Reality TV's Working Class Warriors
We've written before on the blog about "He-Man TV", a genre of reality TV, where white working class men struggle against the forces of nature. Think of shows like Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch. A friend very familiar with this sort of programming described them as "shows where nature is a metaphor for the uncontrollable forces that working class America contends with."
You can see a good example of this genre in a 30-second promo for the new History Channel show, Great Lake Warriors:
Watching the promo, I think the premise is more subversive than just working-class men struggling against nature.
Why are these tug-boaters risking their lives on the Great Lakes? Trade with Canada. Why is there trade with Canada? NAFTA, the original sin that the anti-globalization movement points to as cementing the decline in America's manufacturing and the Pandora's Box that opened up the economic forces that destroyed working class jobs.
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