Desperate Scousewives

"Liverpool-based "scripted reality" shows Desperate Scousewives will only fuel "regional racism" against the city, claims a local MP and former mayor.

Hundreds of members of the public are currently fighting for a place on the programmes designed to tread a thin line between soap opera and documentary.

But the local Labour MP Steve Rotheram argued the "dramality" TV programmes will only reinforce the negative stereotypes cast on Liverpool life."

Newman says that when the working class are focused on they are labelled as a problem.

Scousers are often labelled in a negative way because of their on going negative stereotype. 

When Desperate Scousewives debuted E4 described it as "Meet the strong, independent women who quite literally run this town, looking to make a name for themselves"

TV

Junior Doctors - BBC3

"It offers a unique insight into the work and home life of newly-qualified medics as they cope with several challenges that come with medical practise, such as breaking bad news, dealing with the death of patients and attending “crash” calls which is when a patient’s heart has stopped (cardiac arrest)."

Filmed at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital

Representations of the working class...

Newman: Argues that when the working class are focused on they are labelled as a problem

• Welfare cheats
• Drug addicts
• Criminals

TV Series - Shameless

Curran and Seaton (2003)
Newspapers aimed at the working class assumed that they are not interested in important topics and issues.
The Sun and Daily Star, commonly read by working class people focus on celebrity gossip, life stories and sport.

Focus is usually only on the negatives

Cohen "media often fails to see the connection between deprivation and wealth"

Historical
Harry Enfield - The Scousers

• Violent
• loud
• shell suits
• strong scouse accent

Contemporary
Desperate Scousewives

• Espensive style
• still quite loud
• strong scouse accent

"You can tell a scouser apart from a crowd by the way he is trying to break into the most expensive looking car. This is a typical scouser. As you can see, He has an abnormally low forehead and a permanent scowl. They are generally very ugly with large protrusions from the side of the head called "lugs". Many other people could confuse them for ears but do not say this as it will confuse and probably anger the scouser leading to death."

This was from a piece of writing from 'An Outsiders Guide To Scousers'. It shows a strong stereotypical view of the people from Liverpool.

In this scene, it shows a knife being pointed in Johns face.
This shows that violence has always been around in Liverpool, even back in the 50s. Which portrays Scousers in a negative way.

Harry Enfield - The Scousers

Harry Enfield - The Scousers, featured a set of stereotyped  Liverpudlian characters.
The Scousers were usually portrayed with permed hairstyles and bushy moustaches, wearing shell suits and speaking in exaggerated Scouse accents. Common catch phrases that they would say included "Eh? Eh? Eh?" "Dey do do dat dough don't dey dough" ("They do do that though, don't they though").

In a lot of the episodes, a slight dispute results in violence, in the screen shot above, from an episode of The Scousers you can see one of the men pointing a ketchup bottle in the other ones face and the other is pointing the finger. Shows they are angry with each other but over something so trivia.
This portrays Scousers being easily irriated by the slightest thing and therefore becoming violent.