Has TV reached a point where it's made for rich peolple?

[RadioRaheem84]

It seems like from national news shows to SNL, to prime time stuff, to political talk shows, to even nightly talk shows, television is primarily tuned to please the upper crust of society more and more. I mean from George Stephanopolis talking about how great Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin was to the Daily Show's who's who gallery of DC elite and NYC authors, journalists, etc. SNL has become way too fixed on current events, and I mean like parodying what happened just that week before Saturday!

It seems like producers are caring less and less about what the average consumer of television wants to see, except maybe sports and crummy primetime mystery shows. For the most part, television has become a playhouse for the rich to entertain themselves. Another medium for them to make themselves look important to one another.

[Chimurenga.]

It seems like from national news shows to SNL, to prime time stuff, to political talk shows, to even nightly talk shows, television is primarily tuned to please the upper crust of society more and more. I mean from George Stephanopolis talking about how great Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin was to the Daily Show's who's who gallery of DC elite and NYC authors, journalists, etc. SNL has become way too fixed on current events, and I mean like parodying what happened just that week before Saturday!

SNL has been like that for a while now. I mean, people like Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuiliani, John McCain, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Donald Trump, etc. have hosted the show.

[x359594]

...It seems like producers are caring less and less about what the average consumer of television wants to see, except maybe sports and crummy primetime mystery shows. For the most part, television has become a playhouse for the rich to entertain themselves. Another medium for them to make themselves look important to one another.

Isn't it a truism that TV shows exist to sell consumers to advertisers? Since it's very inception as a commercial medium American TV shows have catered to the lowest common denominator with a sprinkling of culture (both populist and high culture.) It's a well-known fact that the cost of the average TV commercial exceeds that of the average 1 hour (actually 47 minutes) TV episode.

When I was growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s there were only a handful of shows that were of any interest. For example, Steve Allen's variety show occasionally featured a poet or novelist reading from his or her work (most famously Jack Kerouac in a 1959 broadcast.) A few other variety shows (they are apparently non-existent today) featured cutting edge jazz performers and rock & roll artists.

I can only write of present day broadcast TV since I don't have cable or satellite (I can't afford either), but I see little of interest in either drama or comedy, news or documentary.American TV is still pretty much the "vast wasteland" culture critics called it in the Eisenhower era.

[Foldered]

Television is for the middle class and those who are easily convinced to spend.
However, the people are involved in and are a part of television are much more wealthy.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well I think in culture there is always an attempt by the dominant class to make lower classes invisible. So in ancient visual art, servants appearef literally smaller than the kings and nobles. The modern equivalent to that in entertainment is that the white male yuppie on a TV show will face real challenges and serious plots while the wise-cracking non-white character or the grumpy blue-collar worker is there for a light side-plot if he is there at all.

I think in the absence of mass struggle, the entertainment media has become increasingly focuses on professionals and the rich for their leading characters. If there was massive struggle, they would have to address the experience of workers and non-white males more just as in the 1970s, television became more inclusive in order to actually relate to a much more progressive social reality.

But it's pretty amazing that almost every character in movies or television is either a professional (usually a Doctor, Cop, or Lawyer) or don't seem to have to work at all. Of all the hundreds of movies where people get swept up into some adventure, never have I see a shot of someone calling into work to say they wouldn't be able to make it.

Partially I think it's just that many writers come from wealthy families so they just don't know what life is like for people. On top of that many writers on television are pretty young and essentially right out of school, so they haven't had the experience of even working as a professional in some field. But the main thing is that if you pitched a pilot about a serious main character who's main conflict was not liking his job or being in debt or facing a forclosure... it would never be made. Shows can take place AFTER loosing a house or a job, but Hollywood - television more so - seems to be terrified about showing people who are disastisfied with their job (unless they are a minor comedic character who is presented as an ass anyway).

