student presentation

1. Tyler, I. (2008) ‘Chav mum Chav Scum. Class
Disgust in Contemporary Britain’ .
KENDAL WELSBY
ALLYSE LOCKER

2. INTRODUCTION
• Outline of Tylors (2008) main arguments and concepts.
• The defining features and the social classifications of the ‘chav’.
• Class disgust and the response of the public and media as a repetitive notion.
• Conflicting and views of agreement by Beck and Giddens, Bordieu and Walkerdine.
• Summary and Conclusion.

3. Social Classifications of the ‘Chav’.
•Aligned with stereotypical notions of the lower-class.
•The term is socially constructed to illustrate stereo-types of the white poor.
•Chav disgust is always racializing. Nayak (2003) figures of disgust always placed at borders of whiteness, as
the socially excluded and economically redundant.
•The media portrays the ‘chav’ as a ‘’dangerous class’’, and ‘’savage out-cast’’.
•‘’Chav online’’ – urban dictionary aids in socially classifying figures.
•The ’chav mum’: Circulates within a wide range of media, reality TV, comedy programming on British
television.

4. Tyler’s (2008) Main Concepts and
Arguments.
• Explores the emergence of the grotesque and comic figure of the chav through British media.
• Based on visual perceptions, should also be used to understand class polarization and economic inequality
in Britain.
• ‘’Disgust is always a response to something’’.
•Become a mockery in media which ultimately defends and reproduces upper middle-class entertainment.

5. Evaluation and Other Ideas
• Beck and Giddens argue that globalization and individualization have weakened the power of social group identities.
• Giddens looks at how circumstances of birth and socio-economic positions are of declining importance, individuals are now able to ‘script’
themselves by adopting freely chosen lifestyle choices. Coincides with Tyler’s view, ‘chavs’ choose to persue this persona and
characteristics of the chav lifestyle.
• Beck (1992) argues contemporary risks, i.e environmental, economical, and social force us to behave individually and not as members of
social collectiveness. Whereas Tyler looks at the notions of ‘chav’ as being a part of a wider community.
• The introduction of The Social Exclusion Unit set up under 1997 Labour Government.
• Bordieu – difficulties in defining class as it cannot be mapped as it is always shifting. The term ‘chav’ is less commonly used now, implies
when looking at social inequality/class, a deeper social, economical, political outlook may be more effective, rather than popular trends in
media which are always changing.
• We now have a new focus and interpretation of the ‘underclass’ often linked to problems of migration, (Macioinis and Plummer.)
• The end of class? These social perceptions and stereotyping are difficult to be traced back to class theory.
• Walkerdine (2009) agrees with Tyler as ‘’class is performed, marked and written on minds and bodies’’, social class is conversely also
something we ‘do’.

6. Summary and Conclusion
• ‘’The level of disgust directed at the ‘chav’ is suggestive of heightened class antagonism that marks a new
episode in the ontology of class struggle in Britain’’.
• ‘’Moves through popular culture on a wave of continually repeated disgust reactions’’.
• ‘’We are not only viewers but active users who can enter and affect representational spaces and places’’.
• ‘’Representational regimes dominate within contemporary British social class, and is often highly stereo-
typed and antagonistic’’.