Saturday, September 27, 2008

Vanity Fair and the Middle Classes

So I managed to get to the Vanity Fair exhibition last Sunday. I finally got there at around 3.20pm to be met with a queue that was winding its way out of the door and onto Queen Street. I queued for about half an hour. I couldn't really avoid hearing conversations in the queue. Some mundane but strangely sweet:

'What do you want to do - do you want to wait or we could go shopping instead?' asked a guy with a t-shirt with a slight tear in the neck

His girlfriend, blonde pretty in a Woody Allen film kind of a way, didn't reply

'We don't need anything, do we?'

'No' she replied. I want to see the exhibition'

'Ok'

Once we were in the gallery, a tourist started to randomly take photographs of the ornate murals. And then, left the queue and stood behind the security guard who was talking to a woman about her ticket. The tourist didn't say anything but just looked confused.

The exhibition was great. I loved a picture of Greta Garbo pushing her hair back in frustration and boredom, and was strangely drawn to an image of Charles Laughton with his strange clownish face. I found out the next day that he was gay.

There were a lot of parents with children who tried to bump the queue on the account that they had reproduced, produced said offspring and now deserved privileges for this natural act. The security guards recognising that the act of procreation doesn’t actually take any intelligence refused them.

But the manners of these people always shock me - when did the middle classes get so rude. A few weeks back, I went to see Macbeth at the Lyceum. It was their special 'all tickets for a fiver night' so of course the theatre was full of basil growing, organic chomping, Boden wearing yuppies. The bar was the usual crush not helped by everyone pushing past to get to the water jug and cups, for their free glass of water.'Excuuuse me' they all said, and with it expressing their god given right to run ram shod over anyone in their way -including my friend who had the audacity to be waiting to be served for a drink that she was going to pay for.

I don't know what's happened but this attitude of 'I'm a shit and I don't care who knows it' seems to sum up a lot of people these days. No, I'll correct it. That attitude seems to sum up a lot of middle class people these days. God knows, what the farmer's market will be like.

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