How many shows dramatically depict the concerns of high school kids? Sorry, but work is much more dramatic and has much higher stakes than High School. Most workplaces are like soap-operas already - not just co-workers hooking up - but full on betrayals or intrigue and so there is plenty of material there to make dramatic entertainment, but a show like that would eventually have to deal with questions of unions or layoffs and things like that and I think producers wouldn't want that in a million years.

[Red]

The fact that adverts are LOUDER than programming says it all. I am extremely selective on what I watch, (as I'm sure most of us are), and drive my girlfriend crazy calling bullshit on almost anything said as an attack on the working class and poor. The Mute button is your friend, the Power button your soul mate.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

The fact that adverts are LOUDER than programming says it all.

I've noticed this in the last 10 years or so here in Sweden.

I watched an old recording off TV from 1997 some month ago... ah, the days when there were only two advertisement breaks in 1 hour and 20 minutes, and each was less than 2-3 minutes long and of the same volume as the programming... The formerly strict laws governing advertisement have been butchered, and where they haven't, loopholes are used to avoid adhering to them; for example, some television stations broadcast from the United Kingdom so that they can show advertisement for alcohol, directed at children and for much longer than national legislation permit(ted)s.

[Red Saxon]

I don't watch* television anymore because I found that you really have a lot of time on your hands when you're not sitting on your ass for five hours a day.


*Exception made for Lost

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

The goal of TV is to provide a form of escape to middle class, and the proletariat.

Rather than come home and think about how many people were laid off, or how much their job sucks, go and flip on Lost! Make sure you follow it religiously. Upset about rising inflation? Go watch "Glee!" and forget about it.

Commercial TV is a method of control for the Bourgeois class to reduce and weaken revolutionary tendencies in the proletariat and middle class. Obviously, while you're also escaping from your work and life, you're being bombarded by tons of commercial images.

I do of course, enjoy PBS.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Yes you're average show, particularly American programming, is usually devoid of working class people. Yuppies going to the pub living their comfortable lives is what most television is about. Having said that I do watch a fair bit of telly, the NFL season is a good time and it gets fairly good coverage in the UK now, if you search you can find good films most of the time as well. Of course most of the stuff that I want to watch is on Sky Sports, which I don't have.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The goal of TV is to provide a form of escape to middle class, and the proletariat.

Rather than come home and think about how many people were laid off, or how much their job sucks, go and flip on Lost! Make sure you follow it religiously. Upset about rising inflation? Go watch "Glee!" and forget about it.

Commercial TV is a method of control for the Bourgeois class to reduce and weaken revolutionary tendencies in the proletariat and middle class. Obviously, while you're also escaping from your work and life, you're being bombarded by tons of commercial images.

I do of course, enjoy PBS.Oh comrade. I watch "Glee" "Lost" and "The Simpsons" and that's about it yet somehow when I go to work I still hate the situation there; somehow I still know my landlord is a crook; somehow I'm still pissed about the war and racism against immigrants, bailouts and forcloures. I also like to get fucked up with some friends on the weekend from time to time and if someone bought me a ticket (or I could afford it) I'd love to see a Raiders game or go to As games more often.

People have too little enjoyment and free-time as it is under capitalism - and the US is much worse than Europe since we don't get many vacations and work more hours a week on average. People say Americans are lazy, but I think most people just get exhausted. We shouldn't diss people for wanting a little escape from a shitty life, we should be fighting so that people have more time and freedom to do what they want.

There is no correlation between levels of entertainment (or quality of entertainment) and working class militancy or struggle. Keep in mind that Hollywood became huge during the depression and ticket sales skyrocketed - yet struggle also increased over the same time.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Oh comrade. I watch "Glee" "Lost" and "The Simpsons" and that's about it yet somehow when I go to work I still hate the situation there; somehow I still know my landlord is a crook; somehow I'm still pissed about the war and racism against immigrants, bailouts and forcloures. I also like to get fucked up with some friends on the weekend from time to time and if someone bought me a ticket (or I could afford it) I'd love to see a Raiders game or go to As games more often.

