[MUSIC PLAYING] This is Lindsey Ellis. I am a YouTuber, film
critic, and author. And for the month of
January, I am taking over Chelsea's Tuesday show. And each week, we are
discussing a different topic of money and pop culture. Today's category is poor people. Malcolm is going to be fine
no matter what happens. Maybe he'll have to
go to junior college or start off blue collar,
but he'll work his way up to management eventually. So in discussions about
media, we often hear this idea that representation matters. And yet, when it comes to
stories about the working class and poor, which, in
America, comprises about 40 million people, there's
not as much of that as there is the
demographic it represents. So why do we have more
period dramas about royals than we do about
the working class? This is not a new issue, either. It was something that legendary
television producer Norman Lear was aware of when
looking at the television landscape of the late
'60s and early '70s. "The biggest subjects in
television comedy were 'The roast is ruined
and the boss is coming to dinner,' or 'Mom dented the
car and how do the kids and mom keep dad from finding
out...'" says Lear. There were no
political problems. There was no poverty. That was the total message--
wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. When we look at successful shows
about poor and working class people-- Shameless, Roseanne, The Middle,
All In the family, et cetera, we are talking about
shows that lean into the more comedic elements
of what it means to be poor. I'm just wondering
if I can maybe you sleep in your car or something. I don't got nowhere to go. Thanks, Julian. By contrast, dramas
usually deal with gangs, like The Wire, Sons
of anarchy, Mayans, or some sort of violent,
urban aspect to poverty. Comedy, at least,
makes the truth go down a little bit easier. But what are these
portrayals trying to say or, more accurately, sell
about working class America? One of the most successful
and arguably honest portrayals of working class America
is the series Roseanne. And we're going to ignore the
issues of late with its creator and star. Roseanne delivers
a lot of truths about how pulling yourself
up by your bootstraps doesn't always cut it. I busted my butt so I could
get into a good school. How come you never told
me there was no way? Oh, we purposefully went
broke so that you couldn't go to the college of your choice. Take Becky, the eldest
daughter in the Conner family. She's smart, hardworking,
and extremely driven to go to college. However, in season 4, Becky
gets accepted to a school. But because of her
parents' bad finances. she can't go. So even if I get into these
schools, I can't afford to go? Becky, it has been
a really bad year. And by season 5, when
Dan, the family patriarch, has to close his
motorcycle shop, it leads to even more
struggle because of the family losing their income entirely. I don't have Mark. I don't have college. I don't have anything. You blew it, Dad. You blew it for
everyone in this family. Becky, you shut up. Come on, Mother. You know it. This is part of a
series of events that leads to Becky eloping,
marrying young, getting pregnant before she has the
means to be able to afford it. And in the spin-off series,
she ends right back up at home. Compare this to the hit
WBCW show Gilmore Girls, which centered a lot
around class conflict between the wealthy
Gilmore family and the titular middle
class Gilmore Girls, i.e. Lorelai and her daughter, Rory. How's the insurance biz? Oh, people die, we pay. People crash cars, we pay. People lose a foot, we pay. Well, at least you
have your new slogan. In season 3 of Gilmore Girls,
Rory gets accepted to Yale. She does not get financial
aid and would not qualify for it anyway, as
her grandparents own, like, a building. I'll take a student
loan out from the bank. That's what banks are for. I don't want you to be
buried by loans the day you graduate from college. And her mother can't
pay out-of-pocket. However, they do have an out-- those rich grandparents. Not so fast. Richard. Oh, I'm happy to
pay for Yale, but I don't want it to be alone. Generational wealth secures
Rory's spot at Yale. She goes to a
four-year Ivy League school with her tuition, books,
living situation all paid for by rich grandparents. And she gets to go on to
be a subpar journalist. Becky, by comparison,
never had a chance. What was I working for? What was the point
of getting As? The other "problem"
with telling stories about poor people,
especially poor women, is that their lives tend
to follow a similar pattern because the thing about poverty
is the tendency to repeat not only the issues
that have kept you down but previous
generations, as well. According to the 2010 census,
over 40 million Americans live below the poverty
line, a rate of about 13.5%. Additionally, 43% of
children below the age of 18 live in low-income
families-- that is, families with
income from poverty line to 200% above the poverty line. And more than one in
