[csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be effluent

[Amanda Wise]

John,

What makes your so called 'white trash' of Sutherland shire 'delusional
aspirationals'? 
What about the invisible (to you) comfortable middle classes of the
northern suburbs? What makes them not? Is it because 'white trash' spend
their money on the wrong things? Pastel coloured houses and Freedom
furniture instead of Old Federation Home & Antique furniture? The latter
on the right side of 'Distinction' in your view? The former 'sold out'
by making a few bucks and spending it on  'low culture'?

What makes the fitter & turner, the butcher, the builder, the service
station owner made good (standard issue Sutherland shire residents)
lesser mortals because they shop at Westfield Miranda? (like the
'working classes' don't....)

These people are as multidimensional as you or I. Did they 'all' swing
to Pauline Hanson in 1998? (My recollection is about 8% ONP vote in
shire in 98 - they've been a safe Liberal seat since 1975) I'm also
aware much of that vote came from booths in the western part of the
shire - those more 'working class' /fibro house suburbs in the shire.
What about all the new Chinese residents in Sylvania Waters? Where do
they fit in your schema?

As Jean says, we must not (patronisingly) conflate cultural
distinctions/'low culture' with issues based voting patterns. 

You will also find that many 'white trash' are keenly aware of their
cultural marginalisation, created unthinkingly sometimes by the likes of
us on the progressive left - creating the conditions for a counter
identification with Howard's brand of 'everyday small business bloke
made good' politics. Our patronising and elitist cultural attitudes
towards that demographic simply alienates them and puts then on the
defensive. We are sometimes our own worst enemies...


Amanda
(whose dad was a fitter & turner who made a few bucks in his own
business, who grew up in the Sutherland Shire in Sylvania Waters, who
still has lingering penchant for pastel colours but managed to get a PhD
in cultural studies despite this early setback. And yes... I knew
Noelene and Laurie from the TV show..) Thank god for Bourdieu...)






-----Original Message-----
From: csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au
[mailto:csaa-forum-bounces at darlin.cdu.edu.au] On Behalf Of John Scannell
Sent: Tuesday, 12 October 2004 1:08 PM
To: CSAA discussion list
Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be effluent

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.
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Find local movie times and trailers on *Yahoo! Movies.* 
> <http://au.rd.yahoo.com/mail/tagline/*http://au.movies.yahoo.com>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>
>_______________________________________
>
>csaa-forum
>discussion list of the cultural studies association of australasia
>
>www.csaa.asn.au
>
_______________________________________

csaa-forum
discussion list of the cultural studies association of australasia

www.csaa.asn.au