Comrade,

I'm not suggesting that you by watching those shows are oblivious to class struggle and oppression, but many workers are.

TV fights for the ruling class;

Ron Kaufman, "How Television Fuels the Class War" (last three paragraphs)
*Would post link, but unable to.*

"The fixed glaze of the television viewer never blinks. The public is enamored with wealth and fame because this is what TV teaches. Television, however, does not exist in a vacuum. Mass media advertising and hyper-commercialism work to pacify the masses with electronics, new fashions and fads. While none of this is new, what one should question is the sustainability of such a system. Modern humanity is producing and consuming products at rates unseen in history under the belief that continued constant income growth must be achieved.

What television does not communicate is that in any economic-societal system there are winners and losers. Wealth and resources are used by those in power to enrich themselves and rarely do they give up their privileges to those below them. During years of the Roman Republic, before Julius Caesar's murder, land reform was the most unsettling political matter facing the public. The wealthy wanted control of public lands for their own power and profit, while the plebeian farmers wished only to grow food and live a comfortable life. In the end, money and power won and the democratic Roman Republic turned into an Empire fueled by a lust for power and conquest.

The United States has not yet gone down the same fateful road as the Romans did centuries ago. But, there is a class struggle brewing. Make no mistake that no matter what events have yet to influence the course of history, television will always side with those who control its airwaves. Television fuels the class war and fights for the wealthy."

Okay, so maybe the analysis about Rome is a bit inaccurate, but the principle holds true. As long as the rich and wealthy control the airwaves it will act as propaganda for them.

Also, the movies did use escapism, wildly heralded "Modern Times" by Chaplin was in reality just promoting middle class values. The escape was to go from poverty to middle class.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well if you scratch the surface of anything in capitalism, you will find capitalist values reflected. PBS is no different from FOX in that regard.

As Marx said, the ruling ideas of any area are the ideas of the ruling group. So school reinforces capitalist values, the media, books, music, public parks, holidays, and other forms of entertainment. Even science is used to promote ruling class ideas - "we just discovered the gene that leads to alcoholism and another that causes poverty in society!". So does that mean these things are all worthless? It's more complex than that in my opinion.

Shakespeare reflects the values of it's time and most are very openly pro-monarchy, yet I have never heard of people going to a Shakespeare festival and coming back wanting to install a monarch in the US :lol:. No one who is not a M-List goes to see a show of socialist realist artwork and comes away a die-hard Stalinist.

Give people some credit - there are so many bullshit ideas and arguments that we are bombarded with, but no amount of propaganda can last if people's personal and class experiences contradict it. So every super-structural force in US society can tell us that if you smoke pot you will go crazy and end up a heroin addict, but since most people have alternative information based on their own experience, this propaganda is laughed at by most people. If propaganda - particularly in a more subtle form through pro-capitalist assumption in entertainment - was effective, there would be no sex outside of marriage, no teenage pregnancies, no anti-war protests, no backlash against "Disney-ification", no civil rights movements (I don't think many movies showed african americans being upset and disastified with the racial status quo in the 1950s before the civil rights movement). So in the end people's real experiences are the main determining factor in consciousness and since capitalism treats workers pretty shitty, I have no doubt that there will be upsurges of struggle in the future.

Also I think it's kind of crude and mechanical to say that entertainment only serves to reinforce capitalist values. it's a double edged sword, because entertainment also needs to connect with people. Generally they go for the lowest common denominator if they can, but changes in social consciousness have also forced entertainment to respond. After the civil rights movement, tv and movies had to largely abandon some standard stereotypes of the helpful subservient black worker for example. With the end of these struggles, new stereotypes have crept back in. When movements pick up again, I would expect that entertainment would also have to adjust to keep up with mass consciousness.

[bawbag]

The mention of the Roman empire makes me think of television these days, Roman workers were given almost every second day as a holiday and to stop these people sitting around and thinking about what the empire was doing and how they were being treated unfairly the empire provided them with free entertainment and food, to get them on their side and stop them thinking.

