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kaigouClass-passing: Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture — Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
The first 6 pages are available as a google books preview. I'd quote more, but I'm not really up to sitting here typing in an excerpt from the book, so instead I'll just quote what I can find and assure you it's worth reading and definitely thought-provoking when it comes to this hidden (or at least, rarely explicitly stated) current in USian culture. From Foster's page (link is author name, above):
Review excerpt, from A. F. Winstead (CHOICE March 2006):
Another review excerpt, from Marcia Landy (University of Pittsburgh):
One of the points Foster makes is that class is a self-constructed (or socially-constructed) identity that can flux the way modern media/society will also flux gender. Although she doesn't say it explicitly (or maybe she does; I'm still working my way through the book), there are tells or signals that identify cross-classing in the same way that certain details will signify or indicate cross-gendering.
For some reason, in the middle of reading, I was reminded of the k-dramas I've seen that depict upper-class characters. Setting aside the culturally-loaded (or culturally-specifics) whistles of whether one eats with a fork and knife or eats with chopsticks, what one eats, and how one acts around the dinner table... in nearly every instance of a western-styled dinner table, I've had a strange knee-jerk reaction to the actors behind the characters.
The actors bite their forks.
You can hear the distinct clink of teeth on metal tines, and I can't help but be distantly amused at how this both annoys me to no end, even as it reveals (in me) a certain set of assumptions of what it means to bite a utensil. It's a major signifier -- or so I was taught -- of bad manners, hence, lower-class or less-class. Yet these are actors portraying supposedly top-of-the-heap (wealth-wise) characters, and in many ways, they have all the other trappings of class around them: cloth napkins, complex tableware, multiple courses delivered/eaten separately, and so on... and at the same time, they're displaying (apparently unconsciously) a complete lack of class (that is, table etiquette).
I don't think that double-meaning is intended in the original text, to be honest. I think I'm supposed to see the characters are being the ultimate in cosmopolitan, genteel, upper-class crust; at least, that's what the context appears to be saying. But just as I find myself recoiling whenever a supposedly upper-class character sticks his napkin in his collar (a bib? at the dinner table? are you kidding me?), I do the same when someone lets teeth come down hard on a fork or spoon.
As a result, I find myself reading into the text the sense that these characters are all falsehoods. They're duplicitous, attempting to pass themselves off as classy, when in fact a little detail like this reveals their overall failure to pass as upper-class... even as I intellectually am aware that it's more likely it's the actors playing a role of being wealthy characters (a kind of faux or temporary 'passing' in itself). It's a good chance I'm seeing a signal from the actor's personal backstory that indicates the actor was not raised with these little [western] etiquette rules; this lack of background/personal knowledge means the actor probably isn't aware s/he is signifying clearly the lack. I get that, but it's still hard to avoid making a connection/conclusion per the characters enacted.
Still. Untangling my own upbringing from my reactions to an onscreen story just reminds me all over again that I don't think we can underestimate just how much, as an audience, we infer into and out of a story... even when we're not consciously aware of what's driving our response. The reaction exists all the same.
The first 6 pages are available as a google books preview. I'd quote more, but I'm not really up to sitting here typing in an excerpt from the book, so instead I'll just quote what I can find and assure you it's worth reading and definitely thought-provoking when it comes to this hidden (or at least, rarely explicitly stated) current in USian culture. From Foster's page (link is author name, above):
According to the new rules of social standing in American popular culture, class is no longer defined by wealth, birth, or education. Instead, today's notion of class reflects a socially constructed and regulated series of performed acts and gestures rooted in the cult of celebrity. In examining the quest for class mobility, Foster deftly traces class-passing through the landscape of popular films, reality television shows, advertisements, the Internet, and video games. She deconstructs the politics of celebrity, fashion, and conspicuous consumerism and analyzes class-passing as it relates to the American Dream, gender, and marriage.
