Pop Culture and Media Essay Analysis

¶ … Working Class Whites," pop culture and the media seem to stereotype the entirety of working class white people as either "good country folk" or "white trash." They act a kind of scape goat for society and its uncivilized folk. White people belonging to lower classes therefore carry the weight of negative connotations often associated with the population of working class white people. Upper classes on the other hand are not shown in a negative light like working class people and therefore believe that if one is lower class they are uncivilized versus upper class, which are civilized.

One example of the white working class and all the negative connotations associated with it is the new CBS American sitcom, "Mom." Here audiences see a single mom who lives with her single mother and is a recovering alcoholic. She is shown as being a bad mother overall and someone who is incompetent and at times, unruly. It is a successful series and shows misconceptions of what people think are white working class people. Another CBS American sitcom named "Two Broke Girls" follows the adventures of a working class white woman and a used to be upper class white woman.

Here, the upper class white woman is very civilized ... having her hair done perfectly, wearing nice outfits, and proposing a business plan to her working class roommate involving baked goods. The working class woman, who grew up poor, is at times disheveled, promiscuous, and lacking direction in life, as well as being crude and lacking basic manners. However, this show contradicts the expectation because while it starts out like that, later on in the series, it progresses with the upper class white woman showing unruly, uncivilized behavior and the working class woman actually teaching her how to run the business and create stability in her life.

2. In Put on a Happy Face: Masking the Differences between Black and Whites, Demott argues that friendship, acting as a cleansing social force has been willfully embraced by mainstream white culture because it serves as an easy out for white to escape the responsibility for historically institutionalized and produced racism. Movies like Congo and Pulp Fiction seem to demonstrate a sense of reality that is fake and contrived where white and black actors are friends and through this friendship, all the racism and fear embedded in such racism, is washed away.

Men in Black for example, has Will Smith partner up with Tommy Lee Jones in this alien themed drama where everything starts off as white guy good guy helping black guy bad guy, then they become friends and save the world. Much like many black and white buddy movies, the black guy comes from a "hood/street" background and the white guy from an advantaged/privileged background and the come together to form an unrealistic pairing and friendship. These kinds of movies solidify not only the notion that black people are always lower class and white people are always upper class, but that through friendship these huge gaps can some narrow and everything's solved. One movie that does not do this, but instead shows a realistic relationship is Philadelphia, which involves a lawyer (black) and client (former lawyer and white) who work together to make right what was wronged. Both races are seen on equal footing and because they are on equal footing, can cultivate an understanding and bond that comes from lack of power struggle.