Chav-tastic

[dreamer_easy]

Oh, now I get what the hell a "chav" is. They're the young people in Britain you're supposed to be afraid of and allowed to sneer at. It was a reference to "the national sport of chav-baiting" in a news item that tipped me off. The Australian equivalent at the mo would be young Lebanese-Australian men.

Comments

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Vicky in Little Britian is an example of a chav.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Isn't she a character played by an actor?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Except Chav is a class/taste distinction, not an ethnic one. So it corresponds better to 'bogan' or 'westie'.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Oh, but the feared and mocked group is often a mixture of class and race, as in the US, where it's poor young Black men. There's always some group of The Kids for the media to tell us to bolt our doors against.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Sure, but chavs aren't really feared much - there is little of the scary 'other' about them, rather they the other that differs from us only in style, taste, class, and education. You don't bolt your doors against chavs particularly, you sneer at them.

Becks and Posh are the King and Queen of the Chavs. They and their fans aren't feared, and the media loves them - but they sure get sneered at a lot.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the panic over happy slapping.

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

Does it really? Changed since I last used "Westie", then.

Back in the day, it used to mean a guy who had a mullet and lived out in Henderson-way.

And it was mostly used as a joke.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Class/taste - ie the sort of person who thinks its tasteful to have a mullet, and who will generally be of a particular of a particular social background as well (that in Sydney, happens to be associated with the Western suburbs, but the same stereotype goes by a different name and is less geographically specific in other capital cities).

[jblum.livejournal.com]

It's more an urban variant on the "white trash" stereotype, even though it crosses racial lines.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Have there been moral panics in the US about poor Whites? I'll bet there have. Although it's possible Americans are supposed to be afraid of poor young Black men and laugh at poor young White women, spreading the snobbery around.

[jblum.livejournal.com]

Have there been moral panics in the US about poor Whites? I'll bet there have.

Not moral indignation so much as moral contempt, a portrayal of them as degenerates. A la Deliverance.

[adrian-middle.livejournal.com]

Chav is one of those things that changes over time. I first came across the word around Sunderland and Newcastle, where the term charva was used to describe single mums on council estates who had lots of kids by different men and wore polyester tracksuits all day. That was the "white trash" analogy.

When it moved southwards the word chav came to be used unisexually, amd implied that someone was aspiring to join the nouveau riche without having the skills or education to be middle class. Track suits were jazzed up and started to be bolstered by "bling" (cf. Ali G), and around Essex the chav culture's love of Burberry began to create a very distinct class.

Chavs these days are seen as poorly educated people who have the wealth of the middle classes but the social characteristics of the unemployed. Sample chavs are Michael Connelly ("King of the Chavs" - a lottery winner) and Daniella Westbrook (ex-Eastenders actress renowned for disintegrating her septum on cocaine and wearing lots of Burberry).

There's a reasonably detailed explanation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav but some of it's a little suspect.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You know, the Aztecs would actually kill people for dressing like someone wealthier. I suppose all the British can do is sneer and ph33r.

[adrian-middle.livejournal.com]

You know, being a Doctor Who fan I find it rather ironic that, while chav culture strives to be an acceptable alternative to the middle class, the new series of Doctor Who is a middle class institution that strives to be acceptable to chav culture.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

It is a lot more inclusive than the old show, especially when it comes to class!

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

It's true, you wouldn't see a character like, say, Ace coming from a single-parent home in an area implied to be dangerous, racist, and less affluent. :) Point taken, though - it really was only in the last couple of years there that the world became a non-white, non-middle-and-upper-class place. Most race and class issues seemed to be dealt with in SF allegory before that. (Mind you, Rose's council estates seem very affluent, safe, and free of all race tensions, which I think probably does say we're looking at something essentially middle class aspiring for the visual trappings of a class that's not, without the actual downsides of a character who's been raised somewhere that actually features any racism or muggings or being poor. She's never really blurted out anything awkward for middle-class viewers to hear, unlike, say, "white kids firebombed my friend's house".)

[saltmarsh.livejournal.com]

She's never really blurted out anything awkward for middle-class viewers to hear, unlike, say, "white kids firebombed my friend's house".

I have to absolutely agree with this. Disclaimer: I am a huge Seven/Ace fan. But... there doesn't seem to be anything about Rose or her environment that could be perceived as threatening. Even though the council estate setting is potentially very relevant in this current era of ASBOs, underclass conflict etc, there's no hint of these problems in the show at all. Quite interesting to compare the portrayal of Rose's harmonious council estate with that of Perivale, which was condemned as a no hope pit full of NF supporters and lost youth. I think both could be argued to be middle class representations though?

I'm quite uncomfortable with the use of the term 'chav, actually, even for comedy purposes. Perhaps that's just me.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

No, it's not just you. Actually, it was pretty funny watching fandom debate whether Rose was a "chav" after New Earth, apparently blithely unaware that the Lady Cassandra is a stuck-up snob.

