Art plays a huge role in both reinforcing and breaking down class structures. I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up films and literature dictated my views of reality and social structure.. Living in a world organized by social structures, much of what each social class knows about the other is based on examples portrayed in different works of art. My life may never be understood by the exceptionally wealthy living on Park Avenue, and I will likely never understand their lives either. But perhaps artwork is where these “gaps of understanding” between social classes seek to be filled, however distorted the representations may be.

Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese, is an example of artists reinforcing class structures. The film largely depicts the poor, slum like qualities of New York City. Scorsese highlights the “underworld” of the city, a subculture which many people will never experience firsthand.  While depicting the “underworld” of the city, Scorsese also characterizes its inhabitants as willing to do anything to get by, including ignoring some of their morals. The idea that the working poor are often desperate and willing to do whatever it takes to survive is a common theme in films, reinforcing this exaggerated example of the lower classes. Similar to Taxi Driver, the film Wall Street, directed by Oliver Stone, also reinforces the stereotypes of class structures, specifically regarding the working class and the extremely wealthy. Stone depicts the wealthy as morally corrupt, whose insatiable desire for money allows them to trample everyone in their way. On the opposite end of the spectrum, blue collar workers are depicted as honest and hard working with strong morals.

When comparing these two films, I find it ironic that the working poor and the exorbitantly wealthy are perceived in nearly the same light. At both extreme ends of the social ladder, morals are forgotten in the search for something more. For Travis in Taxi Driver, making money often meant turning a blind eye to moral corruption in the city. In Wall Street, Gordon Gekko similarly abandons his morals in the quest for more money. Comparing these two films shows just how much control artists have over how class structures are reinforced, often exacerbating commonly held stereotypes in popular culture.

After seeing both of these films reinforce rigid stereotypes of class structure, it was refreshing to read Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage”. Reza breaks down typical class structure values by showing two upper class families revert to name calling, screaming matches and an overall chaos after trying to remain diplomatic with each other. Instead of portraying these upper class families in a glorified light, she instead depicts them as they are- human. It may sound cliche, but Reza eloquently proves that money doesn’t buy class, and even when you do have class, you sometimes have to throw it out the window!

Artists either reinforce or break down class structures, and we have to ask ourselves why they do so. Do artists intend to showcase their own ideas of class structures in their artwork, or do they appeal to commonly held stereotypes already present in American culture? Or is it that  we as citizens actually get these stereotypes from what we see in artwork? Just some food for thought.

– Jalissa Quigley