In today’s society there is a distinct separation between the social classes. Those of the upper class are depicted as wealthy, distinguished, well-groomed individuals. Those who find themselves in the lower class are shown as poor, unkempt, and inferior. This separation is only reinforced with portrayals in movies and television and has been done so since visual media has been about.

In My Fair Lady starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison for example, Audrey’s character Eliza is the loud, rude flower girl with a Cockney accent. You know she is poor just from looking at her drab, dark clothing and the dirt on her face.

Harrison’s character Professor Higgins on the other hand is a wealthy man as seen from his neatly pressed pants to his clear, eloquent voice. The media also has a way of showing that those in the lower class need to be reformed because they are so inferior, they must be taught to work to improve their lives. With My Fair Lady this can be seen by Harrison’s attempts to teach Eliza to be a proper lady so she can fit in with high society. The film also depicts the upper class as something lower class people should strive to, Eliza for example takes no offense to Harrison’s proposal to teach her, and in fact she wants it.

The media also reinforces the idea that the upper class is made of shallow, ruthless, and lowly human beings. Many writers and directors have been proving the saying that ‘all that is gold does not glitter’. This is easily shown in Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, Wall Street starring Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas. Sheen’s character Bud is a stockbroker who dreams of being rich and powerful like Douglas’ character Gordon Gecko. By working with Gecko, Bud abandons his morals and commits corporate espionage, using insider secrets to earn millions on the stock market. At the end of the film, Bud regains his morals but ends up in jail for insider trading.

One of the film’s most iconic scenes is when Bud gets his new Upper East Side penthouse renovated. Workers are seen painting moldings to make them look like marble, plaster made to look like brick to add class to the room. It shows how the upper class lives in this calm façade of happiness and superiority. Bud’s upscale apartment is a façade and his expensive suits a far cry from his humble blue-collar beginnings. Yet one can’t help but wonder as to this scene’s deeper meaning. Does showing the apartment as fake show that Bud was never truly an upper classman? That being truly apart of the ‘1 percent’ is something that is simply unattainable?

This can be seen not only in movies and TV but in novels as well. One classic example of this would be F. Scoot Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The main character Jay Gatsby is a very rich man living in Long Island where even though he is wealthy, he does not fit in with those around him. He is considered different because his wealth was not inherited but rather earned. Gatsby has no royal relatives or rich parents and is therefore excluded from being truly apart of the upper class.

The media plays a very important role in determining class structures in society. That is because they present them to us in a way that makes us favor one over the other. In some cases being an upper classman is something people admire and strive to be apart of. On the other hand it is seen as many character’s downfalls as they are drawn into worlds of greed and excess. These portrayals greatly affect class structures because they influence our opinions of them. In a way, filmmakers and writers are inadvertently telling us what to feel about class. The reality is there are so many different perspectives of social structure that it’s hard to tell which is really true.

We live in a society that places a heavy importance on media, just think about all the people who watch Keeping up with the Kardashians. We allow ourselves to be influenced by what a certain type of person has to say; these people are media creators. We turn on the television every morning or pay fifteen dollars to sit in a mediocrely comfortable chair for two hours and open our minds to allow them to be infiltrated by their ideas. While we take everything they say with a grain of salt, we are paying them to plant their thoughts in our minds. So I do believe that artists, specifically directors, producers, and sometimes actors can play a large role in depicting class structures.

In his movie Wall Street, Stone portrays the social structure of a city of vast diversity. Bud Fox comes from a middle class family and is willing to work hard to climb his way up the social-financial ladder. Fox has two role models in his life; his father and Gordon Gekko. Gekko is an affluent man who had climbed the same ladder in his day. Fox’s interaction with the two characters is mean to depict the difference in class. When Fox meets with his father they meet in a local bar in Queens; they are surrounded by men of the working class who appear to be relaxing after a long day on the job. When Fox meets with Gekko for a drink it is in his home that is covered in expensive paintings and filled with clearly rich people. Fox’s elevation on the ladder is depicted by a transformation towards a life similar to Gekko’s. What’s interesting to note about both Bud and Gordon is that they are “new money”. Gekko made his first large sum of money on a real estate transaction and since then has continued to look for opportunities to make money. Gekko stops at nothing to make money, he will make promises and then hurt people in breaking them. Fox was so desperate to escape the middle class he was willing to go against the law and risk the security of his family. In making Gekko the representative of the upper class and Carl Fox the representative of the lower class, Stone was clear in his depiction of the classes—the upper class ruthless and the lower class hardworking. These stereotypes don’t allow any room for a gray area; Stone didn’t give the characters another dimension that would allow them the opportunity to be multifaceted. They were either bad or good.