five live in families below the poverty line,
according to the National Center for Children in Poverty. So class mobility
is relevant here because moving from the lower
class even to the middle class is a lot rarer than
you might think. There's also the issue of
how race and class intersect. Take, for instance the
dichotomy between Good Times and The Cosby Show. It'll all work out. Where there is a
will, there is a way. Yeah, well Will ain't
been around here lately, and I don't see no way. Good Times follows the
lives of the Evans, a poor black family living
in the high-rise projects of Chicago. The show dealt not
just with poverty but also with the
physical and mental health within the black
community, in particular through the main characters
of Florida and James Evans. While it was praised for its
realistic depiction of working class black people, it was
also heavily criticized by some who said it leaned
too much into stereotypes. That idiotic painting--
I commissioned your son to paint the happy
side of ghetto life. Well, what can't be happier
than shooting a little 8 Ball? The Cosby Show took
a different route, deciding that the Huxtable
family would be an upper class black family with
a doctor father, a lawyer mother, and two
beautiful children raised by moneyed parents and how that
shaped their lives, for better or worse. That's three kids out of the
house and two more to go. A combination of
these two narratives is often to have a family
with origins in poverty but who ascend to new
middle class life because of good old capitalism a la
The Jeffersons, Black-ish, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I don't have a big bag of
fancy courtroom tricks. But what I do have is the truth. Oh, shut up, Will. So all of these
depictions are valid. But you see less and
less of just stories about the poor and
working class that aren't hard-hitting dramas
about the ravages of poverty. Shows like Vida and One
Day at a Time exist, which not only tell stories
about working class families but provide nuanced
portrayals of Latinx families. Don't you like being
in this country? Of course. I like to be in America. And these stories
need to be told. As David Simon, creator of
The Wire and Treme put it, "We were about the America
that got left behind... We were saying
something legitimate about that portion
of the country that doesn't have a lot of
television shows made about it." Sadly, a lot of times
when we do see depictions of the poor and working class,
it's through shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and
Cops or Jerry Springer. The framing is more to other
the poor as a strange, almost subhuman, commodity. Everybody wants to be the
exception to the rules of class-based economy. So it feels good to watch
shows about people who went from nothing to something. This is why a show
like Gilmore Girls can provide such great escapism. It has the background
of a young woman escaping her wealthy blue-blood
family with her daughter and working her way up
from maid to inn owner who also lives in a huge
house and has no credit card debt to pay off. As writer Lily Loofbourow
said in The Cut, "Money is rarely about
money in Gilmore Girls; it's about coercion,
it's about power, but it's also about creating
financial channels for love where other methods failed." And that is how money
is more often framed-- as a hollow avatar for happiness
rather than a real thing that people really need
for social mobility. And you rarely see
mention of welfare or EBT or any of the assistance a
single parent would likely need to survive. The American dream is
built around the idea that the USA is a
meritocracy and that class is based on achievement. If you do well in school
and you work really hard, you will be successful. God, I've had to work
hard every day of my life. What do I have to show for it-- this brief case
and this haircut. And prosperity gospel
says that if you're poor, it's your own fault because
you're bad at thing, except that doesn't account
for generational poverty, like in Shameless, financial
instability like Roseanne, or the realities of
addiction, as in This Is Us. There are countless people
who could have been somebody but never got a chance
because they simply could not escape poverty. People don't want to be
reminded that the system is not built to help working class
and poor people survive. I've been suffering all my life. I'm sorry. It's not enough. You know what it's
like to be poor, and you know what it's
like to work hard. Now you're going
to learn what it's like to sweep floors
and bust your ass and accomplish twice as much
as all the kids around you. And it won't mean anything
because they will still look down on you. It's not fun to watch
people scrape by, especially if you yourself
are already in that position. It hits too close to home. But we can watch the
ongoing conflicts on Downton Abbey, Big Little
Lies, Dynasty, Succession, The Crown, or Mrs. Maisel. And that is a
little more content. Plus, it's fun to
watch the rich be sad.
