Class…less
Blitz Magazine
The other day, I was going through my mother’s china and I started thinking about how, these days, no one drinks tea or coffee from beautiful cups, no one enjoys breakfast, lunch, or tea served on beautiful plates. It’s paper cups, plastic-wrapped or boxed lunches, paper napkins, plastic cutlery. Meals take minutes. There is no longer a need for silver toast racks, tongs and dressing ladles. How sad.
The term ‘class’ is a funny thing, and totally misunderstood. Class has nothing to do with income. In fact, these days, it is more often the case when wealth and class are completely in conflict—Donald Trump is a good example, so is most of Hollywood. It would probably be accurate to say that two-thirds of millionaires are low-brow buffoons. I have been in moneyed homes filled with bad art, bad furniture and gold-plated bad taste. I once attended a party in Lausanne at which a filthy rich, highly-titled personage announced his arrival by peeing off a balcony onto the guests below.
Class is a matter of sensibility, not money. There are lots of people of low or middle income who are particular about manners, taste, quality, kindness, respect for others, ethics and honesty. Sadly, that sensibility is not, for the most part, being fostered.
I live in one of Canada’s wealthiest community. Most people would call it ‘upper class’. Yet it is the nation’s Ground Zero of ostentation, a place where people flaunt expensive toys, where dignified, solidly-crafted older homes are demolished in favour of hideous 20,000 sq/ft dwellings designed so that the four people who live in them never have to interact with each other. Most teen-agers have their own BMWs or Mercedes. Take-away bags from birthday parties have to contain at least $100 worth of goods, or else the birthday child will suffer at school. People here are infamous for not paying the people who work on their homes—or their nannies; they’re terrified that others will find out that they’re struggling to meet their credit card minimums and auto lease payments. My neighbour just built a decidedly unattractive $5 million house. It has five garages, none of which will fit her Hummer, which now has to be parked on the street. Not classy.
On a home-improvement radio show, a woman calls in to ask how to prime her antique, solid mahogany cabinet so she can paint it white. Parents let their small children walk around ungroomed, their teen-agers dressed like the lowliest of street people. Young North American girls have the world’s worst voices. Our children have goofy names that, in many cases, will restrictions their careers—who wants a tax attorney named ‘Dynasty’? (Note to Gwyneth: among English people with certain accents, your daughter will be called ‘Appo’.)
What’s going on here? And what has this to do with media communications? Well, I blame programmers, producers and marketers.
If you look back, TV shows like The Honeymooners involved what most would call ‘lower-class’ people, who had dignity, a sense of humour, and the desire to better themselves. Then along came Roseanne Barr, Jeff Foxworthy’s ‘You Know You’re a Redneck When…’ and shows like Married…With Children. It became satisfying, fun, and fashionable to not have good manners, to have bad taste, to celebrate the lock ‘n load sensibility and to not try to improve oneself.
TV consists of embarrassing reality shows, tractor pulls, wrestling, and Bob Seger singing Like A Rock to get city dwellers to buy trucks that gobble gas and won’t fit in parking spaces. Last month, a Toronto promoter wanted to stage a show wherein hockey players, fully-outfitted on the ice, would fight—not play hockey, just fight. In the US, gun sales are through the roof, as are the circulations of magazines catering to the camouflage-clad crowd.
And now there’s I Want to be a Hilton, hosted by Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris. This is a move to the outright humiliation of people as their suitability for ‘club membership’ are judged by Mrs. Hilton. Well, Kathy, people with class don’t let their 14 year-old daughters hang out in night clubs, and try to ensure that they do not become famous for their sexual exploits, and that the cornerstones of their vocabularies extend past ‘It’s/He’s/She’s Haaat’.
Advertising copyrighters have lost their command over the English language. There is a current Coffee Crisp ad in which a girl says: “Just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s a saying Dad,” and a Dairy Queen ad in which a kid says: “Thu End”. This is a problem because bad grammar is contagious. People hear it and think that what they’ve heard is correct. Then it permeates what we end up listening to—the writers of Law & Order have Jack McCoy speaking, at times, like he never graduated from high school.
As I write this, the media is swarming Karla Homolka, determined to track, document and photograph her every move. Maybe she is dangerous—we’ll have to wait and see, but the salaciousness of the coverage is just feeding viewers’ and readers’ most base instincts. Her gender has much to do with it—there are lots of male ex-cons in our society who have committed worse acts but are forgotten by the media and, therefore, society. But, without a doubt, had the media not been so keen on airing every last detail of Karla Homolka’s unspeakable behaviour in the first place, the level of interest in her would be much lower.
No one has capitalized on, or been so instrumental in creation of, our society’s mud-wallowing bent than Wal-Mart. It’s method of operations (greeters), its marketing strategy and its perfectly-aimed TV commercials, have been unbelievably successful. There is a Wal-Mart in North Vancouver. While I normally refuse to shop there, it was the only place that carried some props I once needed for a photo shoot. How depressing. Wal-Mart has positioned itself as an event destination, and that day it was full of wide-eyed people who had traveled from the suburbs for this special treat. Young mothers eager to spend whatever cash they had on crap that will find its way to a landfill in a few months.
Like everyone else, they want in on the 21st century’s version of ‘the good life’, in which we buy, buy and buy some more, and in which it’s so crucial to own a home that people will spend six hours a day commuting, sitting alone in SUVs, distracted from driving by their cell phone conversations and believing that it’s ‘low-class’ to take public transit.
Yes, we are surrounded by evidence of declining sensibilities and it’s very depressing. But it’s not all bad. Last night, after putting the company through bureaucratic and development hell—to the tune of $500,000 US, Vancouver City Council voted to not allow Wal-Mart to build a store in the city. The company wanted into this market so badly that it went to the trouble of designing a first-of-its-kind environmentally-perfect store. It now looks like we’ve seen the last of Wal-Mart. Hope springs eternal.