Watch one of the three 1980s television episodes linked below and write 400 words on the representations of class within Roseanne, LA Law, or COPS. This post will count as two blog posts.
LA LAW, s.1, ep.1
Roseanne, s.1, ep. 1
COPS, pilot (please watch all of the parts on youtube)
The series premiere of L.A. Law discusses issues of class throughout its multiple plot lines. The show not only differentiates between the hierarchies of class among the lawyers of the firm, but also focuses heavily on the difference between its white collar and blue-collar defendants. Notably, the show often portrays the upper class as immoral and the working class as disadvantaged.
The primary case of the episode focuses on Attorney Michael Kuzak as he represents a rich kid named Justin, who has been accused of gang raping and assaulting a poor, African American woman named Adrian Moore who is on her deathbed with leukemia. The show reveals Justin to be a relentless, grossly immoral rich kid, especially when he tells Michael that his father can get the victim to drop the case by simply paying her $1,000. When the case goes to trial, Justin’s legal team dominates and delegitimizes the victim’s accusations by bringing to light her marijuana use and cross-examining her to the point where she threatens to shoot Justin and the other two defendants.
Through the character of Michael, the show reveals the inherent unfairness of the legal system in providing the poor with adequate counsel and highlights the advantages of the wealthy in getting away with breaking the law. At the end of the first part of two-part premiere, Michael is thrown in jail after a judge discovers he has thousands of dollars worth of unpaid parking tickets. He ends up in a cell across from Adrian Moore, who is being held in contempt of court, and tells her that he is only representing Justin because he believes that the boy has the right to the best legal counsel he can get. Disgusted, Ms. Moore fires back by questioning him “What about my rights? I was raped, beaten, and thrown in a dumpster and yet I was accused up there?” Michael replies that she should shoot the men who raped her, saying that she has “nothing to lose,” which clearly reveals that he is now aware of the inherent flaws in the legal system.
Another plot line that addresses class differences is a pro-bono case taken on by one of the associate attorneys, named Ann Kelsey. Ann reveals at a firm meeting that she wants to take on a case that involves a woman who is suing her insurance company, who has refused to cover her $750 doctor bill. One of the senior partners finds it ridiculous that she wants to represent this woman saying, “only lawyers in polyester suits deal with collection cases.” Ann is outraged and informs him that regardless she is taking on the case and will collect no legal fees from the woman. Through this episode, the show brings to light the corruption of rich insurance companies in working the system to prevent its poorest customers from attaining adequate medical coverage.
The show seems to take a firm stance on the notion that the rich are often immoral, but in the end they will still often prevail in getting what they want due to their fiscal advantages over the downtrodden working class.
Roseanne utilizes dialogue, set design, and plot to represent the lower-middle class status of the Conner family in the show. In the same way as Lentz describes the use of a brown and beige color scheme in some Norman Lear’s shows, like All in the Family, to flatten the image and create a muddy look to the home, the set design of Roseanne does this similarly. This dirty and murky design contrasts shows like Leave it to Beaver, or to use Lentz’s example, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which used blue and/or white hues to fashion a pristine and affluent design. So, the design of the flat looking set in Roseanne aides to portray the fact that the Conner’s are a lower-middle class family. We can also see the construction of class through moments in the dialogue. For example, when Roseanne and her husband Dan are arguing about different pet peeves of theirs during breakfast, Dan mentions that he is disgusted by left over crumbs of toast on the shared butter, the butter on the kitchen table is used as the example. Roseanne reacting crassly, but also trying to please Dan, cuts a large slab that contains the crumbs off of the butter and puts it on her plate. Dan responds to this by saying, with a southern redneck accent, “I love you darnlin’.” To which Roseanne replies with the same accent “I love you too.” This interaction, including the accents used by the two principle characters of the show, exemplifies the fact that this family understands where they stand on a class scale. They know that they are not the most intelligent or proper people around. In this way their class is represented by the way they present themselves and in this example they are presented in a light that is somewhat abrasive and oafish. Another way the class status of the family is produced is through the plot points of the episode. In the pilot Roseanne discovers that Darlene’s teacher wants to meet her. Her husband Dan, who is a drywall contractor, thinks he might get a job and cannot go to the meeting. This forces Roseanne to get an hour off from work. The fact that only one parent in this household has a steady income solidifies the placement of the families class, and through the depiction of Roseanne’s workplace, which is a factory, it is understood that she is an unskilled worker that is most likely being paid minimum wage. For a higher class family, taking an hour off from work would not be a problem, but for Roseanne the idea of losing an hours wage becomes a reoccurring dialogue point. The fact that she will “lose an hour’s pay” is constantly reemphasized and she informs many different characters of this fact. In these ways Roseanne seems to establish the Conner family as a lower income family, and their lower-middle class status.
