Talk:Sylvania Waters (TV series)

Newfound wealth?

Not sure if this accurately describes their financial/social situation. They were not jet-setting millionaires, they were of working-class antecedents, and they had become affluent (not rich-rich) through trade - Laurie owned a smash-repair business. The term these days for this kind of family is 'cashed-up Bogans', meaning they have lots of money, but no taste, no idea of gracious living, and display the maladaptive interpersonal behaviours of the poorly-bred and semi-educated. The classic 'nouveaux' tried to ape the behaviour of their betters, e.g. by attending symphony concerts, the ballet, the opera, art galleries, none of which they understood, but which they went on grimly attending. This is the reason the respective repertoires have remained stuck in the 19th century, when 'New Money' people first arose. They had no true understanding of art, so they were hostile towards (i.e. afraid of) anything that was radically new and different. The situation continues among contemporary mainstream audiences. The nouveau riche took lessons to improve their posture, their diction, their dress. It was for them that the idea of the 'Hundred Best Books' was invented, so they could struggle through Plato and pose as literate. They rarely succeeded in erasing their inbred gaucherie. This is the situation Shaw examines in his 'Pygmalion'. Eliza Doolittle can never escape her genes, no matter how classy her accent.

The Sylvania people had no pretensions towards culture or intellectual betterment, so they are not strictly 'nouveau'.

Note the links that show that the family was shocked and outraged when the program aired; they had no idea that the BBC would portray them as what they were, i.e. vulgarians. Noelene thought she was going to star in her own brand of 'Dallas'. There was also anger from middle-class Australians (e.g. letters in the Herald signed 'Outraged of Turramarra' ) who were mortified that the BBC had portrayed this family as 'typical Australians'. Others replied that there were more Australian families like this than 'Outraged' would care to admit, and even more who would like to live that way.

Sylvania Waters exemplified an emerging (and by now almost complete) strategy of the capitalist class in the late 20th century, which was to overpay the tradesman/working class while at the same time appealing to their greed, creating a thirst for acquisition and ownership quite unknown by their forebears, making many of them petty proprietors (of 'rental' properties') and saddling them with huge debts to service. Accordingly, the number of strikes dropped dramatically, and the retail and manufacturing economies burgeoned. This strategy - perhaps unintentionally - further marginalised the unskilled and ineducable, and therefore unemployable, swelling the ranks of the underclass, persons devoid of any hope of improving their circumstances, with an associated increase in welfare payments, crime, and social problems. 121.44.19.209 (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)