Frasier x Hyacinth
Frasier x Hyacinth
The 1990s upward mobility plot
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but “Keeping Up Appearances” and “Frasier” are the same show. Both center on an upper-middle-class adult child whose life revolves around transcending working-class roots. Both Frasier and Hyacinth are held back by their ever so embarrassing fathers, these living reminders of where they came from.
Also, requisite trivia: Patricia Routledge (Hyacinth) and John Mahoney (Martin) were apparently born near each other in the north of England. And then there’s pseudo-Northerner Daphne, who, along with the general mood of the show, helps nudge “Frasier” into Britcom territory.
Also, ALSO: Niles Crane and Elizabeth’s brother Emmet bear a resemblence that extends beyond, but certainly includes, the physical.
There’s something where, in some part of the mid-late 20th century, more people started going to college. This was experienced in a lot of households as upward mobility, whether or not it meant a rise in relative status. There were absolutely instances when it would, and when it meant a person of humble origins catapulted into a posh set, and trying to hide their insufficient knowledge of where the tiny fork goes. But… there were also a whole lot of people who were “first-gen” at a time when the overall population started attending something past high school.
Did Richard Bucket, Hyacinth’s husband, go to university, or is he just the social class where it seems like he did? Unclear, but we all know that their son Sheridan is at university (or as Hyacinth is at one point forced to clarify, at a polytechnic that’s like a university, a distinction I do not understand but whose vibe is clear).
Which brings up yet another commonality: Niles’s sometimes-wife Maris and Sheridan are not only both off-screen characters but basically the same person.
Is Frasier’s clash with Martin socioeconomic or generational? Hyacinth’s, with her family of origin, is clearly not just generational, as there are Daisy, Rose, and Onslow representing working-class (if that) same-age family, not to mention the far posher sister Violet.
As came up when I tweeted about this, Martin and Onslow are another pair. Armchair-bound, beer-drinking, yeah Onslow is the Martin equivalent, not Hyacinth’s barely-seen (and senile) Daddy.
But would Martin and Onslow get along? I almost think that they would not. Retired cop—and American work-ethic-haver—Martin would not be impressed with Onslow’s work-shy ways.
I’m sure the national comparison could go further. There is the material comfort in which the Cranes live, which far exceeds that of the Buckets. And there’s the relative success Frasier and Niles, versus Hyacinth, seem to have at passing as born-posh sorts.
With Frasier and Niles, they just are upscale. Yes, they have neuroses and pretentions rooted in their nouveau-ness, but they’re not surrounded by old-money sorts. Whereas Hyacinth is always trying to be what she never can. It’s not just that Richard’s income is what it is—better than Onslow’s non-income but not infinite plus there was the early retirement. It’s that Hyacinth is not and never will be a born aristocrat and in England this means that she’s Daisy no matter how she differently she styles her hair.
Hyacinth and Richard are *maybe* middle-middle class. They're nowhere near Upper Middle. That's what makes her striving so cringe, she hasn't actually climbed far.
On Frasier it's a bit more complex because their dad married up, at least in educational terms (their mother was some kind of research scientist). That it was Martin who was the climber is never fully addressed (but naming his kids Frasier and Niles is a bit of a clue!). That in widowhood he starting leaning back into a more blue-collar identity is my interpretation.