The Roseanne pilot provides two contradictory opinions about the lower-middle class. One view is of caring parenting and hard work in order to provide for the family. The other is of crude humor, lazy husbands, lower class vernacular, and jokingly unstable relationships. Roseanne is clearly the protagonist of the show, but some of her lines and actions are opposite of what is generally considered appropriate. For example, when Becky tries to take cans for a canned food drive at school, Roseanne jokes that she should bring some food back for them instead of donating it. This seems like an inappropriate thing for a mother to say to a daughter, but it is portrayed as almost natural to joke about the family’s lower income and financial struggles. Another example takes place at the conference with Darlene’s teacher, Ms. Crane. Ms. Crane’s attempt to determine the cause of Darlene’s behavioral problems is humorously pretentious, but Roseanne’s lack of concern is also notable. She openly acknowledges that she doesn’t spend quality time with her family, but this does not seem to bother her. Despite a few less-than-ideal depictions, Roseanne is still a likeable, hardworking character. She works eight hours a day at a factory and several hours more at home, and thus is an admirable figure. In the episode, her hard work is juxtaposed with her husband’s apparent lack of a good work ethic. This seems to reflect a stereotype of the lower-middle class in which the husband leaves his wife to do most of the work. The unfair division of work is the focus of the argument at the end of the episode. Darlene, who cuts her finger on a pair of scissors, cuts the argument short. It is in this scene that the audience is most able to appreciate Roseanne as a great parent. She and her husband immediately run into the living room to see what is wrong when they hear screaming, and they both try to distract Darlene from the injury. It becomes clear that Roseanne really knows her daughter, despite what the teacher implied earlier, when she brings up the demolition derby. She knows that this will distract Darlene much better than her husband’s attempt at comforting her using flower imagery. The episode ends peacefully, with Roseanne and her husband forgetting the argument they were having. It leaves the audience with at least some indication that Roseanne is a good, compassionate person, albeit incredibly sarcastic, and the few slip-ups that she has are laughable and easily forgiven.
The pilot episode of COPS focused on drug smuggling in Broward County, FL. The episode uses many different ways to represent class such as locations, dialogue, and editing.
Since the show is shot on location, the audience gains firsthand access to crack houses in the city. In the first portion of the pilot, cops bust into a crack house that looks very worn down on the outside. Inside, the Sheriff walks around showing small bedrooms in cubby holes, dirty beds, crack strewn all over countertops, and a bucket that’s used as a toilet. This represents the lower class which is associated with the crack houses and drug trades. Next, we cut to a scene of the Sheriff’s house which is clearly more upscale than the crack house. It’s clean, spacious, and nothing is broken down inside it. The house has a large television, and the Sheriff sits in a robe with his wife watching the tv. This depicts the Sheriff’s upper-middle class status.
The dialogue in the episode also establishes a difference between classes. A majority of the scenes show the predominantly white police force talking down to all the suspects in a degrading, offensive tone. For example, when busting a coke dealer, one woman officer said “do something stupid and you’re gonna die.” The suspects usually reply with a “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am”. This ability of the police force to talk in that manner depicts their authoritative position, as well as their superiority in class while it simultaneously demeans the suspect and portrays their inferiority to the police.
The editing is probably the biggest aspect of representing class distinction in this show because since it’s a documentary/reality series, it relies heavily on the editing to tell a story. Most of the drug busts are juxtaposed with more intimate stories of the police officers work. For example, as mentioned above, the first drug bust is juxtaposed with the Sheriff’s home life showing a distinction between his class level and those of the suspects in the crack house. Another example is when the episode shows one of the woman officers stopping several ladies who seem to be prostitutes then it shows the woman officer in her home atmosphere with her two sons, and the other officer she is dating. When the woman officer is stopping the other ladies, there is a distinct difference in their jargon. The suspect who is apparently a prostitute uses slang and broken English when speaking, while the woman officer is very proper. The difference in language and the juxtaposition of the street busts with the officers home life shows her superior class status to the suspects she pulls over. Class status is even distinguished between the different levels of officers. For example, the woman officer with two sons has a smaller, not as nice apartment that she lives in while the Sheriff in the beginning of the episode has the larger, nicer house. The editing also displays how the two different classes act differently. For example, a white couple gets pulled over, the man runs and his girlfriend follows in the car. When they both get arrested, the girlfriend shrieks wildly, and screams at the man for running away. This fight is completely different from one shown between a police officer and his wife. They argue about communication between themselves, and there is clearly an issue, but they are fairly calm about it, and even affectionate at points. It almost aims to depict that the suspects at some level are inhumane, while the police officers are not, even though they seemed to be doing some unfair profiling.
