Roseanne, Not Your Average Proletariat
In season 1 episode 23, “Let’s call it quits” Roseanne and her coworkers find themselves in quite a bind as their new Supervisor sets a new quota of 8,000 units per day for each factory worker. In doing so the Supervisor completely deflects any thoughts or feelings the employees may have on the manner by threatening to fire them if they do not reach this new absurd quota. Obviously upset and demoralized Roseanne and her coworkers vent to one another before urging Roseanne to talk to the Supervisor and put him in his place. Knowing that he already dislikes her for her attitude, Roseanne must approach the situation a bit differently than we are used to seeing. Roseanne cuts a deal with the Supervisor where as long as she keeps her attitude in check and gives him no witty remarks and addresses him accordingly, then he will lower the quotas to a reasonable level. A few days later Roseanne’s coworkers notice she is acting a bit differently but she chalks it up to not wanting to push her luck per the mercy of the Supervisor in the newly lowered quota of 6,500. Yet only in a matter of days the Supervisor announces the quota is shooting back up to 8,000 and if the employees can’t keep up then “It was nice working with you.” This struck a nerve with Roseanne and led her to stick up for herself and quit her job of 11 years rather than be used as a pawn for an oppressive and inconsiderate authority figure.
Though the story arc for the episode seems simple, if you delve deeper into the turn of events, it acts as a perfect encapsulation for a Marxist critique. Marx insisted that each social class has their own interests and how they tend to conflict with one another. In this case the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Bourgeoise only care for their own interests, so when the Supervisor sets the quotas at 8,000, he is not taking into account how the factory workers feel about the new standard, he only cares about his point of view on the situation. So when Roseanne confronts him on the issue he is able to manipulate his power to keep the factory workers in check. The proletariat’s in this scenario are the factory workers. In Marxist philosophy, hegemony was established as an unchallengeable relation between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. Yet this episode of Roseanne directly challenges that philosophy by giving the proletariat the strength and courage to stand up for themselves and resist the status quo by quitting their job. At the expense of a consistent paycheck, Roseanne and her friends valued themselves more than just a cog in a machine.
Fernando,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments that this scene at the end “directly challenges the status quo.”
As an apartment maintenance supervisor, I saw this happen more than once, yet usually the management had a firm grip on how to manipulate the employees who lived where they worked. Oftentimes, they would literally try to keep us fighting among ourselves!
There were distinct advantages such as no time loss commuting, saving on gas, and lower insurance rates. However, when disagreements between the folks in the office and us led to making a choice about staying or finding another job, one was faced with an “all of my eggs are in one basket scenario.”
If things were going south, it was imperative to get going on finding another job—not difficult usually as we all made the rounds being destabilized, moving around a metropolitan area—this becaming how the game was played.
...you kept a network of friends among the coworkers and vendors that serviced the industry. Mostly, those who sold the paint, supplied the appliance parts, or came to clean the carpets; the carpet vendors always knew what was happening and where.
It wasn’t until years later when I had my own business that I figured-out what had been the root of all of this. I had thought it was just to keep down wages, keeping us unstable. However I came to realize it was the five [?] year cycle of depreciation that was the reason we would fix things-up for a year or two and then the owners or the property management company would start getting rid of the more skilled workers and run the place down for a few years!
More than once, I was hired back by the same company on promises of fixing things-up, weeding out the “bad” tenants, and did end up getting a raise or moving to a bigger unit with a view, for instance.
However, there was usually a time when things changed and the one making the most or higher skilled was first to go . Following this, when those under them didn’t get the job,?
...they left one way or another, too.
Particularly cruel—but not if you are the newcomer—people very new to the country were the ones who filled the newly vacated positions and received far inferior wages, housing or benefit packages.
However, this was across-the-board in recessionary times and those moves were not even lateral, but industry wide, wages went down for all, proportionately.
Eventually, the newcomers moved-up, we all stayed friends or colleagues --for the most part and we were still really the working class or proletariat.
However, "the girls in the office" --leasing agents & assistant managers--became resident managers and then regional property managers, clearly mercantile or the petite bourgeoisie.
Things changed some by the late nineties--more men in leasing or in management, but it remained largely divided that way along gender-lines in the maintenance field .