Often times society dictates which social classes are acceptable to interact with. When opposing social classes are forced to mingle in a setting such as high school, a variety of results can occur, from bitter rivalries developing to unlikely friendships blossoming. The film Pretty in Pink Illustrates strong tensions between social classes, and how each class segregates themselves from each other out of arrogance or fear of what they don 't know. While in the end the film argues that people can set aside their differences, it is not forgotten how difficult it can be due to societal pressures. In the film, each of the main characters are used as a method to represent the upper or lower class. The middle class is hardly portrayed, if at …show more content…
Many places in the film become designated to one or the other class, and it causes On Andie and Blane 's date, Blane takes Andie to a party his upper class friends are throwing taking place in a mansion. Here the upper class teenagers are ignorant of their privilege and show how respect for the property they are on, just as Andie predicted. In here Andie is faced with more insults than ever. Later that night. In the club, the lower class people dress how they want and truly be themselves. Blane appears to be out of his element here, but he is not judged by any of the club …show more content…
Andie gets back together with Blane at prom, and they presumably go on to lead a happy relationship together, proving that social class doesn 't have to be a barrier between people. Interestingly, however, this was not the original intended message of the film. In the original version of the film, Andie does not end up with the upper class Blane, and instead settles for Duckie, despite her desires to move up in class. With ending the film 's message could be interpreted as that it is not worth trying to cross the lines of social class. As it turned out, however, test audiences hated this ending. Audiences did not want Andie to settle, and instead wanted her to pursue the Blane instead. The fact that audiences actually wanted to see Andie and Blane together says something about society that the film had not originally predicted, and that is that maybe people really do feel that it can be worth it to try to mingle with different social
Usually, she has a male friend who will one day be the richest man, at the ten year reunion. Denby focuses highly on the outsiders redemption and, as Denby claims, how “they might have been working at a hip software company, or have started their own business, while the jocks who oppressed them would probably have wound up selling insurance or used cars.” These high school movies are meant to intrigue us, and for the most part, they do and this is why there are so many of them. Denby closes the argument with expressing that in Alexander Payne’s, Election, Reese Witherspoon plays a very credited girl who even though she is on top, feels excluded. This shows that even surrounded my numerous cliques, you can still feel like you do not fit in. By ending this article in such a way, it gives the reader another view on these teen movies and shows that there are other movies that differ from the “mainstream” teen
In the story, “A&P” by John Updike, the student identifies the differences of social classes between Sammy, a checkout clerk and Queenie, a wealthy girl that visit’s the store. Though not from the same class structure, Sammy is compelled to interact with the girl, however fails in doing so because she is considered privileged.
Sammy was obviously near the bottom of the class ladder, a place where he was extremely unhappy. His dead-end job at the grocery store, where lower class citizens are the prime patrons, was not a place he felt he belonged. He wanted to be a member of the family where the "father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties and the women were in sandals picking up herring snacks on toothpicks off a big glass plate and they were all holding drinks the color of water with olives and sprigs of mint in them" (Updike 1028). Sammy realizes that Queenie comes from this sort of background, a very different one from his. When Queenie is being harassed by Lengel, Sammy sees that "she remembers her place, a place from which the crowd that runs the A & P must look pretty crummy" (Updike 1028). Queenie’s family was in the class that he envied, that he admired, that he wanted to become a part of.
According to Newman in Sociology: The Architecture of Everyday Life, a social class “consists of people who occupy similar positions of power, privilege, and prestige” (Newman, 2012). Someone’s position in a social class can affect “virtually every aspect of their lives, including political preferences, sexual behavior, religious affiliation, diet, and life expectancy” (Newman, 2012). The social class that was represented in the film was the middle-class. The show, Pleasantville, portrays the 1950s in which the wife would stay at home cooking and cleaning while the father works. This show holds similar views to the show, Leave it to Beaver. The movie begins
The Breakfast Club, showed viewers how people from all economic backgrounds have something in common. From the very beginning of the film, as each student is dropped of for detention, the assumption about what these kid’s home life is like, what type of child they are and what social class they come from is established. When the kids are sitting in the library, where they sit even screams social standing. Claire and Andy sit next to each other because, from what we can tell, they are in the same standing. The hierarchy is started right from the beginning. The other kids all choose seats behind them. This shows that the popular, upper class, come first, everyone else is under them.
