Julie Burchill Documentary Defending 'Chavs' Screens Tonight On Sky One

Who the fuck watches sky anyway?

Perhaps she could have asked some working class people about the impact charver culture has on their lives instead of just projecting her useless class-hatred on yet another "issue".

Thank goodness someone said that. I was wondering if my hangover had made my brain jumble all the words up.

WTF guys, Sky One is a total geek channel. It's basically Simpsons, Futurama, WWF and Star Trek on rotation all day! Plus the bonus of new american shows a season ahead of Channel 4. It's my favourite channel.

sounded like it was going to be that 'only snobs criticise' line again - one i suspect is also taken mainly by what she would call 'the middle classes' haha

(there were some interesting assertions regarding the extent to which heducation may 'rightfully' be regarded by yoof as a scam/waste of time cf. the whole connections-class-barley phenom in meejah jobs - i will make an effort to get past the demonic cornish minnie-mouse aesthetic and her inability not to mention her dad or biscuit factories in the first 10 mins and watch the thing, i think)

'gone'.

i just kind of don't want to have to ask him "hi matt can you don't change the channel on the cable box from sky one between 21:00 and 22:00, because i want to record this program about chavs".. it just sounds a little weird.

but i feel it's the only way.

Anyway, I discovered that Bodyshock: MegaTumour was on Channel 4 at the same time and decided I could afford to miss the end of the chavs thing. A skinny Romanian woman had an 11 stone (70kg) tumour removed from her back. 11 stone! They transfused 28 units of blood during the operation. Amazing stuff. (Image here http://www.frontrowmorningshow.com/timages/page/tumor.jpg )

i watched that chavs programme last night (i told my flatmate about my chav obsession), and thought it was fun. that lady tried to be all bowling for columbine about it all, but ended up looking silly.

She got really upset when this guy started saying he is equally harsh to supposedly working class chavs as well as yuppies and other silly social stereotypes. Poor Julie went into a huff and sat back on her chair sulking :(

Burchill has lost her fecking mind.

Well, yes you can. Class is class war, and saying it's wrong to abuse the working-class is a populist move. It doesn't follow at all that you can't abuse the middle- or upper-classes.

What do you mean exactly?

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THAT BLOKE SAID THAT GOT JULIE AGITATED!! (except the dude said "piss-taker" rather than curmudgeon)

every usage i ahve heard it used, the "chav=poor people" maxim works pretty well.

on one is an equal opportunity piss taker, that is totally delusional

I prefer the term cowboy.

i suppose i meant to differentiate between 'looking down on' and 'playful mocking' based on issues of taste (tacky jewellery, cheap sports casual etc.)

or yes we should downplay all these annoying terms. go back to hating 'the goths'.

that's right that's right

Also: there is always those papers that run a zany Collen McGlochlin/Prince Harry/Charlotte Church are CHAVS article, and you can be pretty sure that the Burberry these people are wearing is real.

Basically, chav is slang for a working class person that doesn't sit quietly under the feet of the middle class and does its cleaning for it.

I suppose now it's just a fashion thing, I don't know. The clothes, even when they're expensive, look pretty horrible to me.

I have noticed in the last year that trouble seems to be kicking off on public transport a lot, more than I ever remember, and enough that I'm probably going to buy a car b/c I just don't want to fucking deal with it anymore. Always, always charvers doing the kicking off.

I don't know if burberry is tacky per se, but those burberry caps do always look pretty shit.

Basically, chav is slang for a working class person that doesn't sit quietly under the feet of the middle class and does its cleaning for it.

WTF, Dom.

Which is a total ned affectation too

Also an anto thing.

ikea is pretty tasteless, but i shop thwere, dont really cxonsider myself a "chav".

Anto is one word used for these guys in Dublin. From the Dublin abbreviation for Anthony. For full value you have to say it in that dreadful nasal voice, which is almost the same in Dublin as it is in Manchester.