Lastly, the element of reflexivity allows us as the audience to see the police officers with more authority, such as the Sheriff or Deputy, sit in their office watching the news on tv of other officers arresting the suspects. This shows the different levels of class and authority that each group holds - the lower class suspects being arrested, the middle class cops arresting them, and the middle-upper class Sheriff’s watching their police force arrest the suspects.
Class is represented in a few different ways in the TV show Rosanne. The first aspect is the way they speak. Some of their talking is in slang terms, for example, at the very beginning of the episode Rosanne says to her son, “and don’t spill your milk neither.” The grammar that she uses suggests that she is of lower class. Throughout the whole episode, every comment Rosanne makes is extremely sarcastic. Her and her husband are always bickering. While these characteristics are a little bit subtler, the reasons the characters are sarcastic and constantly fighting are because of their financial issues. When their daughter talks about needing cans for the canned food drive for the poor, Rosanne sarcastically remarks, “tell them to drive some of that food over here.” Even though this is meant as a sarcastic joke, and the audience can hear the laugh track in the background, it comes from a place of truth. The family is not scraping by, but they aren’t the wealthiest family either. It appears that they can’t afford to be making frivolous purchases. For example, when Rosanne gets her daughter a replacement backpack, she mentions that she’s “going to be using it for the next 30 years of her life,” so she better like it. Rosanne complains about having to get off work early and lose an hour’s worth of pay just to meet with one of her daughter’s teachers. It is also significant to mention that she actually has a job. This is a drastic change from the sitcoms in the 1950s when a woman’s place was considered in the home. In Rosanne, both her and her husband have to work to make ends meet with their three children. When she does go to meet with her daughter’s teacher, the audience can tell that the teacher thinks of herself as higher class. She is annoyed when Rosanne shows up 15 minutes late because she won’t be able to make it to her squash practice. Rosanne obviously thinks this is ridiculous. When the teacher talks about Darlene’s odd behavior on a more psychological level Rosanne just responds “huh?” This demonstrates a lower level of education and therefore lower class. The audience can tell that Rosanne gets annoyed with the teacher because she is speaking down to her. When the dad comes home at the end of the day he mentions that he didn’t get the construction job, and Rosanne reprimands him for being lazy and not contributing.
The pilot episode of COPS works to highlight representations of class by creating a dynamic between the low-class criminals with the higher-class police officers. By showcasing the living environments of both the criminals and the officers who arrest them, as well as their interactions during the arrest, COPS praises the higher-classed officers and chastises the impoverished criminals.
One of the most obvious representations of class throughout the pilot episode of COPS is the environment in which the criminals and officers live. The crack houses are dark, covered in garbage and falling apart. These houses usually are filled with many people, sleeping in small, cramped spaces. We even see in the first drug bust, a bucket used for a toilet. It is clear these people are living in impoverished circumstances. In direct contrast we see the officers in clean, brightly lit homes, surrounded by their loved ones. We see multiple officers relaxing, watching television or making dinner. They could be lower-middle class, but because they are portrayed against the lower-class criminals, they seem a lot better off.
Another interesting representation of class is when these two types of people come together. Throughout the entire episode, we see many instances were the officers appear to be in a more dominant and authoritative position. They talk down to the criminals as if they were children, mockingly scolding them when they don't answer or cooperate. We hear the female officer say, "Get off my streets" to the woman who is accused of being a prostitute, which puts her in a position of power. To further the lower-class representations of the criminals, we see the inferred girlfriend of the person who tried to run away, screaming as she is cuffed and put into the police car. Her behavior is barbaric and almost too uncomfortable to watch. Yet the officers remain calm, cool and collected even after the officer made the mistake of looking away from the guy who then fled. This creates an association between emotions and behavior with each class level. Lower-class criminals are "crazy" and irrational, while the officers use logic and their knowledge to deal with the situation.
