[csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be effluent

[John Scannell]

Mel

Your 'bogan' project is an insightful one...actually it also draws my 
attention to the fact that I have always seen a rather strict 
delineation between the bogan and what I perceive as the 'white trash' 
threat.
I know we don't use that term bogan here in NSW, discourse being what it 
is, but I have empathy with Bogans/Westies but find myself at odds with 
white trash, mainly because of the element of delusional aspiration that 
I ascribe to the latter.
For instance, in a Sydney based context I see Westies/Bogans as more 
working class and aware of their marginalisation whereas for me 'white 
trash' is the working class that think they are upwardly mobile and 
forget how they acheived that mobility which is representing more and 
more of this vaguely identified majoritarian group.
So you could say that Westies are not the same people as those that hail 
from 'the Shire' - the Sutherland Shire in Sydney - who all swung to 
Pauline Hanson a few years back and have swung to the Liberals again 
now. Many of the Westies do listen to Meatloaf but they have probably 
burnt the CDs rather than go to Miranda Fair to buy them.
A great analogy can be found in Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks, which 
although maligned by critics at the time I found to be much more 
insightful about what the former working class does when its finds its 
out of its depth in the cultural capital stakes. Far more insightful 
than say a movie such as The Castle which has all of its archetypes 
screwed up and pissed me off no end. Kath and Kim is similar in this 
respect (although closer to white trash than boganism, they way I see 
it). You can sort me out on that.
Mark Latham needs to be more aware of this delineation (and I can offer 
my services to the Labor party).
They could easily get hold of the lists of subscribers to 'the Franklin 
Mint' and the Hillsong Church for a start.
This would help identify the those that they have lost forever and who 
probably now live or are planning to live on the NSW central coast.
John

Mel Campbell wrote:

> Jean said: "I have to stick my head up here and object to the 
> conflation that is going on here between (bad/debased) taste patterns, 
> (low) class locations and the replacement of issues-based with 
> aspirational politics, if that is indeed what's going on."
>  
> In turn I feel I must stick my head up here and say that even though I 
> now hate my MA thesis and never want to revisit its stupid topic ever 
> again, its main contention was that certain concepts (or discourses, 
> as I Foucauldianly branded them) can be represented in the media as 
> "identity categories" in order to smooth over temporarily the 
> potential for political disquiet in Australia.
>  
> The example I used in the accursed thesis was the concept of the 
> "bogan". I argued that 'bogan' is not a class. It's not a subculture. 
> It's not an aesthetic. It's not a 'real' group of people at all. 
> Instead, it's a technique, most visibly deployed in Australian 
> media, and most clearly so over the last ten or so years, for 
> polarising Australian society while reinforcing the social agenda of 
> the government or ruling social group of the day.
>  
> In the case of the Howard government, parochial and long-standing 
> 'Australian values' have been re-articulated through the figure of the 
> bogan (and similar undesirable "others") to serve their 
> neo-liberal ideological interests. For example, the "battler" and the 
> "fair go" have become "mutual obligation", "queue-jumpers", economic 
> self-interest, and the systematic shift from public to private sector. 
> And you know, I don't see Mark Latham as being substantially different 
> on many of these issues, particularly his obsessive focus on 
> individualism.
>  
> But small-l liberals can be just as divisive. For example, the failure 
> of the republican referendum was interpreted by republican supporters 
> at the time as an "attack of the bogans", those ill-informed morons 
> who would be left-leaning if only they were smart enough. That's why I 
> find it patronising when I hear people bemoaning the stupidity of the 
> Australian electorate last weekend.
>  
> Taste patterns, as Jean points out, are an important way of 
> representing this cultural divide. I actually had a chapter about Kath 
> & Kim in the damn thesis. I argued then (and still believe) that the 
> real issue for us is to analyse how social divisions are constructed 
> through the media, rather than reproducing them in our own thinking.
>  
> But might I add that I am no longer interested in the specific issue 
> of bogans. I just wanted to draw your attention to a wider social 
> technique that I see operating in Australia.
>  
> Cheers,
>  
> Mel.
>
>
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