I dunno whether showing one of these council estate places and its inhabitants as fairly safe and normal is subversive or patronising. I wonder if at some point RTD will retool Damaged Goods for the new show? Probably leave out the scene where the gay-bashed man stitches up his own wound with needle and thread, though.

[saltmarsh.livejournal.com]

No, it's not just you.

Ah, fair enough.

I dunno whether showing one of these council estate places and its inhabitants as fairly safe and normal is subversive or patronising.

That's what I can't work out, either. I mean, in one way it's a positive model, and there are seven squillion children watching, so that's good, and it could be wonderfully subversive, but at the same time, there's a sort of 'look at these comedy poor people!' feel about it to me, especially with Jackie Tyler. Again, MHO. Jury's still out. It's like it's as political as the McCoy era, but angled somewhat differently. I'd be intrigued to see if Damaged Goods worked its way into the new series.

Oh on an entirely different subject, dunno if you're at all into funny little synchronicities, but in this week's Time Out (London) there's a special feature on Paris, and one of the people they've talked to about their favourite places in the city is a young African woman called Kadiatou. Tickled me, anyway.

Um, hope you don't mind if I friend you. I've been a big enough fan for long enough, I should really... :)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

No of course not - the more the merrier!

[saltmarsh.livejournal.com]

Thanks - done!

[infinitarian.livejournal.com]

It is a lot more inclusive than the old show, especially when it comes to class!

The portrayals may have been somewhat lacking in authenticity, but two of the first Doctor's companions, to whit Dodo and Ben, were supposed to be present-day working-class people. Admittedly it would take the show until 1987 before that happened again (unless you count Benton), but it deserves points for early effort, at least.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Think you might be using a bit of Internet mathematics there, mate. :-)

[infinitarian.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't trying to extrapolate a general rule -- just suggesting that, for a BBC programme in the mid-60s, mid-60s Who tried to be more class-inclusive than one might have expected. Of course it did so from a very middle-class perspective -- Dodo and Ben are clearly working-class characters written by middle-class writers. (But then so are Rose and Jackie.)

Later on, the programme wouldn't even make this effort, which I agree was a shame... and Ace on TV isn't a much more convincing working-class teenager than Dodo was, so they hadn't learned much in the interim either.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. The fear is mostly about upstarts upsetting their place in society, I think, rather than physical fear, although that's there too. It's great, because it's presented (by the meeja etc) as a choice of these young people, so you're allowed to be utterly vile in a way that you wouldn't dream of if you realised you were talking about class.

I don't know anything about Australian society, I'm afraid, but I think that one difference between Lebanese-Australian men and chavs is not so much race, but nationality. The chavs are British, so they can't be talked about as not assimilating in "our" culture, as immigrants and refugees are. I think that's a major cause of the fury they inspire in people.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Also, I saw the Chris Rock "black people"/"niggers" bit on TV the other day, and it reminds me somewhat of that.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Ha! They have no excuse! I'll bet that's part of the scorn directed at quote white trash unquote, too.

[vindaloo-vixen.livejournal.com]

Me: She's like a...like a...do they have chavs in Australia?
Sister: Yeah. They're called bogans.

Descriptive? I guess if you were to call someone a chav, the aforementioned Vicky from Little Britain would be a great example. As would, it has to be said, Rose Tyler. And maybe her mother. Kerry Young off The Bill would probably qualify, too. (They don't necessarily have to be blonde, but the 'stereotype' often is.)

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

I once lived with a woman exactly like Jackie Tyler, only perhaps less empathetic. She wasn't a "chav" at all, but the defining feature of this woman was that she watched a minimum of five hours of soap operas every single day (and more on Sundays), and acted like that was where she got all her understanding of the world around her, like she'd walked right out the TV herself. That's really the only thing I'd hold against the Jackie character; that she's portrayed like an amalgam of every female soap opera character ever, and therefore doesn't have a great deal of originality as a character.

[amy-chesis.livejournal.com]

You know the Goth-spotter entries on purplepooka's journal where she documents the aggressive gobshites who hurl abuse at complete strangers? Nearly always it'll be a "chav". (or "scally" in Liverpool/"charver" in Newcastle) But I'd say it less about class and more about attitude.

[clarity-dog.livejournal.com]

I'm from Boston, MA., and we have "chavs" here too, only we call them "yah doods." You know, backwards baseball cap, really thick Boston accent, generally decent kids but occasionally so willfully ignorant that your brain hurts. Don't really think about much else than beer, boobs, and the Red Sox. All perfectly good things, mind you, but it can get sort of ridiculous after a while. And their response to everything? "Yahh doood!" Hence the name.

Here, at least, it's not really a class thing - it's more upbringing, where you live, and what you've been exposed to, I guess. "Chav" seems to mean someone similar - willfully ignorant, lowest common denominator kids. Although only someone as snobby as Cassandra would think Rose was a "chav."

...or do I have no idea what I'm talking about?

[issi-noho.livejournal.com]

Fear? No. Sneer? Yes.

(This may have been pointed out already, but I'm not wading through the whole thread.)