Cop shows are very popular forms of entertainment regardless if they are fact or fiction. Although edited to present a narrative, COPS was real footage of actual police officers and yet there are still negative connections between people who commit crimes and their level of class. However, we still see these representations of class in shows like Southland. This fictional cop show is praised for its authentic representations of the daily workings of the Los Angeles Police Department. Rightly so, they too show criminals from poor, violent neighborhoods and officers from wealthier areas in Los Angeles. It seems fact or fiction; crime drama will tend to show lower-class people at the center of issues of crime.
The TV show LA Law showcased people from many different classes and how they interacted when it came to legal proceedings. One of the first interactions that stood out to me was when the lawyer went to the precinct and held a conversation with the cop at the front desk. The Lawyer pointed to his watch and slowly explained that the "Big hand is on the Twelve and the little hand is on the Nine" when he felt he had been waiting too long to see his client. Explaining to the cop how a clock works was a function of the differences of class between the two men. Because the lawyer is upper class he is also more educated than the Cop. While both men clearly know how a clock works the lawyer was being patronizing when it came to explaining that he wanted to be assisted faster. After that there is a scene of a cop escorting out the lawyer which just points to the tension between the blue collar workers (the cops) and the white collar workers (the lawyers). Another big example of the difference between classes and how that intersected with the law involved the main case of this episode. It involves the son of a really wealthy upper class man accused of rape of a low class woman. Because the son was Upper class he was portrayed as arrogant and virtually admitted to raping the woman in his private meeting session with his lawyer yet saw it as a problem that could be bought off. Once his lawyer said it might not be that easy be threatens him with the fact that his father contributes a lot of money to the law firm so it had to go his way. At the end of the case the lawyer is talking with the woman who was pressing charges. He basically explains to her that because his client has a lot of money he gets better legal protection. The comment the woman makes at the end points to the fact that even though she might die before the case is settled she has a better moral conscience than the lawyer or his rich upper class client. The final example I will use to show how class functions in LA law will deal with the interaction between lawyers. Cusack is looking for a public defender to represent a client of his and he asks the Defense Attorney so she recommends Sequentez. After watching Sequentez do a great job Cusack goes in to woo him for a case. He leads with the fact that he is a lawyer from a big law firm and tries to hand Sequentez his card. Sequentez asks if lunch will be on Cusack and his people because he realizes that the big firm can afford it. Here Cusack and his firm are a higher class than the other lawyer and because he can afford the lunch Sequentez uses it to his advantage. I found this one of the most interesting plays with class because both persons involved were above working class yet there was still a noticeable hierarchy.
In the pilot episode of the television show Roseanne entitled Life and Stuff, the representation, or rather misrepresentation of the lower middle class family is prominently displayed through numerous techniques which includes dialogue, juxtaposition of characters, as the overall plot. To begin, the dialogue used in the show is often disjointed, unintelligent, with uses of slang and misuse of words. Much as Amos n Andy misrepresented African American middle class through their distinctively disjointed and poor use of grammar, the same holds true for Roseanne, as she and her husband often say words such as “aint” and have an exaggerated and drawn out drawl. Along with the poor use of grammar within the show, there is also the issue of juxtaposition of Roseanne, who is among the lower middle and working class, to Darlene’s teacher, a member of higher class. It is quite evident that Darlene’s teacher is meant to represent a higher class standing than Roseanne, as the way she speaks is extremely scholarly, oftentimes bordering on the pretentious and snooty. When Roseanne enters the classroom, late due to work and traffic, and chomping fiercely on a piece of gum, it is evident that these two women are from completely separate worlds. Miss Crane berates Roseanne for being late and informs her that she has a prior engagement, which is discovered to be nothing more than a game of squash. When the two women talk, it is clear that she is speaking down to Roseanne, but it is also clear that Roseanne is often clueless as to what Miss Crane spoke of. It is also obvious that Roseanne and Miss Crane have differing views, Miss Crane suggests that Roseanne needs to spend more time with Darlene, where Roseanne replies that she works and has three kids so she has no available free time. This statement can also be classified as stereotyping in the sense that it generates the assumption that lower middle class parents do not spend enough time with their children. Finally, the overall plot of the show represents the lower middle class in a less than ideal light. Roseanne and her husband are both depicted as less than intelligent individuals, with their house in constant chaos due to their inability to control their children, as well as depicting Dan as a typical deadbeat lower middle class husband. Though the show addresses problems that exist within the relationship between the two, ultimately the problems stem from Dan’s inability to provide for his family, as well as not contributing enough at home. Though the Conner family is shown as a loving and caring family, ultimately their dysfunctionality attributes to their standing within the lower middle class.