This makes me think about TV these days, we are given mediocre, banal mind numbing television shows, such as Glee and Lost and (over here) Britain's Got Talent, it seems like these types of shows keep my generation under control, instead of talk about David Cameron increasing the VAT to 20% and how this will be detrimental to the working class they would rather discuss why they think the good looking guy should win Britain's Got Talent (because he's good looking of course). Instead of discuss the fact that the entire nation is about to be run by a class of Etonian privileged boys who know nothing of hard work and have never heard of the working class, they would rather talk about which characters from Glee they like and dislike.

I don't think it is made to entertain the rich people, I believe it is more for their protection the people in power's protection, it keeps us dumb and weak. We don't care about the things that matter, instead we rush home in time to watch some bollocks TV show and then it becomes the main thing we talk about or look forward to.

Sometimes I worry that it has affected me in such a way, I do watch TV and sometimes I choose it over reading something, I know more about what is going on in Breaking Bad than I know what is going on in the Scottish Parliament.

[Pavlov's House Party]

It's strange, but since I started going to college with a lot of middle class kids, I've noticed that the petty bourgeois has a contempt for television for being too "plebeian" and unsophisticated. I see this in the left as well with slactivists (who are middle class most often) who talk about how TV is the worst invention ever.

[Hexen]

Lets face, of course TV shows are made for rich people because we live in a capitalist society which is originally intended for them while the working classes only catch it.

[Red Lion]

Lets face, of course TV shows are made for rich people because we live in a capitalist society which is originally intended for them while the working classes only catch it.

That makes absolutely no sense as a sentence.

[Raúl Duke]

I think TV culture is more complex and works on subtly than most here are giving it credit. It's not an all-out obvious brain-wash but it ain't a neutral medium either.

It also differs on channels.

I kind of feel that TV has somewhat infantilized people and/or are giving off unrealistic expectations, in some cases.

[pdcrofts]

I agree with bawbag, television shows in Britain seem designed to dumb us down. Television is a way of keeping us under control. The working classes knew this right from the start. In Sillitoe's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", set in 1950s Britain, the protagonist's mother tells him to "think out of the box", meaning don't believe what you see on TV. A nice alternative take on the phrase, I think.

[Apoi_Viitor]

That makes absolutely no sense as a sentence.

I think he intended to say that, while the middle/lower classes are the consumers of the Television Entertainment Industry, the interests of the wealthy are placed above them - when it comes to the content of the broadcasts.

Err, I'm not sure if I worded that any better though...

Slightly unrelated; I've always thought parts of The Frankfurt School's Theory on The Culture Industry are very applicable to TV/Entertainment of today, but I completely disregard their notion that the Mass Media has rendered a revolution impossible.

[bcbm]

way too much lost hate in this thread...

[praxis1966]

Someone already touched on PBS, which was exactly what I was going to bring up. Shows like Austin City Limits, Nova, Independent Lens, POV, Now!, and Bill Moyers Journal are all fantastic. Then of course there's Ovation, which airs documentaries on people like Lord Byron, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, and JRR Tolkein. Apart from that, I'm not ashamed to say I'm a regular viewer of Later with Jools Holland. Also, there's CurrentTV, which although founded by Al Gore does have some pretty good shit on it. A cursory glance at their website (http://current.com/) will reveal some pretty interesting programming.

It's not all complete crap, but you do have to do a little digging to find the good stuff.

[Foldered]

Not only that, but television is what you make it. I watch television like I would read a book, and while some would argue that television is "trash," there is much to be analyzed and learned through watching it. Sure, it's brainwashing if you're an idiot that shuts their mind off when they watch it, but television has some interesting things going on, like any other form of media.

[Raúl Duke]

Also, there's CurrentTV, which although founded by Al Gore does have some pretty good shit on it. A cursory glance at their website (http://www.anonym.to/?http://current.com/) will reveal some pretty interesting programming.

