Boy Meets World

An example of a show that portrays a working class family is Boy Meets World, at least more so in the first couple seasons when the show focuses around the Matthews family. The dad is a manager at a grocery market. They still live in a beautiful, suburban house and they have good family values. A contrast of this life style is shown with Cory's best friend, Shawn, who lives in a trailer home. Cory and Shawn both share poor work ethic and a lack of intelligence but Shawn gets himself into a lot of trouble and Cory usually gets him out of it. There's a lot of tension that occurs between both boys that have to do with class and it's illustrated in a Thanksgiving episode when Cory and Shawn want both of their families to share Thanksgiving together. Both families are uncomfortable. Shawn's parents feel as though Cory's parents are judging their lack of class and Cory's parents kind of are judging their lack of class. At the end of the episode, the boys show them that they should be ashamed of how they are acting and should be happy to be able to share the holiday together. This kind of interaction between both families is not shown again in other episodes because the families dont mix. It shows the differences that even occur between lower middle class and lower class people. Even if you're a manager at a grocery store, it's still important to fit into the suburban lifestyle of having a nice, clean home with respectful children with good values. Shawn and his father's quirks from their trailer park lifestyle are usually seen as comedy and not to be taken seriously. There are jokes made about inbreeding and cross dressing in the trailer park. They are portrayed as animalistic sometimes which can hurt the image of people who really do live in trailer parks.