Scorcese’s film, Taxi Driver briefly depicts a relationship between a woman in the upper middle class and a man of the lower class who is disgusted by it. Travis Bickle works the night shift and parts of the city that are best seen in the dark. He sees pimps, drug dealers, hookers, and thieves. Travis and Betsy are attracted to each other and can’t help but “follow an impulse”. Betsy ends things with Travis when he takes her to watch a pornographic movie on their date. She sees their class distinction and can’t find a way to get past it despite all the flowers he sends her. In the end of the film when Travis has gained public attention for his heroic act she attempts to get in contact with him again and he turns her down. Like Stone, Scorcese intends to depict the upper class in a disdainful manner. Betsy had avoided Travis when he appeared to be like the rest of the lower class but as soon as he makes it to the papers he appears to be worth her attention again. Another relationship developed in the film is between Travis and a twelve-year-old prostitute name Iris who ran away from home in hopes of liberation. Unlike Stone, Scorcese breaks the lower class in two—heros and pimps.

Both directors had intentions of defacing the upper class and the difference between them is that Stone tried to generalize the lower class as good. Scorcese added to the lower class a dimension that showed that money wasn’t the sole unit on the good-evil meter.

By definition, a class is the system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status. I personally believe that we should all live uniformly without problems statuses or stereotypes.Sad to say the perfect world that i create in my head does not exist and cannot exist. We are human, therefore we need to survive, and therefore money is important and so is being at the top. When we are born, we are automatically thrown into a social status full of stereotypes and then thrown again into an economic status full of even more stereotypes. We then live our  lives trying to compete with everyone in this world.

This is where the artists of the world come into play. Part of their work revolves around  their surroundings, their beliefs and influences. Social and economic status, whether they agree, disagree or both, is one of the topics that is portrayed by them. For example, Melissa Hillman, aka Bitter Gertrude, brought up Class division in theatre in one of her blogs. She wrote about the difficulty that play-writers of races, other than Caucasian, have in becoming successful. She brings up the problem that critics are only interested in popular and well know playwright as well as those who put in a lot of money into their production. She says that those who’s wish to be successful in theatre face two challenges. The first is “…the mythology of the importance of New york, a class based mythology that places New York above everything else.” And the second is  the mythology of “money=importance.” She says and states the sad truth that if your not a play  created in the heart of in new york and if your not a play has a lot of money in its budget, it wont succeed. This is sad and untrue because there are a lot of plays that are brilliant and beautifully written that are not in new york an have small budgets. David Rubenstien says, “The world is a complicated place, and there’s a lot of division between people. The performing arts tend to unify people in a way nothing else does.” He is correct, the world is complicated and divided but sadly preforming arts does not unify people. Apparently it is something meant for the wealthy and of “correct race,” both to create and watch.

Class division is something that is very hard to ignore. Movie artists also bring up the distinction between classes in their films. The most compared classes are the upper and lower classes. Stereotypically, the higher class is portrayed at the egotistical money hungry,greedy people. The middle class is the moral hardworking class, that have the blue collard jobs. And the lower class are like the untouchables, they resort to immorality to survive and must fend for themselves doing “bad” things. In Oliver stones film, Wall Street, He compares the middle class to the upper class. Bud Fox, the antagonist was born into a middle class family and desires to live the better life. His ambition leads him to follow in the footsteps of Gordon Gekko, a greedy “upperclass man” in wall street. From the beginning of the film, Stone sets us up with the idea that money is important the american dream is to have money and live in new york and that without it your a nobody. Bud fox says to his father carl, that in order to be somebody he has to live in new york. As bud acquires more wealth he moves to a new apartment with a view of the city and buys fancy suits and starts dating a “rich girl.” He slide into the wealthy life style because thats what wealthy people do, they just get more things because they can. Bud loses sight of his humble background and becomes more like Gekko, a stereotypical rich man. Oliver stone portrays what the general public thinks. Not everyone who is of the upper class is superficial and not everyone who is in the middle class is hardworking or morally perfect. However this is what Oliver stone captures about the view of the public.

