INTRODUCTION TO PART III:

What is Class?

Class is a term used to categorize people according to their economic status. It thus frequently involves a consideration of income level, type of profession, inherited wealth and family lineage, and a diffusely understood idea of “social standing.” Historically, most societies have made distinctions among their members according to some kind of class division. Under such class systems, citizens are very aware of their class standing or social worth. Class standing can form a strong basis for a person’s overall identity, much as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ability also contribute to one’s sense of self. For example, people raised as members of the so-called working class (associated with physical labor, or industrial or blue-collar jobs) may carry aspects of that identity throughout their lives, even if they shift in income level to the professional or middle class (more associated with administrative, managerial, or white-collar jobs that require advanced university education). A strong class system helps keep a society’s power structure in place, hegemonically encouraging members of each class to stay where they are in the socio-economic hierarchy.

Compared to some nations (for example, historical England or India), the United States likes to think it does not have a strongly defined class system. One of the many reasons the 13 colonies broke away from England in the first place was a revolt over the strictness of the British class system. By repudiating the concept that certain persons were endowed by God with a divine right to power and wealth, the fledgling United States of America asserted that “all men were created equal.” (However, remember that the framers of the Constitution felt that only white menthat owned land should have equal access to wealth and power.) In its formation, the United States attempted to reject England’s rigid class system and replace it with a system that would purportedly allow all individuals to accumulate wealth and rise in class standing according to their ability and ambition. Citizens of the United States were not to be hampered by a mental conception of their “place.” This national concept – the freedom to pursue happiness without socio-economic class barriers– has often been called the American Dream, and over the years this dream has come to be shared by women and people of color as well as white men. Closely tied to the American Dream is the ideology of rugged individualism, where in each citizen is expected to take responsibility for his or her own success. This emphasis on individualism also works against a sense of a shared class identity.

To this day, America takes a certain pride in considering itself a “classless” society, but it is wrong to think that the nation has no class issues. Class standing still matters to most Americans, whether or not they admit it. The dominant economic organization of the United States is and always has been capitalism, a system based on economic competition among individuals – and more recently, economic competition among corporations, a state of affairs now referred to as corporate capitalism. Just as the concept of whiteness is so endemic to American culture that it often goes unnoticed, the pervasiveness of capitalism often makes it difficult for Americans to recognize its omnipresence. Under capitalism in general, success is measured by wealth and the things it can buy, including power. Economic standing is arguably the most important gauge for assessing a person’s social worth. Thus the American Dream has often been defined in terms of material wealth – owning land, one or more homes, several cars, expensive jewelry and clothing, and so forth. More modestly, the American Dream can simply be freedom from want, in addition to the numerous other freedoms (speech, assembly, religion, the pursuit of happiness) guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Yet these freedoms for all citizens to do or say what they want, or live as they might desire, are usually tied to economic success: the more money one has, the more ability one has to do or say what one wants.

Put simply, in America those with the most wealth have the most privilege and the most power. Wealthy families – those of the upper classes – use their positions of advantage to keep or increase their economic status (and thus their power) over generations. They attend the best schools, are placed in good jobs, and can hire the best lawyers, doctors, and economic advisors. By making large contributions to political campaigns, supporting lobbying efforts, and buying media time to promote candidates who share their points of view, the wealthy are able to get advantageous tax and business laws passed. While a wealthy individual may not intentionally attempt to oppress others, such oppression can result. For example, laws that ease pollution standards or safety requirements in factories directly benefit the owners of these companies (who do not have to spend the extra money required for compliance), and such actions may have a directly adverse affect on people working in or living near the factories. Even stronger examples can be drawn from business executives who work to keep the level of the basic hourly wage at a minimum, or avoid paying health insurance for their employees. The effect of these laws and business practices works to keep lower-income groups locked into their socio-economic place, while corporations, business owners, and stock holders continue to benefit monetarily.

More broadly, capitalism and rugged individualism encourage Americans to compete rather than cooperate with one another. We are taught to assess other people by their economic status, or more simply give in to the feeling that we must “keep up with the Joneses,” that is, be as materially successful as our neighbors. The success or capability of the United States itself is often measured by its corporate economic power. During the 1950s, the common political opinion that “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country” directly linked national strength to corporate business strength. Similar attitudes persist to the present day, as can be seen in the importance of the stock market as an indicator of American stability and strength. When Islamic terrorists attacked the United States in the fall of 2001, various analysts advised citizens to buy stock in order to keep the market up and thus show the world that the terrorists had not succeeded in hurting the nation.

