Blue Collar Aristocrats: Life Styles at a Working Class Tavern.E. E. LeMasters

This chapter argues that the growing obsession of sportswriters in recent decades with so-called “blue-collar” fan bases and “blue-collar” professional athletes has abetted the larger project of neoliberalism by masking and justifying economic inequality in cities like Chicago. The ongoing insistence of Chicago’s sports pages that local teams enjoy the support of “blue-collar” fan bases erases successful efforts by teams to price out the working-class by increasingly catering to affluent fans on the winning side of the upward redistribution of wealth. Moreover, the relatively recent trend of local journalists labeling Chicago’s professional, millionaire athletes as “blue-collar” encapsulates the broader trend within the mainstream media of discussing class as a matter of personal style rather than a matter of material circumstance.

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Do Voters Dislike Working-Class Candidates? Voter Biases and the Descriptive Underrepresentation of the Working Class

American Political Science Review ◽

10.1017/s0003055416000551 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 110 (4) ◽

pp. 832-844 ◽

Cited By ~ 52

Author(s):

NICHOLAS CARNES ◽

NOAM LUPU

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Working Class ◽

Personal Characteristics ◽

White Collar ◽

Choice Experiments ◽

The United States ◽

Blue Collar

In most democracies, lawmakers tend to be vastly better off than the citizens who elect them. Is that because voters prefer more affluent politicians over leaders from working-class backgrounds? In this article, we report the results of candidate choice experiments embedded in surveys in Britain, the United States, and Argentina. Using conjoint designs, we asked voters in these different contexts to choose between two hypothetical candidates, randomly varying several of the candidates’ personal characteristics, including whether they had worked in blue-collar or white-collar jobs. Contrary to the idea that voters prefer affluent politicians, the voters in our experiments viewed hypothetical candidates from the working class as equally qualified, more relatable, and just as likely to get their votes. Voters do not seem to be behind the shortage of working-class politicians. To the contrary, British, American, and Argentine voters seem perfectly willing to cast their ballots for working-class candidates.

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Cutting, Driving, Digging, and Harvesting: Re-masculinizing the Working-Class Heroic

Canadian Journal of Communication ◽

10.22230/cjc.2011v36n4a2419 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 36 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Augie Fleras ◽

Shane Michael Dixon

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Self Control ◽

Blue Collar ◽

The Past ◽

Control Motivation ◽

Abstract Television ◽

The Media ◽

Tv Shows

ABSTRACT Television portrayals of working-class males in blue-collar jobs have in the past proven unflattering at best, demeaning at worst. But a new breed of unscripted TV shows articulates a fundamentally different narrative about the unsung heroism of working-class men. This article explores the narratives and images associated with the re-masculinization of blue-collared working-class males as real men in contrast to conventional working-class misrepresentations as persons lacking self control, motivation and commitment. This genre of “macho” male programs constitutes a key ideological tool by which “hegemonic” narratives of conventional masculinity are internalized through the “pleasures of the media.” The authors conclude that, despite the recent valorization of blue-collar values, contributions, and identities, representational distortions and content omissions persist in portraying workingclass realities.RÉSUMÉ La manière dont les médias ont dépeint les hommes de la classe ouvrière dans des emplois de cols bleus a été dans le passé peu flatteuse au mieux et dégradante au pire. Mais un nouveau type d’émission non-scénarisé articule une narration fondamentalement différente qui porte sur l’héroïsme méconnu des hommes de la classe ouvrière. Cet article explore les narrations et les images associées à la « remasculinisation » des cols bleus par rapport à la façon dont on les a décrits traditionnellement, à savoir comme des hommes manquant de maîtrise de soi, de motivation et de persévérance. Ce genre de programme sur le mâle macho est un outil idéologique clé par lequel les spectateurs, grâce au « plaisir des médias », internalisent des narrations hégémoniques sur la masculinité conventionnelle. Les auteurs concluent que, malgré la reconnaissance récente des valeurs, contributions et identités des cols bleus, des distorsions représentationnelles et des omissions de contenu persistent dans la manière dont les médias dépeignent la classe ouvrière.

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Survivalism and Other Class Fantasies

American Literary History ◽

10.1093/alh/ajz037 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 850-859

Author(s):

Alison Shonkwiler

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Knowledge Economy ◽

Uneven Development ◽

Blue Collar ◽

Political Subject ◽

Early Twenty ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

Cultural Persistence ◽

Shed Light

Abstract The subjective demands of crisis capitalism are addressed by three books on the literature and culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. These texts shed light on the possibilities and limits of materialist critique in holding various forms of ruthless, abstracted, and injurious capitalism to account. Measuring the uneven development of neoliberal subjectivities across different groups and conditions invites readers to theorize the class dimensions embedded in aesthetic narratives. An analysis of the “microeconomic mode” of contemporary subjectivity, which redefines the traditional liberal political subject to a narrowly survivalist subject of “life-interest,” offers a way of understanding how populations become increasingly sortable into more- and less-disposable groups. A study of deindustrialization literature, focused on the working-class experience, considers the cultural persistence of the blue-collar figure in a service and knowledge economy. A study of finance fictions argues that contemporary capitalism fits a new, psychotic paradigm and requires theorizing a new financial ontology of the present.

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Whose Class Is It Anyway? The “White Working Class” and the Myth of Trump

Labor in the Time of Trump ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501746598.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 87-105

Author(s):

Sarah Jaffe

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Income Distribution ◽

Popular Media ◽

Blue Collar ◽

People Of Color ◽

Median Income ◽

College Degrees ◽

Blue Collar Workers ◽

2016 Election ◽

White Working Class

This chapter unpacks myths about the white working class and its support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Popular media wrongly suggest that millions of white, economically disadvantaged, uneducated blue-collar workers were responsible for Trump's victory. The chapter examines the evidence, showing that two-thirds of Trump voters made more than the median income but more than half of those without college degrees were in the top half of the income distribution. The chapter suggests that these voters were not motivated by enthusiasm about Trump's priorities but rather were protesting a system that had left them behind. The myth of the struggling white working-class voter, clamoring for Trump to make America great again, ignores the millions of working-class workers who are people of color and misunderstands racism. This chapter shows how important it is to listen to Trump voters, to understand why working-class people are angry, and to question the media's narrative of the white working class.

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