Abstract
‘Hearts and Minds’ refers to a process whereby a military force attempts to win over a subjugated people. This chapter unpicks the ways in which class is consciously and unconsciously portrayed through militaristic activities that perpetuate the class hierarchy. Looking particularly at Our Girl (BBC 2014), we identify how the ‘hearts and minds’ concept facilitates centuries of class divisions between participants in the narratives. We examine the British class system portrayed in television dramas both within the military hierarchy and in civilian life, and the codified set of conventions to which programmes such as Our Girl adhere.
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- 1.
Despite the illegality of sex discrimination in the workplace, the British does not currently allow women in the Army to participate in front-line combat, although instances of such activity with women medics deployed to Afghanistan have been reported. This discrimination is ‘legally’ allowed due to an exemption in the United Kingdom legislation, Section 85(4) the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA 75), on the grounds of ‘ensuring the combat effectiveness of the Armed Forces’. Another gender discrimination is made in Schedule 3, Part 1, para. 4 of the Equality Act 2010, which allows ‘women to be excluded from those posts where the military judgement is that the employment of women would undermine and degrade combat effectiveness’ (Ministry of Defence 2014).
- 2.
In John Major’s 1991 address, his first speech as Conservative Party leader, he proclaimed: ‘I spoke of a classless society. I don’t shrink from that phrase. I don’t mean a society in which everyone is the same, or thinks the same, or earns the same. But a tapestry of talents in which everyone from child to adult respects achievement; where every promotion, every certificate is respected; and each person’s contribution is valued. And where the greatest respect is reserved for the law’.
- 3.
Just before the General Election in 1997, Prescott famously announced that ‘we’re all middle class now.’. This was widely interpreted as an attempt to sum up Tony Blair’s ‘Big Tent’ politics; a claimed accommodation of differing political views and approaches.
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Colman, F., James, D. (2017). Military Class: Hearts and Minds on the Domestic Screen. In: Forrest, D., Johnson, B. (eds) Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55506-9_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55506-9_6
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