I'm a regular at the website...although to be honest in terms of comments and post I think there's been a decline since early 2009. I enjoy supernews, but they haven't showed it for some time.

Like Pandora Radio, which after the early 2009 began to place ads and limit listening time to a certain amount each month or something.

[praxis1966]

I'm a regular at the website...although to be honest in terms of comments and post I think there's been a decline since early 2009. I enjoy supernews, but they haven't showed it for some time.

Like Pandora Radio, which after the early 2009 began to place ads and limit listening time to a certain amount each month or something.

To a certain extent I agree with you. However, all I was trying to say was that someone thinks that all TV is crap then chances are that person hasn't done much looking around. Anyway, though CurrentTV has gone on something of a decline, it's still better than 95% of the other garbage out there.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

There is a documentary about this that I just watched today called "Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class." I also found this one called "Advertizing and the End of the World" that has a freaky narrator but its analysis is super awezsom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVu6ojB-cMg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LstnduT3zrk

[Veg_Athei_Socialist]

The commercials make it seem like it. Other than that, I wouldn't know. I only watch MASH re-runs on a cheap portable dvd player and free south park episodes on the internet. I don't see how anyone can watch anything else.

[GPDP]

I'm really most concerned with network degeneration. That is, when networks branch out into other areas so much that they lose their original focus, and sometimes any focus whatsoever, all in an attempt to increase ratings by trying to pander to more markets as well as the lowest common denominator. It's why you see networks like the History Channel come out with cop-out rebrand slogans like "history made every day" as an excuse to show crap like Ice Road Truckers that has nothing to do with history.

And don't get me started on Cartoon Network...

[Chimurenga.]

Class Dismissed is fantastic. Found it the other day and watched it. I'd definitely recommend it.

[praxis1966]

I'm really most concerned with network degeneration. That is, when networks branch out into other areas so much that they lose their original focus, and sometimes any focus whatsoever, all in an attempt to increase ratings by trying to pander to more markets as well as the lowest common denominator. It's why you see networks like the History Channel come out with cop-out rebrand slogans like "history made every day" as an excuse to show crap like Ice Road Truckers that has nothing to do with history.

And don't get me started on Cartoon Network...

Yeah, that's been a gripe of mine for a long time as well. I was under the impression, what with all the nature documentaries that Discovery Channel shows (hello, Planet Earth series anybody?) that they were pro-environmentalist, and then they go and show American Loggers. WTF?!?!

And don't even get me started on MTV... I don't know how old you are so you may not even remember this, but I'm old enough to remember a time when they actually had music on the channel. That whole channel's a fucking racket anyway... PBS (I know, I know, monotonous) actually did a pretty good documentary on the subject called Merchants of Cool which can still be found online here (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/). Further, I'm keenly aware as I write this that MTV is directly responsible for the idiocy of "reality TV" as they're the ones that invented it. The Real World, as far as I'm aware, was the first "reality" show after all.

[The Red Next Door]

I'm really most concerned with network degeneration. That is, when networks branch out into other areas so much that they lose their original focus, and sometimes any focus whatsoever, all in an attempt to increase ratings by trying to pander to more markets as well as the lowest common denominator. It's why you see networks like the History Channel come out with cop-out rebrand slogans like "history made every day" as an excuse to show crap like Ice Road Truckers that has nothing to do with history.

And don't get me started on Cartoon Network...


Remember good old techtv? now it G4, and they show shit that have nothing to do with video games, at all. They use to show good shit but decide to have it all broadcast on the Canadian g4. Nick use to have good cartoons and now its teen teen baby shit, PBS is starting to turn in to crap, i miss bill moyers. I wish they had link and free speech tv on cable, but do to the fact that our cable company is shitty on top of that anti progressive since they show nothing but crap crap with a side order of a bunch of TBN channels. there use to be the international channel before it became the now defunt azn channel. think they started losing money when they decide to make it just asian.

