Eat the Rich: Classism in the UK Entertainment Industry, Pt. 3 - Intro [ONTD Original]
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
Introduction - Appetizers:
For what’s the sound of the world out there-those crunching noises pervading the air?
So, sit down for this interwoven story (this is bestseller material, y’all): About a few weeks ago, I (an American to clarify) came across another American anglophile (I will not name names here) who got wrapped in a conversation with a good British sis (who has lived in the UK their entire lives, needless to say). The American believed that their living in the glorious four kingdoms that is the UK for half a year somehow gave them an enlightened and authoritative perspective on the classism plaguing the very old, traditional, complex and nuanced culture of Britain.
To paraphrase the ~Cultured Kween~ they said, “It’s laughable that you [the Brit] think rich actors shouldn’t play poor characters. It’s not an actor’s fault they were born rich, so stop attacking them. Acting is called acting for a reason.” Um… oof. The conversation very rapidly-and without surprise-exploded into a hot mess (the good British sis was 1,000 percent on top of her game, though!). As a shameless American tea boo myself, I couldn’t believe what was unfolding before my eyes-that another American (born and raised in America with a distinctly American perspective on classism) thought they had authority over an actual native British person-a working-class British person at that who has had to deal with Britain’s classist system since the beginning of time.
I thought (in regards to the American), “Yo, good for you that you’ve lived in the UK for six months (and the Netherlands and Denmark which, for your information, boo has nothing do with this discussion). What does that prove, exactly? Your argument is no more valid, sis. You’re still seeing matters through an American lens. Lord!”
There is no way in ever-loving Satan’s Hell that us Americans will ever fully comprehend the nuances of British classism (and I appreciate there were Brit users here in the last post that schooled me on things I got wrong). I will wholly admit that-even as I write and research this post from an outsider’s point of view (not even the fact that I have pen pals and relatives from the UK and Ireland will change that). In its present state, the issue happening in the British entertainment industry is far more complicated than a handful of posh actors embodying working-class roles. The good British sis even said to the American (to paraphrase their words) that if the number of posh actors and working-class actors were even, the fact that posh actors are playing working-class people wouldn’t be as glaringly obvious as it is. In a perfect world, everyone would be able to represent everyone. However, that is not the world we live in.
According to statistics pulled from the 2013 Great British Class Survey, only 27 percent of actors come from underprivileged backgrounds. Although this was almost seven years ago, updates to the survey have not yet been conducted so presently for our frame of reference, that number is depressingly small. Why is this so? Because the system shuts out working-class people from the arts. Deliberately. It may be one part of a larger issue, but it does matter that posh, privileged actors who were able to enter the industry because of their privilege and education and connections are interpreting a class of people living realities they will never truly experience, the same kind of working-class people who are actively being screwed over by systematic oppression and struggle to make it in the arts (if they can even get in). Privileged actors-whether they deny their privilege or not-do, absolutely, benefit from being born middle-class.
The NewStatesman said in 2016, “The class hierarchy in the British acting industry doesn’t exist in a vacuum: it’s reflective-perhaps an exaggeration-of the rigged opportunities shutting the working class out of most positions of power, status, and wealth in this country. […] Employers-themselves, more likely to be white, male, and wealthy-are drawn to people with similar traits and that’s the same in a law firm as it is in a TV commissioner’s office. (As schedulers fixate on Downton Abbey and the domination of Location, Location conservatism, think how rare it is now to see working-class lives on TV. Benefits Street doesn’t count.)”
The American then asked the Brit (to paraphrase), “Is it possible that there are jobs out there, outside of acting, that rich people don’t benefit from because of their background?”
Simply: no.
Matthew Weaver wrote for the Guardian in 2015 that as it is especially visible in Britain, “poshness tests” which determine education, manners, diction and accents are enforced by employers at the country’s most sought-out companies to sort through applications, statistics which were found by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. “The commission examined the recruitment processes at 13 elite law, accountancy and financial companies who between them appoint 45,000 of the best jobs in the country. It found that 70% of jobs offered by those firms in 2014 went to applicants from private or selective schools, even though such schools only educate around 11% of the population.” This is merely an extension of an age-old discrimination. “The report warned top companies that they were ‘denying themselves talent, stymying young people’s social mobility and fuelling the social divide that bedevils Britain’.” Ironically, the Guardian shares a history of hiring journalists from privileged backgrounds and those that were educated at red brick universities.
The American added (again, to paraphrase), “Should rich people be targeted and punished for wanting to contribute to the arts?”
*deep sigh*
It gets better. “Well,” the American said, “don’t you think rich actors will develop empathy by playing poor people?”
Okay, where’s my girl Diane to knock some sense into this dingbat?
“It’s on producers, agents, casting agencies and casting directors,” the American continued, “that give people their jobs. They hold the power. They are responsible for hiring. [OP note: Which is true in theory, but one manifestation of the issue.] They are the ones that limit a person’s ability to secure roles in Britain. They choose the best actor regardless of background.”
Danny Leigh argued for the Guardian in 2018, “Move through the ranks of the business-past the actors, writers and directors-and eventually you reach the producers, development executives, the heads of production companies and funding bodies. Here at last are the decision-makers who shape everything British you see on a cinema screen. Socio-economically, it is a group drawn from the same pool as so many of our MPs, lawyers and journalists. […] With class, the situation has never been one in which a small group of people have been shut out of British film; rather, a small group of people [OP note: middle class] have shut themselves inside it.” This group, due to privileged backgrounds and experiences and education, more often than not remain uncomfortable with lending agency to working-class voices. They do, in theory, hold the power, but are unwilling to change.
