In response to Chris Bryant comments about privilege and the arts, James Blunt launched in a rant about his personal experience and how privilege will not necessarily lead to success. Citing his experiences as proof that privilege does not open doors for people in the entertainment industry. In the process calling him a classist gimp and a wazzock.
I couldn't agree more with Mr Blunt, he is a complete wazzock. This is clearly a trait they both share, as within this rant James Blunt reveals how little he understood what was being stated. One look at the wider media will tell you how class works overwhelming in favour of the educated, middle to upper class, white people, to which James Blunt belongs. Everything from ballet to sitcoms are rammed full of cast members over representing the red-brick universities and public schools to which Chris Bryant was referring. To ignore such obvious and overwhelming evidence is to condone the existing situation, thus believing that is the way it should be, and in James Blunt's own language, to be a classist gimp.
Regardless of his own personal journey, which I admittedly knew very little about prior to reading this story today so I cannot verify the difficulties James Blunt claimed to face in making his name, the fact remains that being from a wealthy background does afford you certain privileges that the lower classes would not be able to rely upon. For instance, the correct assertion that having wealthy family members would help the aspiring performer to afford the schooling fees and years of low income that characterises someones early years within such a competitive industry. They simply have a reliable source of financial support that means they do not have to compromise their time with those pesky distractions such as making some money to eat, drink and sleep somewhere warm.
Clearly Chris Bryant has said nothing that is not factually accurate in this respect. So why is he a classist gimp and a wazzock, just like James Blunt?
Had he not used the example he did, discussing celebrities, and instead focused upon the other 'traditional' elitist institutions such as the one he represents then I may be inclined to disagree once more with James Blunt. However, he did not. His comments and focus upon the entertainment industry assumes that the lower classes do not desire meaningful, academic, or any of the traditionally important and well paid roles within society. The comments seem to be playing upon the stereotypical image of the lower classes as dumb, work shy and averse to responsibility and only desiring instant fame and gratification. He is all too happy to discuss inequality in the media but ignores the place in which he earns his livelihood, the houses of parliament, hardly a place famous throughout the UK for being bastion of working class representation. This may be because he, much like his sparring partner Blunt, is a boarding school, publicly educated, child of privilege.
That seems to me to be the point of the attack and the reason he shares the 'wazzock trait' with Mr Blunt. By highlighting the inherent advantage of the privileged few in terms of making it in the entertainment industry, he has simultaneously brought about a focus upon his own privilege, and the privilege of the vast majority of his peers, within the establishment. Something which I hope doesn't go without notice within the ranks of the 'plebs' he is trying to distract from the more important conversation about representation in the decision making processes in society.
