ABSTRACT
This chapter examines both representations of working-class "lack", contrasting them with forms of glamorous "overwork" recurring in representations of the rich, and connecting both to the political and cultural economy of their televisual production. The irony is that workers in the UK work longer hours for less pay than their European counterparts, and a smaller proportion are unemployed. In contrast with the depiction of working-class leisure as irresponsible and reckless, aristocrats are today recurrently depicted as hardworking and responsible. For while configuring the working class as an underclass through "poverty porn" has expanded in this neoliberal era of a viciously widening gap between rich and poor, so too has the extravagantly favorable representation of the super wealthy. Through the engaging dramas and shaming shows the divergence between rich and poor becomes validated as a historical truth and justified present. Both construct the image of contemporary inequalities as being, above all, deserved.