“It’s not the fault,” the American said, “that a rich actor was born into privilege. [OP note: Again, this is also true in theory, but misses the root of the issue entirely.] When the first Harry Potter movie was cast, there were open casting calls. The income of potential kids didn’t matter to the producers. With open casting calls, everyone gets the same opportunities.”
Oh, boy. I had to tell her: Never mind the fact that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson-two of our main characters out of the trio-were either privileged or connected even prior to being cast. The Potter casting team specifically visited posh-as-hell stage schools to seek out “posh” girls like Emma for Hermione as a book-smart Muggle-born witch (as stated in Part 1, she went to the Dragon and Stagecoach when she was cast in 2000).
We’ll get to DanRad in the Main Course, but my Ginger King Rupert Grint-out of the three co-leads (yes, leads)-was the only one who had no upper leg. He was from a lower-class family in Essex; his dad, Nigel works as a memorabilia dealer and his mother, Joanne (nee Parsons) is a homemaker. He attended a non-prestigious all boys’ state comprehensive school, Richard Hale and the Top Hat Stage School, a local arts school without the caliber of Stagecoach which offers scholarships (both are in Hertfordshire), and sent in three different tapes for the part of Ron before he was scheduled an in-person audition.
The Potter team very clearly looked for someone “less posh” to play Ron, and I learned from some informative comments in Part 1 that the Weasleys, at least in the films which are Americanized, are framed as “working-class” even if that’s not necessarily true for the books. [OP note: Thanks to meadowphoenix for elaborating on minor branch nobility and xellabelle for schooling me on the differences between wealth and class!] Rupert, from Essex, has a southeastern accent compared to Emma’s “posh” accent from Oxford and Daniel’s West London accent. It goes without saying, however “heightened RP” and/or “posh” is the most common type of Brit accents heard in media (this is also because of the biases enforced in drama school training and critics refer to the dominance of posh and an appetite for the middle to upper-class lifestyle in media as the “Downton effect,” a reference to the popular show Downton Abbey).
In an ideal world, we could all give zero fucks like Ginger Prince Ron Weasley.
The distinction of education, wealth, class, mannerisms, accents, ancestry or connections shouldn’t matter but sadly, it is a familiar asset plaguing the industry and British society at large. In a perfect world, nobody should have to care.
Locating unknown kids from well-to-do backgrounds wasn’t purely contained to the early films or the trio, either. I could easily discuss all the kids who were privately educated (Bonnie Wright), came from well-off families (Katie Leung) or have family members in the industry (Josh Herdman, Harry Melling, Alfred Enoch, Hero Fiennes-Tiffin), but due to limited space, this deserves its own post (I won’t guarantee anything just yet!). It is apparent: the producers mainly visited and set up auditions for kids from these exclusively private and/or stage schools. Now, private education isn’t necessarily an indication that a child comes from a privileged or a well-connected family [OP note: thanks to nomorefrostbite for the correction!], but since the country abolished the direct grant grammar schools in the Thatcher era of the mid-70s which gave kids from the lower classes and states schools to receive posh education, that can be the case. Very few of any of the kids in Harry Potter (if one were to Wiki or IMDb-search their names and Google around), whether a part of the main cast or in minor roles, weren’t from fee-paying schools. Only some of the main cast (Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis and James and Oliver Phelps) were not connected or privately educated. This is not a coincidence. There is a pattern here. I have no personal beef with any of these kids; they were well cast, but the fact many of them came from posh or stage schools or privileged families is telling.
By contrast, look at the cast for E4’s Skins where the casting method saw a different approach to discovering their kids. Some of the cast, like Nicholas Hoult came from a well-connected background (his great-aunt was a renowned actress) and was educated at a Christian grammar school. Hannah Murray’s parents work at the University of Bristol, a red brick university. Others, like Jack O’Connell, Joe Dempsie, Dev Patel and Daniel Kaluuya (to name a handful), are working-class from council estates and either went to state or comprehensive schools with no prior industry connections or experience. (I could list off the entire cast like the Potter kids, but again, this can be a whole separate post.) If open casting calls for child and teen actors give all kids the same opportunities as kids from fee-paying schools (or kids with parents who have the luxury to take time off from work or quit good-paying jobs to chauffeur them to auditions, callbacks and screen tests or chaperone them on set), wouldn’t there be more kids from underprivileged backgrounds working in the industry in high-profile projects? No, not everyone in open casting calls earns the same opportunities. Life, unfortunately, is not built off meritocracy.
It is not a recurring affliction that is strictly rooted to the casting and agency process (although, it certainly contributes to it). The problem lies in education, class, wealth or heritage being above almost any other qualification in British culture. Working-class actors accounting for only 27 percent in the industry is not an accident.
Did this very clever American go to the Daisy Ridley school of logic?
Alex Andreou, a Greek actor-turned-journalist for the Guardian and employee at the Sturdy Beggars Theatre Company, wrote in 2014, specifically arguing against the dominance of the posh accent taught in drama schools and as a consequence, frequenting the media: “As a stranger to these shores, I find […] the primarily English-preoccupation with class, fascinating. It operates in very complex ways in a theatrical context, with a blurring of lines between class, education, culture and regionality. […] The real question is why so many actors choose to take the posh accent they were trained to do outside the theatre or film set and make it the language of their auditions and interviews. Is it because of a lingering sense of shame about their background? Is it a desire to fit in with the, in my experience, largely bourgeois writers, directors, TV execs and commissioners? Perhaps there is a clue in the practice of bestowing titles as the highest accolade in our profession. ‘You made it. You are hereby officially admitted into the aristocracy’.”
[OP note: Sources can be found in the main post linked below.]
Click for Main Course...
Should the rich eat cake instead of the poor?
