Cultural messaging still matters. The right language is vital in advocacy. Negating a frame never dismantles it — it only ever reinforces it.
Thangam Debbonaire — the former shadow culture secretary who missed out on her constituency and the chance to be the UK government’s Culture Secretary — has secured, in addition to a baronetcy, a new role heading up the lobby group for the opera industry: the UK Opera Association.
To raise awareness of her appointment, she appears in The Times, laying out her mission to advocate for opera, brandishing her cello in front of a Union flag. The heavy-handed imagery does the familiar PR work: instrument, flag, authority pose — as though cultural credibility still depends on props. But there’s a clumsy trap she falls into when she tells us she doesn’t agree with the perception that opera is for posh people.
On the face of it this message seems absolutely bang on, doesn’t it? She doesn’t think opera is for posh people (whatever it is we actually mean by posh and this assuming the term is even useful).
And yet, there’s a paradox.
Imagine the headline writer’s eyes pop out of their sockets. The headline writes itself. Job done. Rage guaranteed. Traffic secured. Myth reinforced.
Why? Because to dismiss a stereotype you have to establish it first. In negating the frame she’s chosen to challenge, Thangam Debbonaire only reinforces the very problem she’s trying to solve.
It would have been better to say what opera is — to actually advocate for it confidently, making the headline writer sing for their supper.
Instead, the same tired trope gets another outing. The same stereotype is reinforced. The wall she’s trying to knock down is instead growing taller.