[Blackscare]

I mean from George Stephanopolis talking about how great Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin was to the Daily Show's who's who gallery of DC elite and NYC authors, journalists, etc. SNL has become way too fixed on current events


SNL has been parodying people in the public eye since... ever. I mean, in mainstream politics, which like it or not most people only pay attention to, she is a goofy character ripe for the mocking. Don't expect to see a Bob Avakian parody on that man.

And the Daily show is a fake news/TALK show, obviously it's going to have famous, politically important people on it. It always has. To be fair, they've also had the likes of Evo Morales on.

How long have you been watching TV? I see no evidence for a changing trend in what you're saying, these shows have always been geared towards bourgeois society/politics, because that is the mainstream in this country. They talk about things that are familiar to people in contexts that are familiar to them, because they're entertainment shows trying to maximize their audiance.

[x359594]

...these shows have always been geared towards bourgeois society/politics, because that is the mainstream in this country. They talk about things that are familiar to people in contexts that are familiar to them, because they're entertainment shows trying to maximize their audiance.

The alternative argument is that these shows reflect the interests of their sponsors. The shows are watched not because they're so entertaining but because they're so available. Availability is the first and necessary condition of consumption, and here supply is not satisfying demand but creating demand.

[M-26-7]

I don't hate the invention called a TV any more than I hate the invention called a radio, but the programming on both has gotten pretty much awful. And as x359594 pointed out, maybe it always was. I can't imagine I would have been any more excited to watch Gunsmoke than I am to watch that racist pile of cop-heroizing crap, 24.

I usually try to catch a few TV shows here and there, more or less as a duty, rather than for pleasure, so I can talk about it with people at work who watch it a lot...and then lead the conversation into a better topic.

The only programming I actually do like, you can just download or stream on the internet. But I have to admit, some of the shows I like, such as Arrested Development, are totally bougie in their choice of main characters. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is another good one, also about small business owners (although they are slackers). The shows that actually are centered on working class people, like King of Queens (the main character is a UPS driver) usually aren't that great. Cheers had a pretty working-class premise, but I actually haven't seen it enough to know if it was funny--I do like Woody Harrelson so I should probably give it a chance sometime. But I'm far from sure that I want to see some rich Hollywood writer's depictions of the working class anyway. Usually, they depict working class men as low-brow, unintelligent neanderthals, and women as overbearing and shrill stay-at-home moms. Maybe that's why I prefer shows about white collar and small business owner types: I can more easily stomach Hollywood's rosy depiction of the so-called "middle class" than I can stomach its utterly condescending and inaccurate depiction of the working class.

Working class people on TV, by their early 30's, are all trapped in semi-unhappy heterosexual marriages, already have several kids, and (somehow!) live in giant, two-story mansions on their working class budgets. The working class people that I know, many of them in their 30's or older, are single or cohabitating, in both hetero and gay relationships, live in apartments, experiment with their sexuality, take drugs, visit local museums and support local music (rather than only "playing poker with the guys" or watching professional sports), etc. They are an infinitely more interesting crowd than the TV working class people, and most likely are also infinitely more interesting than than the real life Hollywood writers who invented the fake working class on TV. Both the two-story mansions and the boring lives are probably a case of Hollywood writers projecting their own lives onto the working class. There is a portion of the working class that lives like that (minus the mansion of course), but certainly not the whole thing, as TV would have you believe.

I think my single biggest gripe against broadcast TV, other than the low quality of many of the shows and the propaganda-tabloid hybrid nature of the local news, is the sheer percentage of shows that are made with cops or other members of the justice system as the protagonists and heroes. I mean, Jesus, it must be like half the shows that get made. And that really is a key way that they drill petty bourgeois ethics into us from a young age--cops are good, so obey the law, don't steal, pay your taxes, be on time to work, and then clock out and go home and watch some shows about how great and just the whole shitty system is.