CLASS-PASSING draws on dozens of examples from popular culture, from old movie classics and contemporary films to print ads and cyberspace, to illustrate how flagrant displays of wealth that were once unacceptable under the old rules of behavior are now flaunted by class-passing celebrities. From the construction worker in WHO WANTS TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE? to the privileged socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie of THE SIMPLE LIFE, Foster explores the fantasy of contact between the classes. She also refers to television class-passers from THE APPRENTICE, QUEER EYE FOR THE STRAIGHT GUY, and SURVIVOR and notable class-passing achievers Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, and George W. Bush. CLASS-PASSING is a notable examination of the historical, social, and ideological shifts in expressions of class. The first serious book of its kind, CLASS-PASSING is fresh, innovative, and invaluable for students and scholars of film, television, and popular culture.
Review excerpt, from A. F. Winstead (CHOICE March 2006):
"Foster presents a timely indictment of US "celebrity" culture, wherein a credit card, plastic surgery, and happy pills represent the keys to the American Dream. She examines how constant exposure to the fantasy world of the rich and famous impacts the lives of average individuals, who try to replicate these worlds through behavior, dress, and, in many cases, dieting and/or plastic surgery. And if all this fails to help them achieve the American Dream of unending luxury and fame, these celebrity-seduced individuals can always turn to pharmaceuticals for their ultimate happiness. Foster also points out that the illusions created by the media lead many to believe they can "class-pass" as one of their favorite celebrities with a mere swipe of their credit card, an idea promoted through advertisements, reality television shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and "documentary" programming like VH1's The Fabulous Life. Both timely and pertinent to the current discourse on class and culture in the US, Foster's book is a must.
Another review excerpt, from Marcia Landy (University of Pittsburgh):
At a time when studies of social class in media representation have taken a back seat to analyses of race and gender, CLASS-PASSING, in daring and original fashion, maps and elaborates on contradictions in performing social class via the media and popular culture. The book is commendable for the range of examples that illustrate continuities and changes in representations of social class as well as their relation to treatments of race and gender. Foster's innovative analysis is not restricted to cinema but includes television, advertising, etiquette books, popular manuals, and video games, providing a broad field from which to assess the character and vicissitudes of class passing.
One of the points Foster makes is that class is a self-constructed (or socially-constructed) identity that can flux the way modern media/society will also flux gender. Although she doesn't say it explicitly (or maybe she does; I'm still working my way through the book), there are tells or signals that identify cross-classing in the same way that certain details will signify or indicate cross-gendering.
For some reason, in the middle of reading, I was reminded of the k-dramas I've seen that depict upper-class characters. Setting aside the culturally-loaded (or culturally-specifics) whistles of whether one eats with a fork and knife or eats with chopsticks, what one eats, and how one acts around the dinner table... in nearly every instance of a western-styled dinner table, I've had a strange knee-jerk reaction to the actors behind the characters.
The actors bite their forks.
You can hear the distinct clink of teeth on metal tines, and I can't help but be distantly amused at how this both annoys me to no end, even as it reveals (in me) a certain set of assumptions of what it means to bite a utensil. It's a major signifier -- or so I was taught -- of bad manners, hence, lower-class or less-class. Yet these are actors portraying supposedly top-of-the-heap (wealth-wise) characters, and in many ways, they have all the other trappings of class around them: cloth napkins, complex tableware, multiple courses delivered/eaten separately, and so on... and at the same time, they're displaying (apparently unconsciously) a complete lack of class (that is, table etiquette).
I don't think that double-meaning is intended in the original text, to be honest. I think I'm supposed to see the characters are being the ultimate in cosmopolitan, genteel, upper-class crust; at least, that's what the context appears to be saying. But just as I find myself recoiling whenever a supposedly upper-class character sticks his napkin in his collar (a bib? at the dinner table? are you kidding me?), I do the same when someone lets teeth come down hard on a fork or spoon.
As a result, I find myself reading into the text the sense that these characters are all falsehoods. They're duplicitous, attempting to pass themselves off as classy, when in fact a little detail like this reveals their overall failure to pass as upper-class... even as I intellectually am aware that it's more likely it's the actors playing a role of being wealthy characters (a kind of faux or temporary 'passing' in itself). It's a good chance I'm seeing a signal from the actor's personal backstory that indicates the actor was not raised with these little [western] etiquette rules; this lack of background/personal knowledge means the actor probably isn't aware s/he is signifying clearly the lack. I get that, but it's still hard to avoid making a connection/conclusion per the characters enacted.
