1990's context

 1990's CONTEXT 

RACE CLASS AND POLITICS


Changing lifestyles:

- Class divide vs Climbing ranks (Monica and Maurice)

- Increase in middle class households containing: White Goods, Mobiles, Internet.

- Sexual liberty and the 1990's.

- Brit-Pop (spice girls and Riot girl - white feminism).

- 1996 - Last Irish Magdalene Laundry closed. 

Class Politics: Thatcher's Individualism vs New Labour

- Individualism - left over from Thatcher's era. "No such thing as society"

- Welfare State. 

- New Labour - move towards Neo-liberalism.

- Socialism and Champagne Socialism - drive to highlight disparities in class - British Film Making (Trainspotting / Billy Elliot). 

- Focus on improving education. 

Closing the Class Divide:

After 18 years of Conservative Government, New Labour was aimed to appeal to all social classes, but above all it tried to capture new, young, white-collar middle-class voters from Thatcher. They wanted to push for people to engage in cooperative self-help, be self-reliant and aim for self-improvement. 

New labour policies that implemented this philosophy included:

- "Welfare to work" - a programme of subsidies and training for benefits claimants to get back onto the job market - including tax credits to bump up income.

- "New Deal" - aiming at single mothers and the disabled to get them into work too.

- "Minimum wage" - aimed to make work pay higher than benefits. 

Race, Racism and the 90's:

- In 2010, Communities Secretary John Denham said that "class, not race" was the main cause of discrimination in Britain. 

- Class is the main issue seen in most British Social Realist films.

- South African apartheid officially ended on 27th April 1994 (Mandela elected 1994).

- Windrush Generation.

- "White working class".

- Stephen Lawrence: 13 September 1974 - 22 April 1993. 

"I decided to go to university, make something of my self, I want to move up in society, and be an individual not categorised into where I'm stereotyped to be in society. You could say I climbed the ranks, I say it's being self-reliant. 

Comments

  1. Lisa Socrates26 April 2021 at 07:25

    An excellent account documenting the 1990s in its many facets. The script at the end demonstrates your understanding of the characters, as you create them through their wider social and historical contexts. Excellent work!

    ReplyDelete

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