In his film Taxi Driver, Scorcese focuses on the lower class but makes reference to the middle and  upper class through the politicians and Betsy, as well as the stereotypes between black and white people. Travis Bickle, an honorably discharged Marine, takes a job as a taxi driver mainly in Brooklyn and Harlem. He watches porn films, writes in his journal about the scum of the streets and contemplates about his loneliness and boredom. He falls for a girl of the middle class, and their relationship is doomed from the start because they are of different classes. Bickle does things that she does not approve of but he sees as normal. Bickle also talks about the garbage that he sees on the streets. Prostitutes, pimps, and black people. He is uncomfortable with all of this but Scoroscece shows that it is what the lower class life is about.

What is the American Dream? Millions of foreigners travel long distances seeking opportunity and the ability to succeed in a new home. As a second generation Iranian, my parents moved to America to ensure a better standard of living for our family. Leaving all of their belongings behind, my parents rode donkeys, climbed mountains, and eventually escaped from Iran. When they finally arrived in America with nothing but a few dollars, they moved into a small apartment in Queens. Working day and night my parents saved up every last penny. After several years of hard work and determination, my parents were finally able to move to Long Island. My brothers and I were raised in Great Neck and were given many opportunities to succeed. Our geographic location enabled us to get a better education than many people and gave us the chance to study at top-notch universities. Many people aren’t as lucky as you or I. If a child grows up in an impoverished neighborhood, his or her chances of getting a proper education and succeeding in life aren’t very high. Social mobility in America has become a serious issue. The ladder of opportunity is failing and social mobility is declining.

Oliver Stone’s movie, Wall Street, effectively portrays class structure in America. Taking place in New York, the difference between lower, middle, and high class families is accurately displayed. Bud Fox, a middle-class stock broker trying to become wealthy, manipulates his family and friends and ends up losing everything he had and going to jail. On the other hand, Gordon Gekko is a filthy rich man who accurately represents the upper class. He steps on others and won’t stop at anything to make money. Even though he already owns millions of dollars, he continues to scheme his way through life and steal the jobs and money of others. Bud, who admires Gekko, changes his values throughout the movie and eventually learns that money doesn’t buy happiness. Social classes are depicted by where different people eat. Bud’s father and his other blue-collar friends hang out at the local bar, whereas the white-collar big shots eat at fancy restaurants. In addition, Bud makes it clear to his father that those who live in Queens are going to struggle to climb the social-class ladder. Throughout the movie, Bud moves from a small crowded apartment to a large one with fancy paintings and a beautiful view.

Robert De Niro’s role in the movie Taxi Driver exposes the reality of the lower class. While working the night shift, he sees how filthy New York truly is. Travis describes all that he sees when he says, “All the animals come out at night – whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal.” (Taxi Driver) Surrounded by prostitutes, pimps, and criminals, Travis begins to go mad. He is disgusted by the scum-filled streets and he resorts to violence to make a statement. The lower class have a tough time getting by, which forces them to resort to prostitution, stealing, and killing. No matter how hard they seem to work, it seems almost impossible for them to climb the social-class ladder.

Both of these films depict the differences in social classes and how each class has it’s own struggles. Whether you’re cleaning semen off the back seat of a taxi like Travis, or riding go-karts on the beach like Gekko, each person has his or her own hardships. Both Taxi Driver and Wall Street truly epitomized the theme that money doesn’t buy happiness.

Back in my junior and senior year of high school, “Clique” was all the rage. Everyone would take pictures and post them to Instagram or Facebook with a lyric from the song, “Ain’t nobody messin’ with my clique.” But upon listening to my iPod on shuffle earlier this week, I rediscovered this old gem. And I listened to it with totally different ears! The song is littered with nods to elitism and the celebration of exclusion. Now, I’m a little bit of a music junkie and my taste varies widely, but the common denominator in all music is that the musician has something to say, a message. Something they stand for. Musicians are artists and public figures who have a platform to broadcast their point of view to the world.

Now, let’s take a few moments to dissect the lyrics of the song in order to gain a keener understanding of class structure in America, with reference to Oliver Stone’s 1987 classic, Wall Street. But before we can fully analyze the song, we need to have a complete understanding of what a clique is:

Clique [kleek, klik] n.: exclusive group; a close group of friends or coworkers with similar interests and goals, whom outsiders regard as excluding them (“Clique Lyrics.” Rap Genius. Genius Media Inc. Web. 20 Sept. 2014).

