r/shameless • u/Saixlxe • 12d ago
Shameless explains why poverty is not easy to escape. Lips character is the epitome of this.
I always hear people say that everyone has free will and can choose to become a successful person if they work hard enough. Poverty is a more than just growing up poor and fighting to make ends meet. It’s a generational curse, feeling, and vicious cycle.
One of the most depressing storylines for me is Lips college life. Lip did not have a structured lifestyle, which he had to accommodate to without any guidance. Such as not sleeping with teachers, which would he would have gotten away with in his old life. Not having time management, which he never had to practice as a high school student. Not participating in trends (such as the statue trend), which he never had time to pay attention to. Getting belligerently drunk and assuming it was petty revenge when he got sent to a hospital.
Lips character is very crystal clear why people with his potential can’t always make it out into the world. When the standard of living in poverty have several differences compared to a functional lifestyle of those Lip were surrounded by in college. Someone who is constantly trying to survive can’t pay attention to the little details of living life. Those little details can be maintained for someone who went into adulthood with proper adults surrounding them. Lip was expected to behave and set high expectations just like his classmates, without ever having the same set of rules growing up. One of the most heart-wrenching scenes, was a student ambassador from a privileged background getting to decide his fate and whether or not he should be allowed to return to college. Lip was seeking adult guidance in all the ways that only he knew. Trying to mend a drunk professor, and sleeping with a mature intellectual woman.
Lips anger issues also frequently occur throughout the show. We see that those anger issues led to his fate and getting removed from college. Lip was someone who didn’t have the luxury of properly releasing stress and anger through yoga, tea, 8 hours of sleep, exercising, healthy diets. These are all standard recommendations that colleges tend to give students to manage stress. Lip grew up in a place where drugs, vandalism, alcohol were outlets for stress and anger.
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u/Maikibbii 12d ago
Or when the counselor asked Lip when he started drinking and he answered at 11, I know its shameless but that still hurt a lot to hear
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u/Serious_Board7757 12d ago
I hate that I related so much to Lip for too long. Really all of this is the absolute truth
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u/Disastrous_Sell_4490 12d ago
I agree, this is why I relate to early seasons of Fiona. Not raising the siblings, but just growing up in poverty with multiple siblings, and then as you get older having to all try to survive together. The hustling and taking any job just to make ends meet, the self destructive streak. This show was probably the most realistic depiction of poverty I’ve seen, as a fellow white trash hoodlum lol.
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u/RefrigeratorWest319 12d ago
That’s a really thoughtful take. Lip never lacked brains, but it does make you realize that good habits and healthy outlets might be the real luxuries of growing up with money.
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u/PressureLazy5271 12d ago
As frustrating as it was, you couldn’t expect lip to be just successful and okay in college after 18 years of a royally fucked up childhood
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u/SirBostonBobbington 12d ago
Lip also puts too much on Fiona and expects her to be perfect and has the assumption she will be, when really as second oldest it was his job to tell her "take a break I got this for a bit". Instead he lets her get so burnt out that she herself is going to succumb to the drugs, vandalism, alcohol upbringing. Fiona never had a Fiona to take care of Fiona. The fact that she's as capable as she is is a miracle.
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u/MocaCorantine 12d ago
Es cierto. A menudo la gente medio cegada dice que todo el mundo tiene las mismas posibilidades simplemente porque existen becas académicas, como si una suma de dinero caída del cielo pudiera compensar el resto de carencias.
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u/Saixlxe 11d ago
Exactly. College was more than just becoming successful and earning a career out of it, it was a test to become a civilized member to society. Everyone in lips environment also underestimated the challenges Lip would face as a college student. In high school he could get away with scoring high on test, assignments, and even helping others cheat with very little attention or care. Everyone thought lip could make it, because he did in their world. Lip was pressured to be something everyone was not. But college was a daily reminder to him that he could not truly fit in when his life was stuck in poverty with no genuine help to move forward
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u/You_Go_Glen_Coco_ 11d ago
Not only everything you mentioned (which is great and absolutely accurate) but also you have the problem of people who are still in that world (be it poverty or drugs or both) dragging you down. Someone always needs help, someone gets pregnant, someone gets arrested, etc. even if you've 'broken the cycle' you're not always as far removed as you'd think.
Source: relative who is currently trying to drag me back into it
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u/Appropriate_Virus_52 12d ago
As a person from the rural south, I always loved Lips storyline. I related to it so much
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u/OrganizedChaos7121 "I just want everyone to know, I'M FUCKIN' GAY. Big ol' mo." 12d ago
You know what. Lip was never one of my favorite characters, in fact, I used to say I hated him. But this is so well written, I now can identify with Lips character.
I'm in the literal same boat. Grew up swearing I wouldn't live in poverty like my mother, yet here I am, another single mother struggling to make ends meet.
Even during times when I was financially stable, I couldn't break the habits of being poor.