We also call them skangers. Which, if you're saying it properly, sounds like you're being strangled.

according to who? it seems to enjoy a more positive reputation in the public consciousness generally

chavs = tasteless (as in gaudy)/tacky by the same adjudicator no?

i do not recognise applications of chav to anything other than this stereotype

my point exactly.

- when someone can give us a laugh by joking *directly* about belligerent gobshitery, or thuggishness, or loutish inconsideration, or casual vandalism, or world-owes-me-a-living fuckyouness, then we can do away with the displacement/focus on appearance/sound/aesthetic - but of course most of those things are generally too serious to laugh at, and they can't be, without it sounding like the kind of humour that would appeal to (& come from) the ppl we want to make the butt of the joke
('...an Davyboy says 'heers yer punchline ya bam' - and stoats the boy in the puss! haha! )

- so instead, ppl latch on to secondary characteristics, generalizations, needing to find something that seems to be commonly regarded by the desired targets as a +ve, or a badge of identity/pride, and then subject *that* to ridicule: find something they like, and take the piss

so is the question: to what extent does this process commit sloppy-thought crimes ? to what extent do we end up alienating/hurting the feelings of ppl who don’t do any of this bad behaviour, but eg wear all that stuff or have that voice?

sideband - (maybe the more we make initially sloppy generalisations, the clearer the answer becomes: the extent to which cultural feedback brings about an extra dimension of self-consciousness in the decision to wear The Uniform of any identified social tribe is itself a kind of filter: there comes a point at which you wonder whether a sheep that doesn’t mind being mistaken for a particularly badrep kind of goat isn’t just a different kind of tosspot)

but I don’t know how we could get an answer to that question - a massive database correlating white-trainer-and-burberry-cap ownership against criminal behaviour?
But what percentage figure would then ‘justify’ the generalization?
Imagine if it was found that, magically, there was a 100 percent correlation - would the objectors then be ok with the process of ridicule?

I suspect not: one of the things at stake seems to be whether ‘the poor white working class’ should be exempt from being the butt of any jokes, ever : for in a world of inequality, there’s no such thing as an ‘equal opportunities’ piss-taker. The idea seems to be that good and useful humour is that by which the privileged and powerful can be cut down to size (not that this is the only kind of course) - making the not-rich and not-powerful feel a little bit better...
(and any sloppy-generalization ‘injustices’ done in the course of it = water off particularly fat duck’s backs, so nyar nyar nyar)

But the ‘poor white working class’ are not a homogenous lump - and the particular subtribe attracting so much bile are not representative of them: I think the extent to which they would feel ‘victimised’ by mockery of ppl who don’t look/act/think like them is nothing - what's important is the extent to which they actually *are* victimized by gangs of shitehawks who generally *do* look like that, running around their neighbourhoods committing petty/not-so-petty crime.
I don't know whether any social mockery of neds/schemies would be welcomed by yer typical victim of them, since it's of little use/comfort, but I don't think you'd find them bothered by it. Who knows, it might make them feel a bit better - like they're supposed to when the rich & powerful who also oppress them get the piss extracted...

(btw - do the anti-chav hatas think Little Britain's 'Vicky Pollard' character is an affront to the poor white working class? I'm sure i've seen some of the Vexed thinking LB was good…)

my problem with talk of chavs is the assumption that such a thing even exists. In my neck of the woods (and as residents of the local public school) "kevs" simply meant people who went to the state schoool who we were basically afraid of, that seemed mainly interested in modifying vauxhall novas, wearing ellesse polo shirts etc etc. The reason we chose to demarcate such people was becasue we were afraid of them. The problem was that like any lazy generalisation, it was bollocks. This was't a "tribe" or some bullshit socialogical moniker liek that, it was just a bunch of kids who might have worn similar clothes and done similar things.

i think the right to mock people, as per a prgramme i saw earlier todya about the freedom to criticise religious beliefs, is fraught with difficutlies to say the least....

People have accused me of being a chav, or at least a chavalike in recent times, now I realise they just wanted to say I was tasteless or poor. hmmm. Bollocks to the lot of you.

