The best moment in the first episode of I Belong To Glasgow (BBC One, Friday, 10.35pm) was when comedienne Karen Dunbar walked down a street and talked about some of the cliches that surround the city: shipyards, jeely pieces, shipyards made out of jeely pieces.
Dunbar pointed out there are very few shipyards left in Glasgow and that no one had ever thrown a jeely piece at her.
At which point, someone threw a jeely piece at her and it splatted on the side of her face.
It was the funniest moment in the programme, the first of a series in which well-known Glaswegians talk about the city and what it means to them, and Dunbar was right to try to move away from some of the most persistent stereotypes that were not relevant to most people 30 years ago, let alone now.
The problem is she then went on to promote some of the other stereotypes that could also do with being ditched: the idea that Glasgow is particularly welcoming for instance (it is no more or less welcoming than any other city, except perhaps London), or the idea that its women are especially strong and no-nonsense (you can find women like that all over Scotland at all levels of society - being Glaswegian has got nothing to do with it).
The section on strong women was illustrated by vaguely patronising shots of pensioners in a bingo hall
in Maryhill, pensioners who were presumably taking a rest from lobbing jeely pieces, and it underlined one of the other problems with the programme, and I suspect the rest of the series.
The problem is Glasgow is almost always promoted through its working-class culture and its working-class stars, even though that is, or should be, only part of the story.
Where is middle-class Glasgow? Why is the city I came to 20 years ago, the city I work in, hardly ever represented on television?
Why is the story of the city constantly monopolised by the same old tropes about variety theatre, drinking, bingo and banter?
Dunbar said at one point that the city needs a 21st century reboot. She is right, it is just that her programme did not provide it and rather propped up some of the familiar tropes.
What the programme did provide was some interesting details of Dunbar's experiences as a gay woman.
In Ayrshire, where she grew up, she experienced terrible homophobia, but coming to Glasgow in her early twenties she found a welcoming gay scene.
"I found in Glasgow a place that accepted me for who I was," she said.
There will be many other gay people who feel exactly the same way about Glasgow but then there will be many gay people who feel the same about Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff or pretty much any other city: it is cities in general that are gay-friendly, not Glasgow in particular.
And yet the myths persist about Glasgow to the soundtrack of old songs that are rarely heard.
Could it be that the city is really pretty much like any other and, thanks to globalisation and homogenisation, is becoming more so?
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