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Snobbery Is Alive & Well
Footballer Wayne Rooney married his childhood sweetheart Colleen McLoughlin last week. The wedding, which took place in Italy, was said to have cost the couple five million quid. British newspapers sagged with details of the cost of the rings, costumes for family and friends and entertainment.
Sadly, the coverage was dominated with barely concealed class-based sniping about the background and taste of the couple.
It's a peculiarly British characteristic, despite the supposed meritocracy of our society. The Rooneys come from modest Liverpool backgrounds; Colleen has been hired as newspaper commentator, her husband is one of the country's best-paid footballers. They have the money to enjoy a lifestyle most journalists can only dream of - yet the hacks convince themselves that had they Rooney's cash, they'd spend it much more tastefully.
So the fact that Colleen forked out for dresses for her friends is sneered at as evidence that she didn't want "chavs" spoiling her big day; headlines cry that the police were called because of party noise that evening presented as evidence that those "chavs" can't behave (the fact that Rooney himself was perfectly polite with the cops, and apologised for the noise slipped in much further down the page). Some papers seemed delighted that it rained on the day of the wedding (in parts of Italy, this is said to be good luck); others seemed uneasy that the swish resort Italian Riviera was now on the map for working class new money, as if the Rooneys should have married in Magaluf or Blackpool instead.
Thankfully, some columnists have called their colleagues out: the magnificent Julie Burchill in the Sun writes,
"Yes, Chavs With Cash really bring out the green-eyed monster in posh no-marks who haven’t done half as well as they thought they would, despite the safety net of a paid-for education...
"(Rooney is) hated because although the posh papers often pine for the good old days of the short back and sides and the outside toilet, they are frankly appalled by anyone who looks like an old-fashioned working-class man, which Rooney does.
"The Beautiful Game has become quite poncified over the past decade, with every ball-kicking cretin you can shake a red card at aspiring to be metrosexual/continental/a gay icon/a Guardian reader.
"And Rooney reminds many insecure middle-class football fans that their precious game will never truly be understood by them – as a religion rather than a science.
"You can easily imagine him standing alongside Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles in a faded old black and white photo – and that makes the we-are-all-classless-now brigade feel like the pampered sissies they are."
Marina Hyde joins in: "take a look again at the country's best footballer marrying his childhood sweetheart, with this pair of 22-year-olds asking that guests don't buy presents, but make donations to a children's hospital."
Finally, in the Observer, Barbara Ellen writes, "Let's face it, only a real swine would sneer at a girl's wedding." Hear hear.