1)”What of the dollar you murdered for? If that the one fighting for your soul?”

• So, let’s start with the topic of morality. If you were to indeed go to the extreme of killing for money, how does it affect your conscience? Would it be clean, or would you be haunted by it? And if we continue this thought, will that same dollar you murdered for be important later, when everything all comes crumbling down? This question is posed to each individual and leaves a listener thinking, “If I had all this money, what would I do to get more? Would I feel any guilt at all?” Now, let us relate this to Stone’s Wall Street. We know that the main character Bud stepped on toes and committed illegal acts to get to the top and acquire the wealth he had so long desired. We also know that he felt almost no guilt until almost the end of the movie where he regained his conscience. But in the end, when he was arrested, the money wasn’t so important then was it?

2) “Your money too short, you can’t be talking to me.”

• This lyric really reinforces the idea of elitism and class. The upper class is VERY exclusive. I understand surrounding yourself with people who have the same ambitions and interests as you, but that doesn’t mean that those with less money should be excluded. People of a lower class may still have the same interests and ambitions; they just have fewer funds to pursue said interests. Referring back to Wall Street, Gordon Gekko originally was not concerned with discussing business with Bud because Bud simply wasn’t established enough, and Gekko thought that Bud couldn’t particularly offer him anything. It wasn’t until after Buddy proved himself that Gekko gave him a chance. Money talks.

3)”He never told. Who he gonna tell? We top of the totem pole. It’s the Dream Team meets the Supreme Team. And all our eyes green it only means one thing.”

• Yes, Jay Z is making a reference to his personal life and a cousin’s arrest, in which Jay Z had a hand. The cousin didn’t snitch, allowing Jay Z to go on to build his empire. But that’s a story for another time. Right now we want to focus on this in the context of the rich. As the upper class, the rich are at the top of the pyramid, the top of the food chain, it is seems that they are untouchable. They have a ton of money, and all they continue to see are dollar signs. In Wall Street, Gekko was under the impression that he was invulnerable: he was the cream of the crop and he had his money to back him up, no one could touch him. The rich all seem to share this sentiment.

We’ll end analysis before we get to Kanye’s verse, simply because he brings race into the mix on the discussion about class, and that is entirely another blog post. The point of all of this though, was to demonstrate the elitism in America. It doesn’t only exist here in New York on Wall Street, but throughout the country. In music and in art. Artists often have the opportunity to share their opinions on matter, and many do. Not all of them share the same attitude toward class and exclusivity. I’ll give you a few examples to demonstrate other viewpoints on the matter.

Bob Marley’s Them Belly Full (But We’re Hungry) (Bob Marley & The Wailers. “Them Bell Full (But We Hungry). Natty Dread. 1974. CD. ) focuses more on the fact that the rich have many opportunities to help those who are less fortunate and suffering under harsh conditions. Marley himself was an advocate for the poor and needy. Marley’s Guiltiness (Bob Marley. “Guiltiness”. Exodus. 1977. CD) also denounces the rich pouncing on the low and middle class: “These are the big fish who always try to eat down the small fish, just the small fish. I tell you what: they would do anything to materialize their every wish.”

Rapper MGK, also known as Machine Gun Kelly, shares Marley’s position on the rich feeding off the poor: “These ****** eating, while my people starve” (Machine Gun Kelly. Louder. 2012. MP3). His most recent tour, the No Class Tour promotes putting an end of class levels, as he resents growing up as part of the low class.

Depending on their notion, an artist can either reinforce or break down class structures. So much music, so many artists, so many opinions.

There is no denying how obvious the social class differences are in New York City. In almost any given area in Manhattan, one can spot a wealthy businessman, an everyday middle class family, and a homeless person all on the same block. However, oftentimes, us New Yorkers tend to disregard these class differences and not take time to think about what each class goes through. Art plays a huge role in breaking down the class divide, by reinforcing how stringent the social class structure is in American society and how much the middle and lower classes go through in comparison to the more wealthy.