In our modern world, sociology has a tremendous impact on our culture, mainly through the processes and decisions we make everyday. For movies and television shows especially, sociological references are incorporated throughout the storyline. A movie which includes many sociological examples is Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a movie based on the life of home-schooled teenage girl, Cady Heron, who moves to the United States from Africa and is placed in a public school for the first time. Cady finds herself in many uncomfortable scenarios and has to deal with the trials and tribulations pertaining to everyday high school issues. Her experiences involve interacting with high school cliques, such as ‘the plastics’, weird high school teachers, relationships,
By them going against their gender roles and being inappropriately dressed in A & P, they also create the possibility for tragedy to occur. The manager of A & P, Lengel, an old Sunday school teacher embodies what is expected to be the male gender role of that time when he publically chastises the girls for being dressed in that manner in the store. Despite the girls’ attempts to justify their actions of being dressed in this manner by saying that they only came in to buy one thing, Lengel maintains his masculine gender role of keeping women in line. Lengel states quite matter-of-factly, “We want you decently dressed when you come in here.” (Updike 234). It is at this moment that Queenie pushes the envelope even further in going against her gender roles, by answering back Lengel. Queenie’s response of “We are decent,” (Updike 234) shows her somewhat rebellious and disrespectful nature, and her disregard for Lengel’s patriarchal authority. She instead would have been expected in this scenario to possibly apologize to Lengel and leave the store with her friends since he was not only male but senior to her thus demanding her
Acceptance, a key part today's society, is being in the norm and fitting in. In today's society, the social class is based off of acceptance. In the novel The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, some of the characters from the poor side of the town “greasers” were not
The Hollywood movie Pretty Woman (1990) is about a prostitute in Hollywood, marrying an extremely rich businessman, in spite of her mutual distrust and prejudice. The movie contains the basic narrative of the Cinderella tale: through the love and help of a man of a higher social position, a girl of a lower social status moves up to join the man at his level.
The social statuses individuals play every day are complex, and may sometimes be at odds with each other. This was quite apparent when I sat down to interview my friend John. At first glance, most would see John as a typical aging hipster, which is partly correct. However, at forty-five years of age, the complexities of the social roles played by John are immense to say the least.
Director Lawrence Kasdan's film Grand Canyon is centered around the lives of a few Los Angeles residents. Some of the individuals that are presented in the film belong in distinct social class in regard to each other. For instance, Mack is an upper-middle class lawyer; meanwhile, Simon is high-prole tow-truck driver. Fussell explains in his non-fiction text Class that there are many important elements that need to be taken into consideration when assigning a person to a social class. The elements that need to be taken into consideration include clothing, occupation and profession. Undoubtedly, Mark and Simon are a perfect example that reinforces the idea that their respective class standing can be accurately determined by these three
Throughout Great Expectations the importance of social class in the novel is discovered, and the emphasis on the subject is apparent. Every character in the novel, whether it be a lowly criminal like Magwitch, or a wealthy aristocrat like Miss Havisham, is defined by their social class and acts in a way that is deemed “appropriate” for their respected social class. The characters tend to conform to the way that their social class is supposed to act; the only social mobility really seen throughout the novel is Pip’s becoming a gentleman. It even seems as if each social class lives in a completely separate world from the other classes and people of the lower class only dream of what it is like to be wealthy. The people of the lower class have this great expectation that being wealthy would solve all of their problems and they would be happy. However it is learned that this is not true; the people of the upper class are not how the lower class think them to be. An example of this is Miss. Havisham, although she is rich, she is characterized as a “grim lady” and has great inner conflict which is shown by her. Like Miss. Havisham many people of the upper class lack the moral wealth that some of the degraded citizens like Magwitch possess.
Mean Girls (2004) is a movie that captures the challenging obstacles, excitements, and the letdowns that the adolescents face during high school. Although the movie is greatly exaggerated and does not hold to the true essence of reality, the film portrays the struggles an individual faces during adolescence. The protagonist of the film, Cady Heron, moves into the suburbs after being raised in Africa by her two scientist parents. As Cady is now enrolled into an American high school, she struggles to find her sense of self-identity as she encounters multiple groups of friends and she tries to fit-in by trying to find the status quo of the “American-high-school-way.” The film also emphasizes the development
All throughout the movie social class is a problem. Social class is the division of classes based on social, economic, and achieved status. All of the events on the ship are broken down based on which social class each person falls under. The upper class were those who were on a luxury trip, and
For my second media critique, I chose to focus on the 2011 film Bridesmaids. Bridesmaids is a comedy written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, directed by Paul Feig. With grossing almost $300 million worldwide, 44 nominations, and 11 awards won, Bridesmaids has been a relevant film in popular culture over the last three years (“Bridesmaids”).