Social class and popular culture

Lesson 16SOC 86 – Popular CultureRobert Wonser 1

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The Invention of class cultures

150 years ago Americans enjoyed the same national popular culture consumed and experienced collectively by the masses, by people from all social classes.

•What happened? Industrial RevolutionCreated a new upper-classes

American elite of successful entrepreneurs, bankers and businesspeople.

The nouveau riche descended from common backgrounds, not aristocracy like in Europe.

So initially they drew on trappings of European nobility (family crests, French cuisine, classical art and music)

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The Invention of Class Cultures

Conscious efforts at boundary maintenance and social exclusion.

Including “serious” culture for upper classes (classical music, opera etc.)

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Class Status and Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous consumption status displays that show off one’s wealth through the flagrant consumption of goods and services, particularly those considered wasteful or otherwise lacking in obvious utility

Upper classes distinctly avoid associations with working class; this reverse is not true.

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Cultural Capital and Class Reproduction

Cultural capital one’s store of knowledge and proficiency with artistic and cultural styles that are valued by society, and confer prestige and honor upon those associated with them.

•Unevenly distributed and usually inherited•E.g. the hipster

Cultural omnivore

The ‘omnivore thesis’ contends that there is a sector of the population of western countries who do and like a greater variety of forms of culture than previously, and that this broad engagement reflects emerging values of tolerance and undermines snobbery.

What do your music tastes say about you?

Poorer people are likely to have singular or “limited” tastes. The rich have the most expansive.

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Everyone on tv and movies is middle/upper class

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According to the real estate website Trulia, the iconic home used in exterior shots on Full House in San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood sold for $2,865,000 in 2013.

So while it's hard to say exactly what that eclectic apartment would be worth today, Trulia's research shows that the median cost of a two bedroom, one bath apartment in the West Village is $5,100 a month.

‘New girl,” “it’s complicated”

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Then there’s that movie from a couple years ago, "It's Complicated," where Meryl Streep plays a baker who somehow lives in a House Beautiful-worthy home -- literally, it was featured in the magazine -- in Santa Barbara, where the kitchen alone looks like it cost a fortune. Oh yeah, and the plot of the movie centers around a remodel of said kitchen, so Streep’s character can finally get a “real” one.

Think about the TV show "New Girl," where a bunch of 20-somethings on teacher, bartender, research assistant and “junior lead marketing associate” salaries, live in a gorgeous loft in L.A.

This disconnect was made painfully clear to a set decorator named Rosemary Brandenburg several years ago, when she was working on the set for "Castaway." Before Tom Hanks gets in that plane crash and has to survive on a desert island, there's a scene at his girlfriend's parents house, eating Christmas dinner.

“We were asked to make a ‘typical middle class’ dining room/ living room,” Brandenburg remembers. “And I was too shy to go to our director and ask him which middle class he really wanted.”

That’s when Brandenburg made her mistake.

“I made middle class in my life, which was old fashioned granny lamp shade, print couches and a La-Z-Boy chair, printed wall paper.” In short, a working class version of a "typical middle class home” -- well loved, a little bit shabby.

When Rosemary had the set ready, the director came to see. “He walked in and just hated it. Said ‘What have you done here? I mean this looks like grandma's house!’ He had in mind someone with much more upscale tastes, and up-to-date furnishings.

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castaway

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“Knocked up”/”this is 40” house

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The house has 6 bedrooms and 6,500 square feet. Houses on the street in Brentwood sell for between $8 and $20 million.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with dreaming. And Hollywood never pretended to be anything but pretend. But consider this observation, from Damon Silvers, a labor lawyer for the AFL-CIO. When he watches this stuff, he thinks about how it shapes the collective image we have of ourselves.

“There is a tendency to imagine that we live in a country where the typical family makes $150,000 a year. But half of all American households have incomes less than $55,000 a year,” he says. “So there's a kind of a cognitive problem here. We don't live in the country we think we live in. The world that is projected as middle class in the media is a world that no more than something like 15 percent of America can afford.”

And yet, a lot of us try to afford it. Often by getting in lots of debt.

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Which class do you belong to?

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How come we don’t have an accurate picture of which social class we belong to?

What kind of stereotypes does the media portray about social class?

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What functions might this serve?

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