[x359594]

...I can't imagine I would have been any more excited to watch Gunsmoke than I am to watch that racist pile of cop-heroizing crap, 24...I think my single biggest gripe against broadcast TV...is the sheer percentage of shows that are made with cops or other members of the justice system as the protagonists and heroes. I mean, Jesus, it must be like half the shows that get made. And that really is a key way that they drill petty bourgeois ethics into us from a young age--cops are good, so obey the law, don't steal, pay your taxes, be on time to work, and then clock out and go home and watch some shows about how great and just the whole shitty system is.

Your remark about Gunsmoke is apt. It was one of the favorite TV shows of Leo Struss, the godfather of neo-conservatism. He liked it because it extolled individualism, had black and white morality and encouraged respect for the law. And just as cop shows seem to dominate the airwaves today, Western shows dominated during the Gunsmoke era.

[praxis1966]

The only programming I actually do like, you can just download or stream on the internet. But I have to admit, some of the shows I like, such as Arrested Development, are totally bougie in their choice of main characters. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is another good one, also about small business owners (although they are slackers). The shows that actually are centered on working class people, like King of Queens (the main character is a UPS driver) usually aren't that great. Cheers had a pretty working-class premise, but I actually haven't seen it enough to know if it was funny--I do like Woody Harrelson so I should probably give it a chance sometime. But I'm far from sure that I want to see some rich Hollywood writer's depictions of the working class anyway. Usually, they depict working class men as low-brow, unintelligent neanderthals, and women as overbearing and shrill stay-at-home moms. Maybe that's why I prefer shows about white collar and small business owner types: I can more easily stomach Hollywood's rosy depiction of the so-called "middle class" than I can stomach its utterly condescending and inaccurate depiction of the working class.

I have to say, somewhat shamefully, that I never really considered how TV really does push bourgeois values in terms of how it depicts working class v petite bourgeois families. I do have to say, though, King of Queens and Cheers aren't the only shows with working class themes. Roseanne is easily my favorite show about a working class family and their daily struggles. Despite my personal feelings about Roseanne Barr and her limousine liberalism, she did come from working class roots and her control over the production of that show made sure that it stayed true to form for the most part (well, until they won the lottery in the last season or so). All in the Family was another working class themed show that's a pretty good one as well. Considering the time in which it was produced, it was pretty groundbreaking also. I'm thinking of one episode in particular where the main character, Archie Bunker, joins the KKK.

Anyhow, as far as modern shows that show working class characters in a positive light, there aren't too many now that I think about it. True Blood comes to mind, especially since it deals with all kinds of crazy shit; religious fundamentalism, racism, sexism, and in sort of a proxy way gay rights (if you consider that in alot of ways the vampires in the show are depicted as stand-ins for gay people; they often use the phrase 'coming out of the coffin' for instance)... The show's primary gay character, Lafayette (who also happens to be African American) is great, too. Instead of the way we usually see gay people depicted, as a sympathetic victim of gay bashing violence, he's no victim and actually stands up to bigotry quite often. But then again, if you're not into vampires and shit you probably won't be able to stand it.:lol:

[RadioRaheem84]

SNL has been parodying people in the public eye since... ever. I mean, in mainstream politics, which like it or not most people only pay attention to, she is a goofy character ripe for the mocking. Don't expect to see a Bob Avakian parody on that man.

And the Daily show is a fake news/TALK show, obviously it's going to have famous, politically important people on it. It always has. To be fair, they've also had the likes of Evo Morales on.

How long have you been watching TV? I see no evidence for a changing trend in what you're saying, these shows have always been geared towards bourgeois society/politics, because that is the mainstream in this country. They talk about things that are familiar to people in contexts that are familiar to them, because they're entertainment shows trying to maximize their audiance.

During the 90s there was a bit of progressive and anti-corporate flare to a lot of TV. The progression of the Simpsons best season to becoming somewhat libertarian toward the turn of the century is one example. It just seems less appropriate to be anti establishment these days than back in the 90s and the 70s.