The series premiere of L.A. Law discusses issues of class throughout its multiple plot lines. The show not only differentiates between the hierarchies of class among the lawyers of the firm, but also focuses heavily on the difference between its white collar and blue-collar defendants. Notably, the show often portrays the upper class as immoral and the working class as disadvantaged.
ReplyDeleteThe primary case of the episode focuses on Attorney Michael Kuzak as he represents a rich kid named Justin, who has been accused of gang raping and assaulting a poor, African American woman named Adrian Moore who is on her deathbed with leukemia. The show reveals Justin to be a relentless, grossly immoral rich kid, especially when he tells Michael that his father can get the victim to drop the case by simply paying her $1,000. When the case goes to trial, Justin’s legal team dominates and delegitimizes the victim’s accusations by bringing to light her marijuana use and cross-examining her to the point where she threatens to shoot Justin and the other two defendants.
Through the character of Michael, the show reveals the inherent unfairness of the legal system in providing the poor with adequate counsel and highlights the advantages of the wealthy in getting away with breaking the law. At the end of the first part of two-part premiere, Michael is thrown in jail after a judge discovers he has thousands of dollars worth of unpaid parking tickets. He ends up in a cell across from Adrian Moore, who is being held in contempt of court, and tells her that he is only representing Justin because he believes that the boy has the right to the best legal counsel he can get. Disgusted, Ms. Moore fires back by questioning him “What about my rights? I was raped, beaten, and thrown in a dumpster and yet I was accused up there?” Michael replies that she should shoot the men who raped her, saying that she has “nothing to lose,” which clearly reveals that he is now aware of the inherent flaws in the legal system.
Another plot line that addresses class differences is a pro-bono case taken on by one of the associate attorneys, named Ann Kelsey. Ann reveals at a firm meeting that she wants to take on a case that involves a woman who is suing her insurance company, who has refused to cover her $750 doctor bill. One of the senior partners finds it ridiculous that she wants to represent this woman saying, “only lawyers in polyester suits deal with collection cases.” Ann is outraged and informs him that regardless she is taking on the case and will collect no legal fees from the woman. Through this episode, the show brings to light the corruption of rich insurance companies in working the system to prevent its poorest customers from attaining adequate medical coverage.
The show seems to take a firm stance on the notion that the rich are often immoral, but in the end they will still often prevail in getting what they want due to their fiscal advantages over the downtrodden working class.
Roseanne utilizes dialogue, set design, and plot to represent the lower-middle class status of the Conner family in the show. In the same way as Lentz describes the use of a brown and beige color scheme in some Norman Lear’s shows, like All in the Family, to flatten the image and create a muddy look to the home, the set design of Roseanne does this similarly. This dirty and murky design contrasts shows like Leave it to Beaver, or to use Lentz’s example, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which used blue and/or white hues to fashion a pristine and affluent design. So, the design of the flat looking set in Roseanne aides to portray the fact that the Conner’s are a lower-middle class family.
ReplyDeleteWe can also see the construction of class through moments in the dialogue. For example, when Roseanne and her husband Dan are arguing about different pet peeves of theirs during breakfast, Dan mentions that he is disgusted by left over crumbs of toast on the shared butter, the butter on the kitchen table is used as the example. Roseanne reacting crassly, but also trying to please Dan, cuts a large slab that contains the crumbs off of the butter and puts it on her plate. Dan responds to this by saying, with a southern redneck accent, “I love you darnlin’.” To which Roseanne replies with the same accent “I love you too.” This interaction, including the accents used by the two principle characters of the show, exemplifies the fact that this family understands where they stand on a class scale. They know that they are not the most intelligent or proper people around. In this way their class is represented by the way they present themselves and in this example they are presented in a light that is somewhat abrasive and oafish.
Another way the class status of the family is produced is through the plot points of the episode. In the pilot Roseanne discovers that Darlene’s teacher wants to meet her. Her husband Dan, who is a drywall contractor, thinks he might get a job and cannot go to the meeting. This forces Roseanne to get an hour off from work. The fact that only one parent in this household has a steady income solidifies the placement of the families class, and through the depiction of Roseanne’s workplace, which is a factory, it is understood that she is an unskilled worker that is most likely being paid minimum wage. For a higher class family, taking an hour off from work would not be a problem, but for Roseanne the idea of losing an hours wage becomes a reoccurring dialogue point. The fact that she will “lose an hour’s pay” is constantly reemphasized and she informs many different characters of this fact. In these ways Roseanne seems to establish the Conner family as a lower income family, and their lower-middle class status.
