Let’s talk about class: the Arts, Creative Industries, and the Classism problem in 2023.
Working class representation in the arts and creative industries is a half what it was in the 1970s.
We have a problem.
For all the talk of equality, diversity and inclusion, a large proportion of voices are still not being heard or represented in the arts and creative industries. The UK maintains shocking inequality when it comes to the representation of our society in the arts and media. A cultural vacuum of voices, expression and opportunity. In fact, the UK is going backwards. The representation of talent from lower income family backgrounds is at a fifty-year low. Socioeconomic diversity continues to be an issue unresolved.
A recent academic report found that working class representation in the arts and creative industries is half of what it was in the 1970s for musicians, writers and artists.
Office for National Statistics data analysis found that 16.4% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 had a working-class background, but this had fallen to just 7.9% for those born four decades later. Directly effecting millennials and generation Z.
To quote from the Social Mobility and ‘Openness’ in Creative Occupations since the 1970s academic report from 2022, and its concluding statement; “In Britain there is a longstanding belief that cultural work is meritocratic; that is, it comprises a set of occupations that are recruited on the basis of talent, regardless of social origin. A recent focus on the employment profile of the cultural sector, which shows that those from more privileged backgrounds dominate, combined with political concerns that the UK is in the midst of a ‘mobility crisis’, has shaken this view. At the same time, leading practitioners who were upwardly mobile into creative jobs have lamented the loss of a ‘golden age’ of opportunities for working-class actors and artists that began in the 1960s with the rise to prominence of figures like Rita Tushingham, Michael Caine and David Hockney.”
The report went on; “We have also shown how issues of gender and ethnicity compound inequalities of access to the cultural sector, while the class gradient in recruitment persists net of education”.
I would also challenge terminology which attempts to diminish the crisis at hand. Some claim an increased middle-class structure has aided opportunity more broadly. The middle-class term especially is broad with many contexts, variances, and deceptions. The emerging members of a newly defined middle class ‘are no less sociologically important or influential because of that’ states the report. Thus, such terminology must be approached with caution, like official government unemployment figures, they will never reflect true unemployment. Middle class terminology will include lower income households without or with little disposable income, especially in a cost-of-living crisis. We might better say working and lower middle classes, or lower income households, struggle at representation in the arts and creative industries.
‘structural inequalities in the creative industries are nothing new and they are deep-seated’
Without sufficient economic support and vocational funding, for many, maintaining work hours in other more unfulfilling sectors for economic necessity, maintains a barrier to many to avenues where their talent is better served. ‘Higher educational qualifications, closely associated with class inequalities, also shape the demographics of the cultural workforce’ the report goes on to conclude, ‘structural inequalities in the creative industries are nothing new and they are deep-seated’.
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It's been five years since Create London and the Barbican produced the study Panic! An Art’s Emergency. Social Class, Taste, and Inequalities in the Creative Industries report, and frankly beside some tokenism, that will not challenge the key issues at hand, little has changed for creative talent from working class backgrounds. Especially when the same cliques of people hold the power to make positive change for fair representation in the arts and creative industries. The key, breaking down barriers for economically challenged talent.
I’m staggered why more people are not addressing this as a key requirement for diversity and inclusion in the arts and creative industries. Without this key element the progress of inclusion, equality, and representation of the best talent is grossly flawed.
There are signs of hope. People are speaking out.
“Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t” Elba stated. “It would be impossible for me to become an actor today” concluded Eccleston.
Actors such as Gary Oldman, Julie Walters, Idris Elba, and Christopher Eccleston are some of many that have recognised and stated that finding a career in the arts and creative industries has now become much harder if not impossible for people from lower income backgrounds. “Talent is everywhere. Opportunity isn’t” Elba stated. “It would be impossible for me to become an actor today” concluded Eccleston.
Many have witnessed similar in the music industry. Over the last two decades especially, the dynamics have reversed from the days of artist development funding. Artists now need to build their own profiles before an established record label gets involved, only those from more privileged backgrounds have the means to fund touring, merchandising, pay for recording, rehearsal space, equipment, a PR, rent, bills, and so on.
In the years I worked in A&R at EMI in the early 2000’s, I signed off countless tour support budgets to help new young bands tour, while investing in the development of songs, demoing, paying for studio time with bands who did not necessarily have a media profile yet, who could not afford to do so themselves. Many built successes on the back of this. This is rarely an option now in the new world order. Music streaming revenues for most are dire and livelihoods are hugely challenged. More than ever major labels invest in fewer artists and those that are lucky are often proven bets - and it costs to be a proven bet.
