Reviewing Owen Jones’ Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class
While discussing unfortunate misrepresentations within British society, Owen Jones’ Chavs: Dehumanization of the Working Class (2011) is highly applicable to the media coverage of working-class people in many Western societies. Jones uses the term “chav” (2011) as symbolic of the most common portrayal of the working class – comparable to the derogatory Dutch epithet, “tokkie”. These distasteful terms can be understood as relating to anti-social behaviour and raise negative connotations of less affluent members of society as lazy, criminal and rude, among other depictions. The terms ultimately result in the harmful stereotyping of the working class and – as Jones puts it – their “demonization” (Jones 2011).
As he writes on a subject rarely tackled in mainstream media, Jones provides an effective entry-level analysis of the representations and realities of the British working class over the span of the last thirty years. It is important to consider that his argument does not concern the act of labelling the working class as “chavs”, but instead targets the underlying mechanisms that created such class contempt. Using a range of examples, including interviews and case studies, he demonstrates that working-class organisations and communities have eroded.
One of many striking cases seen within the titular Chavs concerns the broadcasting of the BBC televised programme The Future of the Welfare State, presented by well-known interviewer John Humphrys. The show claimed that “Britain was living in an ‘age of “entitlement’” (Jones 2011, 24), alongside other controversial claims. This statement in question reinforces the connotations surrounding the working class as greedy and reliant upon the welfare state to avoid employment. As the programme was later found to have violated the BBC Trust’s regulations of impartiality and accuracy, Jones illustrates the media’s indulgence of biased sources. This indulgence includes the broadcasting of overemphasised cases of working-class individuals faking health conditions to claim welfare benefits. The sad truth is that these cases are far more uncommon than the media portrays. From decreases in payments given to the unemployed and sick to the reduction of industrial and mining sectors, Chavs sheds light on the ever-growing narrative of the “lazy” chav that “lacked aspiration” (Jones 2011, 28), despite the reality of incomes falling behind in an ever-growing social housing crisis.
In addressing the complexity of the working-class struggle, Jones places significant emphasis on Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government of the 1980s. As Jones puts it, “Thatcher’s assumption of power in 1979 marked the beginning of an all-out assault on the pillars of working-class Britain” (2011, 10). Hence, his analysis illustrates the deindustrialisation of Britain under Thatcher’s government, marking the dissipation of the traditional working-class community. While she worked toward an ideological campaign for a consumer-based, individualistic population, as seen in the initiation of marketised education, Jones’ analysis allows readers of all backgrounds to understand the impacts these ideals had and continue to have on industrial and welfare policies today.
Despite Jones’ approach lacking an academic nature, the text opens the arena of discussion to the general reader while employing statistical evidence in explaining his main arguments. Illustrating the reality that lies behind the data on wealth disparity and the relations between immigration and wages (to name a few), Jones tackles the ineffectiveness of both Conservative and New Labour governments that have maintained and created a commonplace for the narrative of the lazy unemployed. A similar notion is seen within Katz’s Undeserving Poor, where the American titular portrays the view of poverty as personal failure (Katz 1989). However, unlike Katz, Jones pays particular attention to the media’s representation of outrageous events – from child disappearances to the collapse of trade unions – and the role it played in the fragmentation of communities. While both critically acclaimed works approach issues of blame-the-poor politics, cases such as the aforementioned BBC violation of accuracy allow Chavs to draw an unforgettable image of elitist media representation, thus bringing the issues closer to home than Katz’s analysis from 33 years ago.
Overall, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class is persuasive and passionate, alongside being accessible to a wide range of viewers within and outside of the political and academic arenas. This insightful work, although focused on the realm of British government, is applicable to societies beyond the UK. By bringing the prominence of middle-class-centred policies and media coverage to light, Jones tackles processes that maintain misrepresentations of the working class while illustrating the reality of struggle hidden behind the curtain.
References
Jones, Owen. 2011. Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso.
Katz, Michael B. 1989. The Undeserving Poor. New York: Oxford University Press.