While most Americans would readily acknowledge the importance of material success in their lives, far fewer want to admit that our unwritten class system may actually work to curtail or corrupt American ideals. While basing one’s core identity on a class standing isa social construct, one’s class standing doesexist and have a concrete and material effect on one’s life, even if one denies it. A lack of class consciousness (an awareness of a class system and one’s place within it) empowers the dominant ideology of capitalism as much as a strongly defined class system. Capitalist ideologies work to disarm, mask, or suppress any possible complaints based on class inequity. Except during periods of depression or recession, American mass culture largely ignores the existence of economic hardship. The news media rarely covers poverty, hunger, or economic disparity – except during the holidays for a “feel-good” piece on middle-class or corporate charity showing the benevolence of capitalism and the American Dream. Such benevolence cannot be relied on, though, as many individuals rebuff requests from homeless people and concertedly try to ignore their very existence. Americans can even deny their own economic oppression. Studies show that most of the population self-identifies as middleclass, even though statistically many of those individuals would be placed into lower classes on the basis of their yearly salaries. (The term “lower-class” itself ascribes to a hierarchy that American capitalism tries to efface.) Self-identifying as middleclass may help to keep people from considering themselves discriminated against or disempowered.

The propagation of the American Dream suggests that the only thing holding a person back from wealth (and thus happiness) is their own lack of drive and determination. Some Americans are quick to blame individuals for economic hardship, overlooking the role that capitalism might play in the creation and perpetuation of unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. The myth of the American Dream coincides with the traditions of the Protestant work ethic, which dates back to the colonial era and equates hard work and devotion to labor with goodness and devotion to God. According to the Protestant work ethic, if one works hard enough, one will be rewarded by God both in this life and in the next. Some argue that the ethic encourages the wealthy to engage in charity (thus helping support and spread the American Dream). Others, though, have often used the ethic to argue the exact opposite: poverty is God’s punishment for an individual’s ignorance, laziness, or sin, and thus should not be rewarded with charity. Other socio-cultural concepts examined in this book are often used as excuses for failed capitalist endeavor. For example, since American success is tied to the notion of rugged individualism,lackof material success is often thought to reveal insufficient masculinity (which, according to traditional standards, should be veryrugged and veryindividual).

Seemingly in response to this implied criticism (less economically successful men are somehow inadequate), many economically struggling groups in the United States place a heavy importance on masculine strength and ability. “Machismo” is often a strong component of working-class cultures, whether white or non-white. Popular culture debates also invoke stereotypical ideas of race and ethnicity to avoid a potential critique of capitalism, constructing minorities as “inherently” ignorant, lazy, or corrupt. In this way, racism is used to mask capitalism’s failures, when in fact racist practices can and do createeconomic disparity when non-white people are discriminated against in hiring and promotion. All of these ideological currents work to obscure and uphold the complex socio-cultural and economic dynamics of white patriarchal capitalism. They tend to blame individuals for social problems that may instead be caused by the ignorance, prejudice, greed, and/or economic exploitation that capitalist ideologies create and foster.

Most cultural studies of class are derived from Marxism, so named for economic theorist Karl Marx. Over 100 years ago, Marx argued that economic systems (such as capitalism) form the base of society, and that everything in the superstructure of a society (that is, those ideological institutions that arise from its economic base, such as law, culture, and media) must necessarily reflect and endorse the economic system that produced them. Thus one can see that there may be economic imperatives at the base of superstructural concepts such as racism and sexism. For example, the American colonial economy was strongly tied to the institution of slavery, and thus many historians have argued that racial stratification developed to justify this form of capitalist exploitation. Also, a sense of male superiority helps to justify treating women as property or goods to be traded from father to husband. Following these ideas about base and superstructure, one can understand how American films (produced as part of a capitalist economic base) must repeatedly construct superstructural representations that uphold and celebrate capitalism. The next two chapters will show how class difference in American society has been represented in American film, as well as how capitalist imperatives have affected the film industry itself.