The Roseanne pilot provides two contradictory opinions about the lower-middle class. One view is of caring parenting and hard work in order to provide for the family. The other is of crude humor, lazy husbands, lower class vernacular, and jokingly unstable relationships. Roseanne is clearly the protagonist of the show, but some of her lines and actions are opposite of what is generally considered appropriate. For example, when Becky tries to take cans for a canned food drive at school, Roseanne jokes that she should bring some food back for them instead of donating it. This seems like an inappropriate thing for a mother to say to a daughter, but it is portrayed as almost natural to joke about the family’s lower income and financial struggles. Another example takes place at the conference with Darlene’s teacher, Ms. Crane. Ms. Crane’s attempt to determine the cause of Darlene’s behavioral problems is humorously pretentious, but Roseanne’s lack of concern is also notable. She openly acknowledges that she doesn’t spend quality time with her family, but this does not seem to bother her.
ReplyDeleteDespite a few less-than-ideal depictions, Roseanne is still a likeable, hardworking character. She works eight hours a day at a factory and several hours more at home, and thus is an admirable figure. In the episode, her hard work is juxtaposed with her husband’s apparent lack of a good work ethic. This seems to reflect a stereotype of the lower-middle class in which the husband leaves his wife to do most of the work. The unfair division of work is the focus of the argument at the end of the episode. Darlene, who cuts her finger on a pair of scissors, cuts the argument short. It is in this scene that the audience is most able to appreciate Roseanne as a great parent. She and her husband immediately run into the living room to see what is wrong when they hear screaming, and they both try to distract Darlene from the injury. It becomes clear that Roseanne really knows her daughter, despite what the teacher implied earlier, when she brings up the demolition derby. She knows that this will distract Darlene much better than her husband’s attempt at comforting her using flower imagery.
The episode ends peacefully, with Roseanne and her husband forgetting the argument they were having. It leaves the audience with at least some indication that Roseanne is a good, compassionate person, albeit incredibly sarcastic, and the few slip-ups that she has are laughable and easily forgiven.
The pilot episode of COPS focused on drug smuggling in Broward County, FL. The episode uses many different ways to represent class such as locations, dialogue, and editing.
ReplyDeleteSince the show is shot on location, the audience gains firsthand access to crack houses in the city. In the first portion of the pilot, cops bust into a crack house that looks very worn down on the outside. Inside, the Sheriff walks around showing small bedrooms in cubby holes, dirty beds, crack strewn all over countertops, and a bucket that’s used as a toilet. This represents the lower class which is associated with the crack houses and drug trades. Next, we cut to a scene of the Sheriff’s house which is clearly more upscale than the crack house. It’s clean, spacious, and nothing is broken down inside it. The house has a large television, and the Sheriff sits in a robe with his wife watching the tv. This depicts the Sheriff’s upper-middle class status.
The dialogue in the episode also establishes a difference between classes. A majority of the scenes show the predominantly white police force talking down to all the suspects in a degrading, offensive tone. For example, when busting a coke dealer, one woman officer said “do something stupid and you’re gonna die.” The suspects usually reply with a “Yes, sir” or “Yes, ma’am”. This ability of the police force to talk in that manner depicts their authoritative position, as well as their superiority in class while it simultaneously demeans the suspect and portrays their inferiority to the police.
The editing is probably the biggest aspect of representing class distinction in this show because since it’s a documentary/reality series, it relies heavily on the editing to tell a story. Most of the drug busts are juxtaposed with more intimate stories of the police officers work. For example, as mentioned above, the first drug bust is juxtaposed with the Sheriff’s home life showing a distinction between his class level and those of the suspects in the crack house. Another example is when the episode shows one of the woman officers stopping several ladies who seem to be prostitutes then it shows the woman officer in her home atmosphere with her two sons, and the other officer she is dating. When the woman officer is stopping the other ladies, there is a distinct difference in their jargon. The suspect who is apparently a prostitute uses slang and broken English when speaking, while the woman officer is very proper. The difference in language and the juxtaposition of the street busts with the officers home life shows her superior class status to the suspects she pulls over. Class status is even distinguished between the different levels of officers. For example, the woman officer with two sons has a smaller, not as nice apartment that she lives in while the Sheriff in the beginning of the episode has the larger, nicer house. The editing also displays how the two different classes act differently. For example, a white couple gets pulled over, the man runs and his girlfriend follows in the car. When they both get arrested, the girlfriend shrieks wildly, and screams at the man for running away. This fight is completely different from one shown between a police officer and his wife. They argue about communication between themselves, and there is clearly an issue, but they are fairly calm about it, and even affectionate at points. It almost aims to depict that the suspects at some level are inhumane, while the police officers are not, even though they seemed to be doing some unfair profiling.
