L’ alimentation comme expression d’une culture de classe : la bière et le tea dans la classe ouvrière britannique à l’écran depuis 1956

Abstract

Tea, a typically British meal taken after work, and beer, the favourite drink of British lower classes, have been at the heart of working-class identity in British cinema since 1956. The type of food consumed and the eating habits depicted act as real social markers, revive the proletarian consciousness of the British worker—sometimes by becoming a symbolic weapon —and, through their impact on his body, show the evolution of his socioeconomic conditions over the decades. Food also reveals the gender division prevailing in the working-class household as well as workplace, and shows how it can become a way to express an incipient form of feminism. Beer turns out to be a key element of a real class culture as the pub which holds a central place in British working-class life enables workers to celebrate their homosocial bond.