Culture Is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries by Orian Brook & Mark Taylor & Dave O'Brien

Author:Orian Brook & Mark Taylor & Dave O'Brien [Brook, Orian & Taylor, Mark & O'Brien, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526144164
Google: -mrJxwEACAAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2020-11-15T23:46:54.376914+00:00

The somatic norm and inequality in creative occupations

We have introduced the idea of the somatic norm to do two things. First, to expand some of the criticisms of social mobility to connect more closely with the issues of getting in and getting on in creative occupations. Second, to provide a way of organising our data, as we’re going to be thinking about how the somatic norm relates to embodied forms of cultural capital.

First, we will take some time to think about how the somatic norm works in creative occupations, and how it structures particular individuals’ chances of success. A simple and straightforward example comes from the world of acting.20 Getting work in acting is tough. It is highly competitive and decisions are often based on intangible qualities, rather than formal credentials. It is also highly precarious, with very uncertain patterns of employment, even for the relatively successful. Finally, it has a range of structural inequalities, with many more parts in mainstream productions available to men, particularly men with specific characteristics.

Here we can see the somatic norm in operation. The roles individuals are encouraged to audition for, and get, follow a set social ‘type’. The type reflects demographic characteristics of age, gender, ethnicity, region, disability, sexuality, and class. In some ways this is benign, as there are parts available for a range of actors depending on their type.

Yet the fit between actor and part operates in a highly unequal way. A White, male actor, with a received pronunciation accent, is assumed to be the default. He is capable of playing any role. This is the somatic norm for actors. Those without these characteristics face a more limited set of opportunities. They are assumed to only be able to play their type. This type is determined by casting directors, writers, and producers.

This somatic norm is then coupled with broader structures of inequality in the profession. There are fewer parts for women, and for people of colour. Moreover, the parts offered to those not fitting the somatic norm can present a dilemma. Often parts are crude caricatures of the lives of the working class, of women, or of people of colour. These parts are commissioned by those with sometimes little or no experience of what is being represented on stage or screen.

There is a burden of representation that is not demanded of the men that are the somatic norm. For the White, middle-class origin man there are frustrations, for sure. They may be confined to play leading men, key parts in Shakespeare, or only rarely offered the chance to do challenging or ground-breaking roles.

For women, working-class origin individuals, and people of colour the frustrations are different. They will be offered unrepresentative and offensive roles: one-dimensional love interests, benefits cheats, drug dealers, or terrorists. They are not afforded the same, highly privileged, constraints associated with the somatic norm. In turn, these negative representations have real-world consequences for how particular communities are viewed.

The operation of the somatic norm in acting reflects the dominance of the middle class in hiring and commissioning decisions.

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