Lastly, the element of reflexivity allows us as the audience to see the police officers with more authority, such as the Sheriff or Deputy, sit in their office watching the news on tv of other officers arresting the suspects. This shows the different levels of class and authority that each group holds - the lower class suspects being arrested, the middle class cops arresting them, and the middle-upper class Sheriff’s watching their police force arrest the suspects.
Class is represented in a few different ways in the TV show Rosanne. The first aspect is the way they speak. Some of their talking is in slang terms, for example, at the very beginning of the episode Rosanne says to her son, “and don’t spill your milk neither.” The grammar that she uses suggests that she is of lower class. Throughout the whole episode, every comment Rosanne makes is extremely sarcastic. Her and her husband are always bickering. While these characteristics are a little bit subtler, the reasons the characters are sarcastic and constantly fighting are because of their financial issues. When their daughter talks about needing cans for the canned food drive for the poor, Rosanne sarcastically remarks, “tell them to drive some of that food over here.” Even though this is meant as a sarcastic joke, and the audience can hear the laugh track in the background, it comes from a place of truth. The family is not scraping by, but they aren’t the wealthiest family either. It appears that they can’t afford to be making frivolous purchases. For example, when Rosanne gets her daughter a replacement backpack, she mentions that she’s “going to be using it for the next 30 years of her life,” so she better like it. Rosanne complains about having to get off work early and lose an hour’s worth of pay just to meet with one of her daughter’s teachers. It is also significant to mention that she actually has a job. This is a drastic change from the sitcoms in the 1950s when a woman’s place was considered in the home. In Rosanne, both her and her husband have to work to make ends meet with their three children. When she does go to meet with her daughter’s teacher, the audience can tell that the teacher thinks of herself as higher class. She is annoyed when Rosanne shows up 15 minutes late because she won’t be able to make it to her squash practice. Rosanne obviously thinks this is ridiculous. When the teacher talks about Darlene’s odd behavior on a more psychological level Rosanne just responds “huh?” This demonstrates a lower level of education and therefore lower class. The audience can tell that Rosanne gets annoyed with the teacher because she is speaking down to her. When the dad comes home at the end of the day he mentions that he didn’t get the construction job, and Rosanne reprimands him for being lazy and not contributing.
ReplyDeleteThe pilot episode of COPS works to highlight representations of class by creating a dynamic between the low-class criminals with the higher-class police officers. By showcasing the living environments of both the criminals and the officers who arrest them, as well as their interactions during the arrest, COPS praises the higher-classed officers and chastises the impoverished criminals.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most obvious representations of class throughout the pilot episode of COPS is the environment in which the criminals and officers live. The crack houses are dark, covered in garbage and falling apart. These houses usually are filled with many people, sleeping in small, cramped spaces. We even see in the first drug bust, a bucket used for a toilet. It is clear these people are living in impoverished circumstances. In direct contrast we see the officers in clean, brightly lit homes, surrounded by their loved ones. We see multiple officers relaxing, watching television or making dinner. They could be lower-middle class, but because they are portrayed against the lower-class criminals, they seem a lot better off.
Another interesting representation of class is when these two types of people come together. Throughout the entire episode, we see many instances were the officers appear to be in a more dominant and authoritative position. They talk down to the criminals as if they were children, mockingly scolding them when they don't answer or cooperate. We hear the female officer say, "Get off my streets" to the woman who is accused of being a prostitute, which puts her in a position of power. To further the lower-class representations of the criminals, we see the inferred girlfriend of the person who tried to run away, screaming as she is cuffed and put into the police car. Her behavior is barbaric and almost too uncomfortable to watch. Yet the officers remain calm, cool and collected even after the officer made the mistake of looking away from the guy who then fled. This creates an association between emotions and behavior with each class level. Lower-class criminals are "crazy" and irrational, while the officers use logic and their knowledge to deal with the situation.
