A letter from Carla Keen, an artist from a working-class background working in theatre, responds to Lucy Mangan's review of the documentary 'How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson'. Keen argues that class signifiers, such as accent and manner, shape how authority is perceived, and that Stevenson's direct communication style may be misinterpreted due to class bias.
Class and Authority in Media
Keen writes that Lucy Mangan's description of Gary Stevenson as having an 'adolescent bullishness' raises a wider question about how class shapes perceptions of authority. She notes that our media landscape still has a narrow idea of what expertise looks and sounds like. Research by the Sutton Trust has shown that around half of newspaper columnists and over a third of BBC executives were privately educated, despite private schools educating only a small minority of the population.
Cultural Signals Beyond Income
Stevenson is now wealthy, highly educated and professionally successful, but class is not only about income or occupation. It is also about the cultural signals that we attach to voice, manner and presentation. Keen questions Mangan's statement that Stevenson's manner raises 'a sort of fight-or-flight response in the viewer instead of encouraging engagement', asking who 'the viewer' is. Audiences bring their own experiences, expectations and cultural reference points to what they watch. What one person experiences as aggression, another may experience as frustration or passion.
Reaction to Stevenson's Style
Keen watched the documentary and saw someone attempting to understand people whose views differed from his own. He allowed interviewees space to explain themselves, even when he disagreed. She wonders whether some of the reaction to Stevenson is shaped by his direct communication style, working-class background and non-received pronunciation accent. These qualities are often interpreted differently from the same confidence expressed through more traditionally middle-class modes of speech.
Value of Making Complex Ideas Accessible
Whether or not people agree with his economic arguments, making complex ideas accessible to people who are often excluded from these conversations is valuable, Keen concludes.
