SHAMELESS: MORE THAN ENTERTAINMENT

By Natalie Raskas

Social class identification has become increasingly vague in recent years. Most Americans consider themselves middle class whether they technically qualify or not (Martin, 2018).  However, the lower class, making up around 29% of the population, is still the socio-economic minority in America (Geewax, 2015).  One could argue that most middle- and upper-class Americans have no clue about the common struggles and daily challenges members of the lower-class face. Popular culture, specifically television is one of the primary ways people are exposed to different classes, other than their own.  Sadly, such entertainment can propagate broad misconceptions about the lower class, as is evident in the wildly popular Shameless television series.

Shameless, developed by John Wells is an American TV show based on an original produced in the U.K.  The show depicts a family, “The Gallaghers,” with six children ranging from 2-24 years old, a drunkard father, and an “in and out” bipolar mother.  As the series progresses, one of the teenagers has a baby, adding to the family’s struggles. The oldest daughter, Fiona Gallagher (Emmy Rossum), ultimately raises the other children in a small house in the south side of Chicago.  Americans loved watching this struggling lower-class family drama for nine seasons.

The issue with this show is how the Gallagher family grossly misrepresented a typical lower-class family in the U.S.   Such inaccuracies shape the way viewers, especially middle- or upper-class audiences, are informed about the lower class, which helps continue the stereotypes and misinformation that are spread.  The show portrays the father, Frank Gallagher (David Threlfall), as an alcoholic drug user. Further, the rest of the family members are constantly shown purchasing alcohol and drinking, supporting a skewed view that the lower-class people are typically alcoholics. Not only in the U.S. but around the world, “within critical discourse studies (CDS) it has been observed that working-class people are increasingly being represented in the media as excessive, repulsive, or silly on the basis of both of how they behave and also as regards style choices" (Eriksson, 2016, p. 304). Throughout the series, every character becomes violent in some form, further misrepresenting what it means to be lower class.

Dustin Kidd in his book Pop Culture Freaks discusses class within television and how it is sometimes invisible, but often times only featuring middle class and upper class. In this way, Shameless does well with creating a whole show based on a lower-class family instead of just featuring a side character or two.  Importantly Kidd mentions, “even as television offers varied representations of class experience, it also distorts them (2014, p.74).

In the short clip above drugs, alcohol, arguments, child abuse, stealing, and mental health are all touched upon or shown. In three minutes, the show has illustrated what it looks like to be part of the lower class (as a viewer might interpret), so imagine what the nine seasons have done with this representation.

Other than buying alcohol and drinking daily, the characters never mention government benefits or charitable aide, which some poor or lower-class citizens often pursue assistance even when working low wage jobs. According to the 2015 U.S. Census, approximately 52.2 million (or 21.3 percent) relied on some form of assistance (2015).  Although most of the children in the Gallagher family have jobs, there are six of them. Along with a baby and a small child, they are still able to live in a house, go to school, afford food, and buy extras such as cigarettes and alcohol. The family also seems to find time to have fun. In reality, a typical American lower-class family spends their time working and possibly depending on additional government benefits to help them (food stamps, unemployment, disability, healthcare, etc.).  Somehow, this family manages to get by without any government assistance but with a great deal of alcohol and dysfunction for entertainment’s sake.

Shameless is undeniably exaggerated for comedic purposes, but producers cannot forget about the power of their platform to inform as well as to entertain. The show missed a chance to depict the realities of America’s working class in a realistic matter.

                                                                   References

Eriksson, G. (2016). Humour, ridicule and the de-legitimization of the working class in Swedish Reality Television. Journal of Language and Politics Multimodality, Politics and Ideology, 15(3), 304-321. 

Geewax, M. (2015, December 09). The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/09/459087477/the-tipping-point-most-americans-no-longer-are-middle-class.

Kidd, D. (2018). Movin' on Up: Class Perspectives. In Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, mass media, and society (pp. 63-94). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Martin, E. (2017). 70% of Americans consider themselves middle class—but only 50% are. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/30/70-percent-of-americans-consider-themselves-middle-class-but-only-50-percent-are.html.

Masqueradeboy7 (Director). (2012, April 03). [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUNllG2SmFo.

U.S. Census (2015). 21.3 Percent of U.S. Population Participates in Government Assistance Programs Each Month. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-97.html.

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