Class Action October 2006 Book of the Month!

Class-Passing:

Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture

Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale) 2005

University of Nebraska professor Gwendolyn Audrey Foster’s recent book provides a much-needed theoretical examination of how class is negotiated in film and television. Foster’s premise is, “We all class-pass. We all negotiate class. We all experience and perform class. Yet very little discussion of class occurs, very little attention is paid to class in popular culture and film.” Foster believes that class is not discussed in general society and on television because it is what bell hooks calls, “the uncool subject.”

According to Foster, another reason for the lack of discussion is that class striving is seen as natural. When the Fresh Prince moves to Bel Air it’s taken as a given that the move is a good thing. Therefore the opportunity to explore any real class conflict is hidden behind stereotypes and Will Smith’s fish out of water antics. As Foster writes, “the productive unconscious is constantly expressing itself on-screen and in popular culture…[but] few are prepared to comment on class performances and classed acts that appear right in front of our noses merely because the desire for class mobility seems as normative and opaque as the American Dream itself.”

When someone from a working-class background shows up on "The Apprentice" the person’s background is acknowledged as a component of their drive for success, but the issue is not thoroughly interrogated for, as Foster writes, “Class-Passing and class mobility are not usually treated as behaviors or fantasies that spring from desire…Class passing has simply been normed so intrinsically that it no longer stands out.”

Foster points out that on television, “this class-passing often involves marrying up, marrying down, and moving through social positions because of a change in job, marriage or any number of plot contrivances.” We can see this to an extreme on current shows such as “Wife Swap” where “a wealthy status-conscious material girl” swaps husbands and homes with a “mother who prizes family time and old-fashioned values over material goods,” and "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" where a new home filled with flat-screen TVs and Wolf kitchen appliances is meant to lift up an economically-strapped family. As Foster asks “Why is class-passing so often celebrated rather than problematized or stigmatized?” We might also ask why is this sudden thrusting of families into the upper middle class seen as a gift from God? And why is the rich wife on "Wife Swap" shallow and the working class wife a champion of “family values?”

Another related question that Foster’s book raises is television’s obsession with the trappings of wealth. Of shows such as "Mtv Cribs," "The Simple Life," "The Apprentice" and "Joe Millionaire" she writes, “One thing these programs have in common is their set design and their unusual fixation with the accoutrements we associate with frivolous wealth: hot tubs, champagne, huge mansions, marble floors , designer gowns, butlers and hosts with English accents.” Indeed when the “winners” of "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" are shown into their homes the brand names are evident everywhere. This serves as product placement, but is also an indication of how American’s of every social class are now made aware, thanks in large part to television, of not only how the other half lives but also exactly what brands they buy.

For Foster a show like the Paris Hilton vehicle “The Simple Life” is successful because of the class clash inherent in the premise, even though the words social class are never uttered. Foster argues that these rich young women and their visits to the “average" America, “provide a fantasy of contact between the classes, and that point of contact is explosive and meaningful to the average American.” This contact is meaningful precisely because it is present in our everyday life, despite (or because of?) our inability to make it explicit. Instead the writers and the editors of "The Simple Life" work the clichés of the working class imagery. The camera lingers on the deep fryer in one working-class home and when the show moves to the farm there are, “endless shots of cows behinds.”

Television sit-coms, especially those that claim to portray the lives of the working class or middle class often perpetuate gender roles tied to viewer's notions of class. As Foster writes, “Implicit in the American Dream is the buried myth that all men are created equal as wage slaves. Women are supposed to be slaves to the family, of course….the myth remains that men, despite their class lineage, are born to be ‘men of action’, to be ‘breadwinners’ always in pursuit of more things, more money, more at the office, more at the gym.” This is borne out by ABC’s own description of its show “According to Jim.” In the “about the show” section of the website the synopsis states, “Jim Belushi stars as Jim, the macho everyman, with a soft spot for his beautiful wife Cheryl and their three precocious kids. A success at his construction business and the family breadwinner, at home Jim seems to keep Cheryl in constant turmoil with his boyish bravado and ever-willful antics.”

Do Americans long to see class passing constantly reinforced? Based on the entertainment they favor Foster concludes they do. Foster points out that the average American family is $18,654 in debt not including mortgage debt. Yet despite this debt “we are inundated with fetishistic displays of celebrity.” This is part of the reason Foster believes that audiences crave stories of class passing. “audiences, desperate to cling to the American Dream, need constantly to see images of those who have successfully class-passed, along with the trophies of class passing.” Therefore class-passing and successful striving on TV is not a reflection of of how well we are doing as a nation, but how poorly. Just as in the depression era, our entertainment has a focus on a kind of wealth most will never attain.

Though this is not the first time in entertainment history where wealth and opulence have been fetishized on film and video, Foster argues that we have abandoned any political awareness that used to accompany celebration of wealth. In the 1930s the decadence portrayed in the "Thin Man" series was juxtaposed with Preston Sturgess’ portrayals of the underclass. Foster and others she quotes see television’s promotion of celebrity culture as a machine of consumerism that squashes dissent. She quotes the creator of "The Sopranos," David Chase, as saying,“television is the base of a lot of our problems…The function of an hour drama is to reassure the American people that it’s OK to go out and buy stuff. It’s all about flattering the audience, making them feel as if all the authority figures have our best interests at heart.”

Though Foster makes many salient points she occasionally poisons the well of her own argument by her elitist tone. For example, when she writes, “A typical episode of 'VH 1 The Fabulous Life: Celebrity Super Spenders' concentrates on the spending habits of Christina Aguilera, a recording 'artist' who is perhaps more notable for her wearing underwear as outerwear than for her actual record sales.” She does not follow up that statement with a discussion of hyper-sexuality’s relationship to consumerism, nor does she ever acknowledge that Christina Aguilera actually has an impressive vocal range, many hit records, and legions of fans, many of whom like and buy her music for what it is, not for her sartorial choices.

Missteps such as that aside, Foster makes a persuasive argument for the creation of what we may call a Celebrity Class. As she writes, “with the rise of ‘reality’ television, we are now barraged with images of real people as they class-pass into the public arena of celebrity…indeed we are not so much invited to class-pass as celebrities; we are demanded, commanded to do so. It is our manifest destiny…” Today the television screen is filled constantly with images of “real” people. An appearance on television can be a marker of some kind of success, just the same as a nice car or a snazzy suit. The key becomes having something to show for your newfound celebrity. It’s no good to appear on TV and go back to driving your 1988 Honda Civic. One has to embrace your new celebrity status. For as Foster writes, “Class matters, but Cash matters more.”

View previous Class Action Book of the Month selections...

September Book and Video of the Month: Beyond Silenced Voices and Declining By Degrees

August Books of the Month: Human Cargo and Gathering the Sun

July Book of the Month: The Overworked American by Juliet Schor

June Book of the Month: More Money Than God by Steven R. Leder

May Book of the Month: Global Class by Jeff Faux

April Books of the Month: Classified and Strapped

March Book of the Month: Welfare Brat, A Memoir by Mary Childers

February Book of the Month: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

January Book of the Month: Invisible Privilege: A Memoir about Race, Class, and Gender by Paula Rothenberg

View last year's Book of the Month selections...

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