The decline in opportunity can partly be attributed to an ideology that no longer believes in funding higher education or art schools. Access to education establishments and real-world artist communities has diminished for those unable or unwilling to take on £50,000 of debt. Its telling that in the 1960’s to 1980’s, when higher education was state funded, diversity was broader in the arts, as was cultural output representation, and the chance of working class artists of multiple disciplines building livelihoods and careers focussed on their talent. Less so today. Far less so.
In Britain 6% of the population attend a fee-paying school, but the privately educated dominate the literary industry in every part of the ecosystem
In the book publishing industry, the problem appears even worse. It had originally scored low in the Panic 2018 study (see graphic above). In Britain 6% of the population attend a fee-paying school, but the privately educated dominate the literary industry in every part of the ecosystem. One study noted over 80% of those in management and positions of power in book publishing were privately educated. A staggering lack of representation; and perhaps assuming state school oiks, like me, don’t read, but sit around in jogging bottoms watching Netflix all day. Where nepotism is so obviously rife, damaging stereotypes of others are often born of prejudice and misunderstanding. In media publishing a report stated 80% of editorial positions were filled with staff from privileged backgrounds. The Sutton Trust, which works for social mobility improvements, found 51% of the UK’s leading journalists were privately educated, and 80% of the UK’s top editors either went to private or grammar schools. Alan Milburn’s State of The Nation report for the Social Mobility Commission from 2016 found only 11% of journalists were from working class backgrounds, compared to being 60% of the population. An elite members club, rather than a media that can always be relied upon to hold authority and governance to account. Channel 4 presenter Jon Snow has highlighted in recent years, that the failure of the media to report safety concerns over Grenfell Tower in advance, suggests a comfortable elite can fail broader society. The media was “comfortably with the elite, with little awareness, contact or connection with those not of the elite”. This lack of connection was “dangerous” Snow states.
All of this of course confirms privilege still gets you ahead in these industries in 2023, over other more essential ingredients, such as talent. Which further creates the loop of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in both representation and cultural output. Producing yet more ‘poverty porn’ characters written for screen by old Harrovian’s or books written by women living in Kensington about the lives of mothers who drive Chelsea tractors to Waitrose, living the traditional architype of family life – unrelatable and uninteresting to many.
“But we need the best people from the best universities and schooling, it is a demanding job, it’s not for others’, said an anonymised and well-established literary scout when challenged on the stark lack of diversity in the literary industry that I had witnessed. I found the comment offensive, indeed for the majority of society.
“But we do our bit, we let a few in”, the woman concluded. To the utter shock and dismay of myself and the black woman sat next to me, and opposite her.
This for me summed up the cliques I have seen across the arts and creative industries over the years. In music, where in my last major label A&R role at EMI, everyone on the whole floor of fifty or so staff were white. I was the only A&R manager at the label not highly privileged and privately educated out of four managers – and one A&R Manager’s mother had even been Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party (FFS!) I had 12 hit records, each of my peers had had zero hits in two years. Guess who was managed out when EMI needed to drop staff due to rising debts? Well, it certainly wasn’t a member of the ‘old boys’ clique, who called each other a “good egg”, a phrase I’d never heard before at the time.
There are always exceptions to call out, exceptions that can be used as defence, but exceptions in themselves are a sure sign of a problem.
Across the creative industries and the arts, cliques and entitlement still reign to this day, whether consciously or unconsciously. There are always exceptions to call out, exceptions that can be used as defence, but exceptions in themselves are a sure sign of a problem.
Natasha Carthew, the author of nine books including All Rivers Run Free and Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir of Poverty, Nature and Resilience, founded The Working Class Writers festival to address the issue.
“People do want authentic voices. What makes it harder (for working class writers), is later on, when you haven’t got the mates who are going to publicise your book.” She told The Guardian.
“But publishers need to remember that books dealing with working-class life are not poverty porn”, she added. “There are very different stories, about resilience and beauty and humour and hard graft.”
“The lack of ability to take risks is another barrier”, Carthew said, “such as working two jobs or not having money to go out for drinks to build a network or pay for a hotel in London while doing an internship.”
“Publishers are trying more to get a broad church of people,” Carthew said. “But they’ve been slow, like everywhere’s been slow”. She told the Guardian last year.
“There are lots of schemes, and then the money runs out – they’ve ticked that box and then they move on and put their cash somewhere else. I’ve seen that with my festival. That’s why the momentum keeps changing. They want novelty.”
Welcome steps in gender, LGBT, and ethnic diversity representation in the arts, creative industries, and media, are only parts of the requirement here. Many recognise that an additional key focus on socio-economic inclusive representation is the ultimate deliverable required to enrich the broadest access opportunity and representation of the best and most talented cultural output - along with diversity’s uncool and largely forgotten ally, ageism.
