Gary Stevenson and how class signifiers shape our perceptions of authority | Letter

Carla Keen on the cultural signals we attach to how people speak, in response to a review on a documentary hosted by the inequality campaignerLucy Mangan’s description of Gary Stevenson as having an “adolescent bullishness” raises a wider question about how class shapes perceptions of authority (How to Get Filthy Rich With Gary Stevenson review – how did this end up such an embarrassment?, 8 July). I am an artist from a working-class background working in theatre, and I am very aware how often authority is often judged through presentation. Our media landscape still has a narrow idea of what expertise looks and sounds like. Research by the Sutton Trust has shown that around half of newspaper columnists and over a third of BBC executives were privately educated, despite private schools educating only a small minority of the population.Stevenson is now wealthy, highly educated and professionally successful, but class is not only about income or occupation. It is also about the cultural signals that we attach to voice, manner and presentation. Continue reading...