The reason we chose to demarcate such people was becasue we were afraid of them. The problem was that like any lazy generalisation, it was bollocks.

you could just as easily say this about 'goths', 'punks', 'rudeboys', even 'hipsters'

i think the right to mock people, as per a prgramme i saw earlier todya about the freedom to criticise religious beliefs, is fraught with difficutlies to say the least....

it's a cornerstone of humour, and can be as beneficial as it can be harmful. of course it is problematic but what isn't?

watching Shameless right now, and find myself flitting between attitudes such as 'ah, salt of the earth types, hearts in the right place ultimately, we are family etc' and 'jesus, try not getting pregnant for five minutes and actually use your brain for once' - but very reluctant to relate this to class issue as opposed to just 'common sense behaviour in society', if they can be separated without me just coming across as some sort of elitist fascist or something...

you could just as easily say this about 'goths', 'punks', 'rudeboys', even 'hipsters' Interesting.

I think it's interesting that we have given up on elitism in favor of some amorphous levelling egalitarianism. It reminds me of that Vonnegut story, "Harrison Bergeron". Everyone of great note to me has, in one way or another, had to transcend some part of their own class, ethnicity, nationality, or religion.

To despise people for the accident of their birth is contemptibly stupid and maleficent but to refrain from criticizing a culture or subculture from an inappropriately endless urge not to give offence is to give up on standards altogether. To be born to a class is not a fault. Neither is it to identify through experience with others of that class. To prefer that 'tribal' identity to a greater self-knowledge is either sloth or cowardice, as if all that the world offered was pre-ordained by one’s birth. Especially when it is wed to violence and prejudice, such parochialism, be it of the highest or lowest ‘class’, cannot be condoned except through the veiled use of contempt masquerading as compassion or through misplaced and thoughtless clemency.

(That said, there is something sickening about the number of books designed to take the piss out of chavs available nr. the cash desks of yr local Borders etc.)

At the turn of the 90s John Sullivan took Delboy in Only Fools And Horses through this interesting passage of conflict. Del effectively fitting the 'chav' stereotype by living to poor standards in a dilapidated tower block with adult family, selling 'hooky' gear for a living - simultaneously declaring pride in his working class roots and lifestyle whilst dearly wishing for a higher standard of living ("this time next year..."). but Del had no real aspirations and ambitions beyond material wealth - no true desire to broaden the mind culturally or express it artistically. Nonetheless a thoroughly nice chap. Then one day he's grabbed by 'yuppie fever' and tries to cut it with the poshos, sporting filofax etc., seen as 'betraying' those working class roots by those around him. No big conclusion to draw here (yet) just serves as a reminder of how the stereotypes go, why they endure...

i dont really undertand the references to crime and a prizing of material wealth in regard to "chavs" on this thread. to work only towards material wealth is a personality trait, not something sympatmatic of a group of people. Plenty of well connected, well educated scions of the nobilty are mostly interested in furthering their wealth without broadening their horizons further than the next regatta. Are they chavs?

again, i ask people here:

what is a chav?

still not got an answer to that

i mean, laughing at people who are unfortunately enough to have a penis on their heads (or indeed the very unfortunate ones who were born as the tip of a penis!) is also pretty offensive!!

- when someone can give us a laugh by joking *directly* about belligerent gobshitery, or thuggishness, or loutish inconsideration, or casual vandalism, or world-owes-me-a-living fuckyouness, then we can do away with the displacement/focus on appearance/sound/aesthetic - but of course most of those things are generally too serious to laugh at

Some people I work with receive so much hassle, in their daily lives, from teenagers fitting the 'chav' stereotype, that they find it impossible to laugh at any aspect of chavdom. Regardless of all the "let's take the piss out of chavs" books piled high by jump-on-the-bandwagon 'comedy' publishers.

so you don't find this device (mockery of a stereotype tied to class issue but not exclusively) funny ever now? fair enough if you don't, i agree that it's lazy humour but it's still humour.

there have been some very funny threads revolving around the mocking of stereotypes (those poor goths again) in the past. basically, it's all just a bit of fun!