A fashion design student at Central Saint Martins called Rahman recently told VICE; “All of these kids, they’re from a different class or wealth background; they know about Surrealism and all the different artists; you know, they’ve been to Berlin! I hadn’t even left the country at that point, because my parents couldn’t afford to do our passport application.”
This article emphasised how middle class people are twice as likely to work in the creative industries than working class people, and a third of the workforce in the creative industries is upper-middle class – with elite private school educations.
“I’m waiting for the time when a person doesn’t get pigeonholed within a working-class box or black box or Muslim box – when they get to be free.” Rahman concluded.
Furthermore, most of the arts, media and creative industries are based in London. This exacerbates the issue at hand. Further diminishing access to opportunity with London rent, travel, bills, being the most expensive in the UK. Long gone are the days of affordability across the whole city, with increasing foreign investment in property, mass-gentrification, and a trend of high paid workers moving out into the furthest suburbs, due to zone 1 and 2 becoming a multi-millionaire playground, for the likes of those profiteering extreme wealth from oil money, Chinese capitalism, and Russian oligarchy. Young working-class artists, actors and musicians don’t stand much of a chance in the capital, where their industry’s power is centred.
Even the Tory supporting Evening Standard admit to the problem, quoting researchers from King’s College; “TV, film, music and the arts dominated by ‘straight, able-bodied white men living in London despite them only accounting for 3.5% of the population’.”
Forty years after the gaslighting deception of Thatcherism for aspirational lower income households, it’s clear more than ever, Britain has a social mobility problem.
I’ve only touched the surface of this systemic issue at large – and despite sprinklings of unenthused tokenism that smacks of PR spin, it’s getting worse. More artists, writers, musicians, actors, film makers than ever are struggling to make a livelihood - and take a guess at the background of those talented people who are soon forced give up on their dreams for a secure income elsewhere? Well, you should know the answer by now.
As years go by, the issue is broadly worsening, after the liberation years of the mid 20th century, the years of state funded higher education access. It is as if a reignited conspiracy has recommenced to hold countless generations of the working and lower middle classes back from broader opportunity. An ancient process of handing power and opportunity down through generations of the most privileged. A self-serving system. A system of age-old nepotism, of selected school ties and the staggering power of family wealth, often accrued through the dark deeds of British empire. Clinging to power and to the most desirable careers on offer, destined for their own children. Those children taught to the highest level in private school classes of six to ten, rather than the determined battle for education in classes of forty-two from my state school experiences, our ability and hunger for opportunity.
Forty years after the gaslighting deception of Thatcherism for aspirational lower income households, it’s clear more than ever, Britain has a social mobility problem. Fixing this at scale, with opportunity for all, will be the only way to prove that modern capitalist economies can create better, fairer, and more inclusive societies. So far, 21st century capitalism has only led to further division and inequality. Data shows a relapse back the old days of class hierarchy, the rich richer, creative careers specifically more accessible for the privilege, and indeed in some creative industry sectors the old ways never in fact changed at all. Societal institutions and governance needs a change in ideology away from ways that serve a minority. The state of play certainly does not collectively serve all, the competition is unfairly one-sided. Opportunity should not rely on parental wealth, privilege, and entitlement – such is the sign of an outdated system, dating from preindustrial feudalism, and without doubt the sign of a failing nation, failing talent, failing the creative economy and society at large.
by calling out bullshit, by seizing opportunity by all means possible. Our voices will be heard.
It’s clear the system won’t change by itself. Collectively, one by one, it’s time to be the change. Through purchase power, by seizing new means of distribution, by calling out bullshit, by seizing opportunity by all means possible. Our voices will be heard.
Key sources:
Panic! An Art’s Emergency. Social Class, Taste, and Inequalities in the Creative Industries 2018
https://createlondon.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Panic-Social-Class-Taste-and-Inequalities-in-the-Creative-Industries1.pdf
Social Mobility Commission 2016
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/569410/Social_Mobility_Commission_2016_REPORT_WEB__1__.pdf
Academic Report 2022
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00380385221129953
Guardian 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/apr/01/christopher-eccleston-impossible-for-me-to-become-an-actor-today
Guardian 2022
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/dec/10/huge-decline-working-class-people-arts-reflects-society
Vice 2023
https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7z89a/how-to-be-creative-racism-classism
Guardian 2018
https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2018/apr/29/journalism-class-private-education#:~:text=The%20Sutton%20Trust%2C%20which%20seeks,either%20private%20or%20grammar%20schools.
Evening Standard
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/creative-industries-dominated-white-people-race-gender-disability-sexuality-b955026.html
The Bookseller
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/survey-reveals-extent-which-working-class-feel-excluded-book-trade-960066
https://www.thebookseller.com/spotlight/booksellers-working-class-survey-three-years-on
#classism #creativeindustries #thearts #music #film #literature