Cop shows are very popular forms of entertainment regardless if they are fact or fiction. Although edited to present a narrative, COPS was real footage of actual police officers and yet there are still negative connections between people who commit crimes and their level of class. However, we still see these representations of class in shows like Southland. This fictional cop show is praised for its authentic representations of the daily workings of the Los Angeles Police Department. Rightly so, they too show criminals from poor, violent neighborhoods and officers from wealthier areas in Los Angeles. It seems fact or fiction; crime drama will tend to show lower-class people at the center of issues of crime.
The TV show LA Law showcased people from many different classes and how they interacted when it came to legal proceedings. One of the first interactions that stood out to me was when the lawyer went to the precinct and held a conversation with the cop at the front desk. The Lawyer pointed to his watch and slowly explained that the "Big hand is on the Twelve and the little hand is on the Nine" when he felt he had been waiting too long to see his client. Explaining to the cop how a clock works was a function of the differences of class between the two men. Because the lawyer is upper class he is also more educated than the Cop. While both men clearly know how a clock works the lawyer was being patronizing when it came to explaining that he wanted to be assisted faster. After that there is a scene of a cop escorting out the lawyer which just points to the tension between the blue collar workers (the cops) and the white collar workers (the lawyers).
ReplyDeleteAnother big example of the difference between classes and how that intersected with the law involved the main case of this episode. It involves the son of a really wealthy upper class man accused of rape of a low class woman. Because the son was Upper class he was portrayed as arrogant and virtually admitted to raping the woman in his private meeting session with his lawyer yet saw it as a problem that could be bought off. Once his lawyer said it might not be that easy be threatens him with the fact that his father contributes a lot of money to the law firm so it had to go his way. At the end of the case the lawyer is talking with the woman who was pressing charges. He basically explains to her that because his client has a lot of money he gets better legal protection. The comment the woman makes at the end points to the fact that even though she might die before the case is settled she has a better moral conscience than the lawyer or his rich upper class client.
The final example I will use to show how class functions in LA law will deal with the interaction between lawyers. Cusack is looking for a public defender to represent a client of his and he asks the Defense Attorney so she recommends Sequentez. After watching Sequentez do a great job Cusack goes in to woo him for a case. He leads with the fact that he is a lawyer from a big law firm and tries to hand Sequentez his card. Sequentez asks if lunch will be on Cusack and his people because he realizes that the big firm can afford it. Here Cusack and his firm are a higher class than the other lawyer and because he can afford the lunch Sequentez uses it to his advantage. I found this one of the most interesting plays with class because both persons involved were above working class yet there was still a noticeable hierarchy.
In the pilot episode of the television show Roseanne entitled Life and Stuff, the representation, or rather misrepresentation of the lower middle class family is prominently displayed through numerous techniques which includes dialogue, juxtaposition of characters, as the overall plot.
ReplyDeleteTo begin, the dialogue used in the show is often disjointed, unintelligent, with uses of slang and misuse of words. Much as Amos n Andy misrepresented African American middle class through their distinctively disjointed and poor use of grammar, the same holds true for Roseanne, as she and her husband often say words such as “aint” and have an exaggerated and drawn out drawl.
Along with the poor use of grammar within the show, there is also the issue of juxtaposition of Roseanne, who is among the lower middle and working class, to Darlene’s teacher, a member of higher class. It is quite evident that Darlene’s teacher is meant to represent a higher class standing than Roseanne, as the way she speaks is extremely scholarly, oftentimes bordering on the pretentious and snooty. When Roseanne enters the classroom, late due to work and traffic, and chomping fiercely on a piece of gum, it is evident that these two women are from completely separate worlds. Miss Crane berates Roseanne for being late and informs her that she has a prior engagement, which is discovered to be nothing more than a game of squash. When the two women talk, it is clear that she is speaking down to Roseanne, but it is also clear that Roseanne is often clueless as to what Miss Crane spoke of. It is also obvious that Roseanne and Miss Crane have differing views, Miss Crane suggests that Roseanne needs to spend more time with Darlene, where Roseanne replies that she works and has three kids so she has no available free time. This statement can also be classified as stereotyping in the sense that it generates the assumption that lower middle class parents do not spend enough time with their children.
Finally, the overall plot of the show represents the lower middle class in a less than ideal light. Roseanne and her husband are both depicted as less than intelligent individuals, with their house in constant chaos due to their inability to control their children, as well as depicting Dan as a typical deadbeat lower middle class husband. Though the show addresses problems that exist within the relationship between the two, ultimately the problems stem from Dan’s inability to provide for his family, as well as not contributing enough at home. Though the Conner family is shown as a loving and caring family, ultimately their dysfunctionality attributes to their standing within the lower middle class.