Have you ever ridden a subway cart and seen a businessman in a crisp suit carrying a fancy leather suitcase? Next to you, was there a family with their luggage, making their way to the airport? In that same cart, did another man happen to step on, tell a long tragic story, and beg the crowd for loose change? Class structure is an undeniable ever-so present system that distributes society into three main categories – upper class, middle class, and lower class. In New York City, with the rich living just blocks away from the poor, it isn’t difficult to find the contrasting differences in both lifestyles. However, not every city is New York City, and not everyone can have the opportunity to see the stark differences in class. Artists give insight into the different lifestyles that people of different classes live and really reinforce the general implications associated with each standard of living.

Taxi Driver the movie, approaches class structure from the low end of the spectrum. Travis Bickle is a Vietnam Veteran and an ex-Marine out of work. He doesn’t have a lot of money, and is forced to become a taxi driver to make a living. Working the night shift (the worst shift), Travis usually drives the bottom feeders of New York City from borough to borough, and regularly cleans blood and semen from the backseat of his taxi. His terrible job exposes him to guns, violence, drugs, and prostitution – child position to be more precise. He is unaware of social norms such as a first date should not be to see a Swedish sex education film inside an adult movie theatre. By the end of the film, Travis finds himself plotting to assassinate the presidential candidate, Senator Palantine, and shooting at the pimp of a prostitution ring. The director, Martin Scorsese, shows the audience of the film all the horrors that lower class citizens are exposed to – horrors that seem to almost become inherent to the lifestyle of the lower class.

Artists can paint an entire picture for audiences and form the way their audiences think of certain scenarios – including the lives of the poor and rich. Whether in film, literature, or art, they show the audience what they want the audience to see.