Shared Housing, Grown-up Style

Abstract

Something strange has happened in sitcom land: shared households and bedsits, stock reference points of television comedy and soap, have had a make-over. No longer peopled by lonely individuals (Rising Damp), assorted radicals and impoverished students (The Young Ones) or slackers (Men Behaving Badly), they now house groups of young professionals living affluent urban lifestyles in chic, comfortable surroundings. Today’s sitcom sharers have housemates like Friends and a This Life style to match. And The Secret Life of Us is now revealed for all to see, with 24-hour flat-sharing brought to our screens by courtesy of the Big Brother cameras. Similarly, the pages of the glossies and Sunday supplements are spreading the message that shared housing is cool; as one such article claimed, ‘It’s a positive, “I’m all right” statement’ (Robson-Scott, 1999: 47). If the media representations are to be believed, then, sharing appears to have become fashionable, a key element of a deliberate lifestyle choice among single, upwardly mobile post-adolescents.