Some Trojan notices + Rimmer's class background

[saylee.livejournal.com]

I was rewatching Trojan the other night, and caught a few things I hadn't noticed before and that I don't think I've seen mentioned here. First off, when Rimmer's complaining about the lateral thinking questions, Lister asking him to lay a question on him seems like a genuine offer to help, at least until he hears about the moose and can't resist taking the smeg. Then, when Rimmer has the resentment attack, it's Lister (not, say, Kryten) who protests that they shouldn't draw on him. Okay. he caves to temptation, but still, he tried. Last, when Crawford fires on Lister, is it just me, or in the split second before Howard jumps in front of the blast, does Rimmer look terrified?

Oh a completely unrelated note, I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out Rimmer's class background. On the one hand, in the 1st series he complains about not having the right parents and the right nobby background, and about how someone like Todhunter would have been raised on gazpacho soup and champagne. On the other hand, in The Beginning, the Rimmers are apparently decended from princes (do I have that right? I can't check right now), and they're clearly well-off and have what seems to be a full-time gardener. I admit I'm not familiar with the nuances of the British class system, so I appreciate any clarification. I also wonder if the colonization of the solar system has any effect on this. Thoughts?

Comments

[lilka.livejournal.com]

I read Rimmer as just upper-middle-class enough to have grown up surrounded by actual upper class people, especially at school, and been picked on for not being one of them. (Think of George Osborne, the British chancellor, being nicknamed 'Oik' by his friends because he only went to the third most expensive private school in the country). I think his family probably had plenty of money, no connections, and aspirations to social climbing. I've known boys like that, and some of them certainly had that combination of class-related-chip-on-shoulder and lack of awareness of their own relative privilege.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with your first paragraph. It really struck me in "Trojan" how relaxed Rimmer and Lister were around each other compared even to the relatively recent "BTE". Actually, I was lucky enough to watch this ep recorded and I'm sure I remember a part of the moose scene prior to that when Rimmer's complaining to Lister about being unable to fool the medi-bot that he was dyslexic because "I wasn't stupid enough" and gets the reply: "Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you were really stupid". Craig's delivery of that line was affectionate.

I can understand it being cut as the whole medi-bot subplot was, but I'm mystified as to why it's not in the deleted scenes. If I hallucinated it, you'd think I would have imagined something slashier. ;)

I'm British, so I feel qualified to pontificate about Rimmer's background. I think the Rimmers are clearly what snobby people would call a "good" family, but I admit I'm sceptical about his "Dad" 's claim to be descended from Austrian and French royalty. I think he's decided that's the case from flimsy circumstantial evidence because he wants it to be the case.

Incidentally, he seems to completely disregard Rimmer's mother's family. He goes straight from European royalty to "lame-brained artisans and pram-faced trollops", referring to "Dungo". What a charmer, eh? :/

[beetle-breath.livejournal.com]

Arghh still haven't seen Season X :(

at any rate, I think part of Rimmer's ranting also had to do with the fact that his parents were fucking awful human beings. Or perhaps because his father couldn't get into the Academy, the Rimmer sons wouldn't have the connections to get in.

[hazeltea.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree- the Rimmers were apparently one of the first mining families to settle on Io, so they were able to buy the best land before most people and claim a 'heritage'- like Americans who go on about 'coming over on the Mayflower'. So, they are squarely middle class with aspirations to be perceived as elite. A military career is traditionally a way to achieve this, and seems to be the route his father and brothers emphasized. Mining might be good business, but it's still, broadly speaking, powered by working class people.

[missflibble.livejournal.com]

As a fellow Brit, I'd agree with janamelie that the Rimmer family are upper middle class with 'Dungo' clearly being from a working class background. The whole 'artisans and princes' line smacks of a typical Rimmer-esque tweaking of the facts to be honest...but it does rather remind me of Mrs Bouquet/Bucket from 'Keeping Up Appearances' (British sitcom)!!

[slash-hat.livejournal.com]

Practically everybody is descended from some sort of royalty (and also from merchants and pirates and miners and peasants and...) because when you get back a few hundred years you've got thousands of ancestors coming from a much smaller population. If it was within the last few generations, the family probably would have some money and/or tiles, and therefore would be "nobby"; the fact that they don't, but Rimmer senior is boasting about blood, is very much an insecure petty-bourgeois thing.

[jameta4all.livejournal.com]

I think Rimmer would complain about his life even if he'd been born as Prince William.

I always considered his family to be fallen middle class - like where they come from good stock and have connections but everyone pretends not to know them because they're too dysfunctional, even for blue-bloods, and they eventually lose a lot of money. Rather like the person who ends up being the culprit in every episode of Midsomer Murderers.

A sudden financial crisis would also explain only the first three sons going to the academy, and them having a nice big house on Io. I watch a lot of property shows and you quite often get the bankrupt toffs who inherit a huge mansion but can't actually afford to keep it warm or even upright. They end up having to let it out or have tours to keep their cash going.