In the movie Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese, the protagonist, Travis, is a regular lower-class man, working as a taxi driver to make a living. He often works the night shift and drives through the shady parts of the boroughs, witnessing what most wealthy and middle class people in NYC barely ever see: crime.   On a daily basis, Travis sees prostitution, robberies, drug use, and more criminal activity, to the point where what he is surrounded by basically separates him from other people in different classes. One of which is the woman he has feelings for named Betsy. This upper-class woman is so sheltered by her wealth to the point where she cannot relate to Travis and only gets offended when he takes her out to see the only kind of entertainment he knows. It seems like Betsy walks out on him because of his lifestyle, leaving Travis lonely and showing how difficult it is for the lower and upper classes to mend and understand each other.

As Travis continues his life without Betsy, Scorsese shows even more intense scenes of what Travis has to see everyday. And eventually, instead of continuing to stand by and watch the crimes, Travis decides to take action by purchasing a grand array of guns. He becomes a part of the violence, which most people in the lower class often have no choice but to do. Travis gets himself involved in the life of a teenage prostitute and in the end saves her by slaughtering those who keep her captive and force her to sell her body.   However, despite saving her life, Travis still cannot escape life as a part of the lower class, and continues to work as a taxi driver, dealing with the parts of New York City all the other classes barely know.

Scorsese’s film, and many other films based on the class divide, successfully convey the lives of those in the different classes. They show what the middle and lower classes often suffer through and sometimes, like in Taxi Driver, show that it is almost impossible to make it up the social ladder because of how stringent the class divide is in America today.

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.

Movies tend to make the social class structures even more rigid than they already are. Before I get started, I would like to defend myself and agree that there are examples against my argument: that there are movies that break class stereotypes and structures. Also, I will be talking in depth about the movies and their plot lines, so spoiler alert! Finally, I understand that I could’ve used examples like Wall Street and Taxi Driver, but I’m sure you’ve already thought about those examples. I want you to open your eyes and be able to connect other movies to topics like such. Now that that’s over with, let’s get started with some examples: Cameron’s Titanic, Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, and Scorsese’s Hugo.

Cameron’s Titanic: Yes, the beloved love story of a street rat and a million-dollar-necklace-wearing chick. It’s basically Lady and the Tramp with humans on a boat destined to sink. Regardless, the examples of rigid class structure in this movie are overt. Jack, the hobo (in the literal sense of the word), gets a worker’s ticket onto the ship with a lucky (or unlucky) hand in a card game. Rose on the other hand, elegantly has her fiancé buy the tickets in “first class.” Although they fall in love (which is there to make the dry movie interesting for lonely people looking for hope of love), there is still a stereotype of rich and poor: rich control the police on the ship; rich get on the lifeboats first; poor shovel coal; poor don’t end up with the girl. Maybe next time you watch this movie, instead of crying that Jack became a human popsicle, you’ll cry at the fact that class structures have been around longer than the length of that torturous movie.

Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream: This is a lesser-seen movie than the blockbuster hit Titanic. Taking place in Brooklyn near the dying Coney Island, this movie is about three close friends and the mother of one. All are in some way addicted to some type of drug and some type of “high.” The main characters, all from a lower socio-economic beginning, end up in a downward spiral due to the drugs. Is this movie trying to say that the poor get poorer while the rich, in this case drug lords, get richer? That might be a bit of a stretch, but Darren Aronofsky definitely gives the audience a lot to think about with Requiem for a Dream.

Scorsese’s Hugo: Ah yes back to good ol’ Scorsese. You might remember Hugo as the movie that won a bunch of awards. Well, they were won with reason. The plot of this movie is a bit saddening, even though it’s basically a child’s movie. Well, it’s more like a child’s movie on the surface with darker internal adult ideas: loss of parents, scavenging for food, running from the police, alcoholic uncles. Hugo, the main character, lives with his alcoholic uncle because both of his parents have died. He does his uncle’s job for him, which is maintaining the clocks in a train station. He’s basically homeless, and lives in the ceiling of this station. He steals food and parts to fix his father’s automaton. Hugo’s story is more than an adventure; it’s a narrative of the lower class being put down not only by the upper class, but by the middle, blue-collar working class too, which can be seen when the toyshop owner swats Hugo away like an unwanted cockroach.

These three examples of class structures in movies alone are not enough to prove a point, but it is enough to help people become aware of the real, closer to home issues. These class structures and stereotypes affect everyone. Why can a prince marry a peasant girl without being questioned? Why can’t the upper class and the lower class blur the definite lines that separate them?