Gordon Ramsays magic touch !

bendix

ninky wrote: »

then what exactly makes me middle class since my parents too were eligible for council housing, i went to comprehensive, got free school meals and university grant?

?

my blind prejudice of course!

Why should i let facts get in the way of a good discussion?

yorksrabbit

Media consumers get the media they want, and no newspaper or TV company is ever going to put money in the bank by ignoring that.

If media is dumbing down (well, there's no 'if' about it) then it's only because such vacuity finds favour with a substantial audience.

It may not be my audience and it may not be yours but denying the existence of a causal relationship is daft.

(And bringing the hoary old cliche of social class / intellectual ability into it, even dafter: you can be as thick as brick and still run a British bank or building society. Or even an entire Government.)

Lower class / middle class / upper class. Rich, poor, in-between. Some like life stupid. Some don't. End of story.

ninky_2

yorksrabbit wrote: »

Media consumers get the media they want,

so car drivers get the cars they want? wine drinkers get the wine they want? clothes wearers get the clothes they want? and home buyers get the properties they want?

nonsense! it's all determined by your purchasing power. the truth is that formatted tv is pile 'em high sell 'em cheap cultural content.

dacouch

The thing that amuses me with GR (Apart from his own self importance) is if you watch his programs from his early series until the most recent is he gets more and more abusive and swears more.

I know it makes good tv etc but its such a cliche.

P.S As my dad says you cannot polish a tu%d

yorksrabbit

ninky wrote: »

so car drivers get the cars they want? wine drinkers get the wine they want? clothes wearers get the clothes they want? and home buyers get the properties they want?

nonsense! it's all determined by your purchasing power. the truth is that formatted tv is pile 'em high sell 'em cheap cultural content.

Er. . . the exercise of individual preference is as great or greater than the exercise of individual spending power.

The formatted TV to which you refer may well be piled high and sold cheap but that doesn't mean it is axiomatically consumed by an audience that's similarly piled high, and is collectively cheap.

A barrister friend of mine has watched every episode of something called Big Brother. She also likes something called Get Me Out of Being A Celebrity. She earns more in an hour than most do in a day.

Advancing an argument that the audience for piled-high-cheap-TV is one which, though it may aspire to higher things, is constrained in its choice by virtue of its spending power, is just a leeetle patronising. . ?

As I said before: some like it stupid. Some don't.

Against which, all this agonising about social classes, incomes and aspirations is pretty much irrelevant.

ninky_2

yorksrabbit wrote: »

the exercise of individual preference is as great or greater than the exercise of individual spending power.

i disagree with you on this point.

your barrister friend may enjoy her fix of reality tv just as the middle classes might enjoy a bargain hunt at the car boot. it is easy to opt under your purchase, either permanently or once in a while.

however, it is not possible to opt over your purchase power (on a sustainable level anyway). so you are far less likely to find low earners at the opera than barristers among big brother viewers.

i go back to my primark v saville row example. is it just taste preferences that determine the consumer base of each, or is it purchasing power?

yorksrabbit

ninky wrote: »

i go back to my primark v saville row example. is it just taste preferences that determine the consumer base of each, or is it purchasing power?

As there's no either/or about it, surely the question's academic?

Saddling the issue of audience choice with complex socio-economic and behavioural considerations -- so complex, even you find yourself having to simplify 'em down to an either / or option -- is a headache not worth having.

Some like stupid. Some don't.

I appreciate, much can be extrapolated from that -- are those who like stupid, stupid themselves? But who's defining what's stupid and what isn't? Is the one who is being so judgmental about stupid TV possessed of a greater aspirational fulfilment capability than those who yah dah dee dah etc et al -- but, er, is the effort worth it?

Nah.

PS: I gave up agonising over audience behaviour way back in the days of the miners' strike, when around just about every pit gate brazier huddled a group of desperate people who wanted to work, and wanted to save their communities from desolation and destruction.

The most popular paper read by those on the picket line was The Sun.

So. . . were those miners stupid? Were they reading The Sun because they were poor? Were they the products of a UK education system so flawed that they couldn't begin to perceive that The Sun could as well have been published from 10 Downing Street as London, Manchester and Glasgow?

Nope. None of the above.

At a time of maximum stress in their lives, they just wanted stupid.

And in The Sun, then as now, they got it.

ruggedtoast

Tbh Im glad theyre closed. There are too many cruddy restaurants around. Most of the restaurants refused to admit they were doing anything wrong, argued with him and then reverted to type after the show. Bizarre.