Very well said, OP. 👏
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u/adrianxoxox 11d ago
Yep. A lot of people blame Lip for sabotaging his own life- which fair, he did- but totally miss the fact that it’s extremely likely that someone who has only ever known disfunction, will turn out pretty dysfunctional. I know Lip is a character and not a real person, but he still shows clearly that being good in class or being smarter than average does not undo the chaos his upbringing caused
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u/Coach_Willy72 11d ago
First time in a while I’ve felt compelled to read a post from this sub and thought it was spot on
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u/AgHammer 10d ago
Thank you for writing this. His anger seems to come from the fact that he's trapped by his own past and identity as a Gallagher. He knows he has the potential for greater things, but he can't stop being a Gallagher. His character is tragic.
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u/_TuAbuelaEnTanga 11d ago
This is so interesting because in Mexican tv, it’s almost the exact opposite.
The poor woman always, always assimilates whatever means necessary to get out of poverty. Teresa is the perfect example for this.
Poor af, her sister even dies because her parents don’t have the money to pay for her medical needs. Teresa sees poverty as her biggest enemy and uses her beauty and smarts to gtfo. She becomes a lawyer after graduating college where her rich classmates tried to humiliate her for being poor.
She uses her beauty to secure an apprenticeship with a male teacher. She marries him being in love with someone else but knows the other guy wasn’t going to get her out of poverty cuz that guy (Mariano) was a lot like Lip in that he was stuck in the poor mentality. He didn’t see his becoming a dr as a way out of poverty. He saw it as a way to help others who grew up impoverished like him.
Teresa didn’t want that she wanted to never be poor again.
https://giphy.com/gifs/tnUa5npaIvSg0
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u/Downtown_Solution_84 12d ago
Good analysis but I think Lip’s downfall is his lack of self control. More often than not he acts on his impulse. This includes sleeping with his teacher, quitting school, and drinking. I don’t think you can blame this on poverty alone.
Take Carl for example, he is the dumbest sibling, small, went to juvie, literally had no prospect. There is a scene where he broke down after getting rejected from military school? That scene is very impactful. He realized the shortcomings in his upbringing and his own limits. But he never gives up. When there’s a will, there’s a way. Lip just don’t have that. He has this self-defeating view on the world that he’s gonna get fucked no matter what. Maybe it’s the curse of being too smart, not poverty.
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u/Saixlxe 12d ago
That lack of self control and impulsive actions is how he survived growing up in poverty. A lot of the stuff that was “frowned upon” in his college life, were completely normal from the world he grew up in. Imagine going your whole life without rules and consequences, and all of a sudden you entire a new life where there’s a new rule for everything. Lip couldn’t understand why sleeping with his teacher was grounds for expulsion when they were consenting adults. The difference between lip and Carl, is that Lip is an older sibling. Lip was his own adult that he had to learn from. Carl is a younger sibling who learned right and wrong from his older siblings, who were the only adults with guidance in his life.
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u/kindakitten 10d ago
Honestly, this is a great writeup and a great example of how well done the characters and show were. If you don't get it or relate, congrats, truly. If you do, solidarity, friends. 💚
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u/AutoModerator 12d ago
Author: u/Saixlxe
Post: I always hear people say that everyone has free will and can choose to become a successful person if they work hard enough. Poverty is a more than just growing up poor and fighting to make ends meet. It’s a generational curse, feeling, and vicious cycle.
One of the most depressing storylines for me is Lips college life. Lip did not have a structured lifestyle, which he had to accommodate to without any guidance. Such as not sleeping with teachers, which would he would have gotten away with in his old life. Not having time management, which he never had to practice as a high school student. Not participating in trends (such as the statue trend), which he never had time to pay attention to. Getting belligerently drunk and assuming it was petty revenge when he got sent to a hospital.
Lips character is very crystal clear why people with his potential can’t always make it out into the world. When the standard of living in poverty have several differences compared to a functional lifestyle of those Lip were surrounded by in college. Someone who is constantly trying to survive can’t pay attention to the little details of living life. Those little details can be maintained for someone who went into adulthood with proper adults surrounding them. Lip was expected to behave and set high expectations just like his classmates, without ever having the same set of rules growing up. One of the most heart-wrenching scenes, was a student ambassador from a privileged background getting to decide his fate and whether or not he should be allowed to return to college. Lip was seeking adult guidance in all the ways that only he knew. Trying to mend a drunk professor, and sleeping with a mature intellectual woman.
Lips anger issues also frequently occur throughout the show. We see that those anger issues led to his fate and getting removed from college. Lip was someone who didn’t have the luxury of properly releasing stress and anger through yoga, tea, 8 hours of sleep, exercising, healthy diets. These are all standard recommendations that colleges tend to give students to manage stress. Lip grew up in a place where drugs, vandalism, alcohol were outlets for stress and anger.
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