Still. Untangling my own upbringing from my reactions to an onscreen story just reminds me all over again that I don't think we can underestimate just how much, as an audience, we infer into and out of a story... even when we're not consciously aware of what's driving our response. The reaction exists all the same.
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no subject
Date: 7 Jan 2011 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Jan 2011 01:21 pm (UTC)Not that there isn't massive amounts of eating in TW-dramas, too -- I think they have the same rule of obligatory must-have-eating... it's just that TW-dramas are more likely to show characters who code as lower-class or middle-class.
Although one TW-drama I just finished watching did have supposedly upper-class-raised character and she was a fork-biter. Which should probably tell me that it's an aspect of upper-class table-etiquette that's become an antiquated marker, but still. Like I said, revealing more about me, eh?
ETA: just so we're clear, table etiquette is something I would never correct someone on, unless I gave birth to you OR we have a mutual antecedent and you're at least one generation younger. To correct someone's table manners (without having parental or quasi-parental rights) is a far worse crime, comparatively, than any other improper table manner. So... no fear if we ever meet up for lunch. (To tell the truth, I probably wouldn't even notice -- it's when a character is miked so close you can hear them chew that you can also hear the teeth-click, and my hearing is decent but it's hardly that good!)
no subject
Date: 10 Jan 2011 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Jan 2011 06:35 pm (UTC)I think you'd probably cringe then (perhaps?) if watching Western actors attempting to appear as Indonesian upper-class, if the scene is hand-eating. There would be nuances the actors would miss that you'd catch, and probably wince over, eh?
I recall when my mother left for a project in Palestine, she was told to avoid eating with her left hand... and that was the extent of any instruction. While there, and eating at a friend's house, Mom said she held back and just tried to duplicate what everyone else was doing. The problem was that this meant she didn't actually learn the manners; she was only mimicking as best she could. So when she returned and we went to eat at our favorite Palestinian restaurant, she was telling us about hand-eating... and it was one of those things where my sister and I knew intuitively that there had to be all sorts of nuances about the etiquette that we were missing. It's one of the few times in my life that I've actually opted for knife & fork, because if the alternative was accidentally insulting the restaurant owner (who was a good friend of the family)... y'know?
I think what I take away most from things like this (watching people eat, or exchange gifts, or greetings) is that we don't really realize just how nuanced and intricate social interactions can be -- until we see it being "done wrong". Moreso if the done-wrong is a teeny minor detail.
Although curiously, from my own experience, the worst part of culture shock isn't language, dialect/accent, or side-of-the-road or any other Big Thing. It's always the teeny minor details that are off, that slap you in the face with culture-shock the worst.
no subject
Date: 13 Jan 2011 05:16 am (UTC)As for the nuances of hand-eating, our discussion here has prompted me to analyse exactly how I do it in day-to-day situations. I'm nowhere near done with it but the work so far has produced some interesting results, like the part about not eating with the left hand. Down here the most common reason given for the custom is because we use the left hand for anal hygiene (the people here mostly use water instead of toilet paper), but I think there's also the underlying habit whereby we often eat sitting on the floor (or the ground), without any dining table to speak of, and sometimes right out of perishable packages like leaf or paper wrappings. In this kind of situation the left hand is obviously going to be used to prop the meal up, so there'd be no need to warn people against using it to pick up the food. Indeed, even when there's a dining table we often still pick the plate up and bring it closer to our mouth with the left hand while the right gleans for leftovers, and this is never frowned upon when we're eating with our hands (although it's still considered bad manners when eating with Western utensils).
So, ironically, if you go to Indonesia you're not likely to make the mistake of eating with the left hand since it's going to be busy propping up your plate anyway, but in an Indonesian restaurant abroad (which almost certainly has tables) you'd have more chances for committing the faux pas. Funny.