Moralisation and Class Identity: The Role of Ressentiment and Respectability in the Social Reaction to ‘Chavs’," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 20(4), pages 18-32, November.
    5. Imogen Tyler, 2013. "The Riots of the Underclass?: Stigmatisation, Mediation and the Government of Poverty and Disadvantage in Neoliberal Britain," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 18(4), pages 25-35, November.
    6. Michelle Addison & Victoria & G. Mountford, 2015. "Talking the Talk and Fitting In: Troubling the Practices of Speaking? ‘What you are Worth’ in Higher Education in the UK," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 20(2), pages 27-39, May.

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