The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production

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The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production Thesis submitted to the University of Hertfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the degree of PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) Submitted January 2020 by William James Atkinson Hertfordshire Business School 1 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production Abstract The characterisation of the contemporary creative and cultural industries (CCIs) as ‘cool, creative and egalitarian’ (Gill, 2002) has been unpicked in recent literature (Grugulis and Stoyanova, 2012; Eikhof and Warhurst, 2013, Randle et al, 2015). A growing consensus suggests this is a meritocratic ideal rather than a reality, indicating CCIs are the domain of the white, male and middle-class (Randle, et al, 2015; O’Brien et al, 2016). The thesis is intended to inform a deeper historical understanding of some of the inequalities that persist in the contemporary CCIs. While some CCIs (radio, film and television) originated at the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century, there is very little academic work which investigates the extent of egalitarianism or meritocracy in the film industry during much of the 20th century. The most robust historical study of class and employment in CCIs suggests that is likely that they have always been unequal, but points to a lack of historical data from which to evaluate the past (Banks, 2017). In order to contribute greater historical background to the sociological issue, this thesis therefore draws on an historical qualitative analysis of the film production careers of 37 men, from a mixture of working class origins (WCOs) and middle-class origins (MCOs) most of whose work began in the 1930s and ended in the 1970s. The primary source of data comprises oral history interviews from the British Entertainment History Project (BEHP) archive housed at the BFI Library. The research explores, specifically, work between 1927 and 2 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production 1947 as the British Studio System emerged and many film occupations developed around the introduction of sound technology. The evidence suggests that certain structural arrangements, unique to the vertically integrated studios, provided some opportunities for working-class men in the past. However, these are shown to be exceptions that need to be qualified by a deeper understanding of the ‘fields’ (Bourdieu, 1984) that emerged around different film occupations within the studio system. To provide a deeper understanding of the ways in which career trajectories were mediated in different occupational settings, a Bourdieusian inspired, historical model of the association between class origins and male career destinations has been designed. Analysis of these careers highlights a long history of class-based inequalities that subsequently became embedded in employment practices and within many film production occupations and departments. Although careers during this period were enacted around different structural arrangements to those today, certain trends and associations between class background and opportunities were being shaped during the 1930s. 3 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production Declaration This is to verify that the work presented in this doctoral thesis and submitted for examination is mine alone 4 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production TABLE OF CONTENTS: Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2 Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9 Chapter 1 The hidden history of class origins and careers in the British film industry………10 1.1 The research questions………………………………………………………………………………………………….14 1.2 Contemporary issues in their historical context…………………………………………………………….15 1.3 Oral history and working lives……………………………………………………………………………………….18 1.4 Selecting a sub-sample of male career trajectories………………………………………………………..19 1.5 The historical period of study: 1920s to 1950s……………………………………………………………….23 1.6 The structure of the dissertation …………………………………………………………………………………..24 Chapter 2 Class origins and careers in the Creative and Cultural Industries……………………..26 2.1 Social class and occupations in the UK…………………………………………………………………………..27 2.2 Intergenerational social mobility in the UK…………………………………………………………………….30 2.3 The social composition of the workforce in UKFTV………………………………………..………………30 2.4 Class origins and career trajectories: A Bourdieusian perspective…………………………………36 2.5 Structural arrangements and employment patterns in the CCIs……………………………………41 2.6 Class origins and class discriminatory entry practices…………………………………………………..44 2.7 Class origin and social capital aided recruitment………………………………………………………….47 Chapter 3 Chapter 3 A history of employment in UK film production……………………………..51 5 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production 3.1 Class origins, education and career opportunities between the World Wars……………….53 3.2 The historical composition of the film production workforce……………………………………….55 3.3 Structures of employment during the British Studio System era………………..………………..60 3.4 Employment trends……………………………………………………………………………………………………..63 3.5 Labour organisation and institutional safety nets…………………………………………………………65 3.6 Entry-level access and training practices………………………………………………………………………68 Chapter 4 Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………………………73 4.1 A Bourdieusian approach to oral history analysis…………………………………………………………74 4.2 Secondary qualitative analysis……………………………………………………………………………………..76 4.3 The challenges of using the British Entertainment History Project archive…………………..79 4.4 Selecting a sub-sample of interviews……………………………………………………………………………81 4.5 Analysing and selecting content from interviews…………………………………………………………85 4.6 Ethical considerations when (re)using oral history interviews……………………………………..90 Chapter 5 Class origins and occupational fields in film…………………………………………………..94 5.1: Occupational hierarchy and social mobility………………………………………………………………..98 5.2 Occupational sub-fields in film production…………………………………………………………………..101 5.3 Field A: Highbrow, elitist……………………………………………………………………………………………..102 5.4 Field B: Socially diverse, technical……………………………………………………………………………….104 5.5 Field C: Working-class, craft…………………………………………………………………………………………107 5.6 The hidden histories of working-class women film production……………………………………109 Chapter 6 Class origins and career decision making……………………………………………………….113 6 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production 6.1 Indicators of middle-class advantage and working-class disadvantage ……………............114 6.2 Class origins and starting pay………………………………………………………………………………………116 6.3 Middle-class career aspirations……………………………………………………………………………………118 6.3.1 Working-class career aspirations………………………………………………………………………………119 6.4 Middle-class families and career aspirations………………………………………………………………..122 6.4.1 Working-class families and career aspirations…………………………………………………………..125 6.5 Middle-class education and career aspirations…………………………………………………………….126 6.5.1 Working-class education and career aspirations………………………………………………………129 Chapter 7 Class origins and historical entry routes into film…………………………………………135 7.1 Middle-class access routes………………………………………………………………………………………….136 7.2 Working-class access routes………………………………………………………………………………………..143 7.3 Middle-class men and early careers in film………………………………………………………………….149 7.4 Working-class men and early careers in film………………………………………………………………..156 Chapter 8 Making careers in film production………………………………………………………………..168 8.1 The nature of employment during the studio system era…………………………………………….169 8.2 Fluctuating employment trends from 1925 to circa 1970…………………………………………….171 8.3 Class origins and career progression……………………………………………………………………………179 8.4 Working-class trajectories through field C occupations……………………………………………....181 8.5 Middle-class trajectories through field A occupations…………………………………..................184 8.6 Socially diverse trajectories through field B occupations……………………………………………..188 Chapter 9 Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………….199 7 The Historical Association Between Class Origins and Male Career Trajectories in UK Film Production 9.1 Strengths and limitations and potential future research…………………………………………….200 9.2 class origins and career aspirations…………………………………………………………………………….207 9.3 class origins and entry-level practices…………………………………………………………………………209 9.4 class origins and career destinations…………………………………………………………………………..211 9.5 class origins and occupational fields……………………………………………………………………………213 9.6 Contributions………………………………………………………………………………………………………………216 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...217 Appendix 1 Diagram showing the historical associations between class origins and male career trajectories in film production occupations……………………………………………233 Appendix 2 Table of 37 men in the research sample………………………………………………………..234 Appendix 3 Wage Table – comparing average UK wages in occupational classifications with film production wages in the 1930s…………………………………………………..238 Appendix 4 The British History Entertainment Project interview guidelines…………………….240
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