Reflection: People Like Us

Class conflict is one of those touchy subjects that Americans like to pretend doesn’t actually exist.  Alongside racism and sexism and ageism, classism is something that shouldn’t happen in the land of opportunity and the world’s brightest beacon of equality and democracy.  But things are not so simple as that.  Social and economic classes do exist in the United States and they are often in conflict.  In many ways that conflict has surpassed race, gender, and age as a basis for prejudice because it is the only kind that goes largely unnoticed.  The documentary People Like Us attempts to raise some awareness of the class structure in America and, in doing so, brings up several opportunities to see classic theories of class conflict in action.

Two of the most prominent theories of social conflict are Marxism and Functionalism.  These two theories take very different approaches to explain why classes continue to exist, even if a society claims to want to do away with them.  For Marxists, classes exist because some people have power and they do not want to share it.  And in reality, this comes about in different levels of power, especially in a democratic capitalist nation where it is possible to be lower class, middle class, lower class, and a few different variations in between.  Functionalism is a little more optimistic about human nature and claims that different social classes exist because they each serve a purpose in maintaining society.  The documentary People Like Us takes a very particular view of society that really only allows for one of these two theories of class conflict.

Figuring out what exactly defines the classes is maybe the hardest part.  The documentary devotes much of its opening time to demonstrating that image and assumed influence is largely responsible for identifying class.  With a sequence of photographs being identified by class based on how they are dressed and then a series of testimonials about people identifying their own and other people’s classes by the car they drive or the clothes they wear or even just their general style of presenting themselves, the documentary shows a number of ways that image defines class (People Like Us).  Obviously, money factors into this kind of definition, but so do social connections, geography, hobbies, and employment.  All these factors would play into how up to date a person is with certain trends, how accepting that person’s professional and social contacts would be of efforts to fit into a certain class other than the most natural one, and access to the status items that define certain classes.

Already, conflict theory is apparent.  Many of the early examples of different class images in People Like Us are judgmental and disapproving.  It is obvious that the people serving as examples have no particular respect for others outside their own class.  This is Marxism in its most basic sense since the way class is determined has already been identified as primarily material (People Like Us).  According to Marxism, as long as these different classes exist, then the society in which they exist must be organized in a hierarchy.  And in that hierarchy, the highest classes take advantage of the lowest.  So according to Marxism, the United States is most definitely organized in a class structure.

The country has a history of being clearly organized in a class structure, but the definitions of those classes have always been simpler and clearer.  For a long time, women or black people were considered inferior or landowners were considered the only real citizens.  But things have become both simpler and murkier.  Race and gender are less important because anyone can belong to any class.  Of course, old habits die hard and white men still dominate the powerful classes, but wealth or at least the impression of it is the new gold standard of social status.  And since appearing wealthy works just as well as being wealthy in many cases, social class is completely hollow and meaningless, except that it’s the most important thing in society (People Like Us).  That is why it is complicated because it doesn’t make sense but it keeps happening anyway.

It is a little more difficult to see Functionalism in action.  The whole point of Functionalism is that it is a practical, sensible explanation of social structure.  Classes form and fall into certain categories because that is what makes society function properly.  Since social classes, as the documentary defines them, appear cyclical, they perpetuate themselves just because that is what is proper, it is hard to say that the perspective of social structure in the documentary fits Functionalism.  The continued examples of being seen as part of a social class simply because a person emulates what is expected of that social class does not serve any function other than fitting into particular social classes (People Like Us).  In this way, the social structure in America survives because of an internal version of functionalism and social stratification.  It is stable because the parts each adhere strongly to their role to preserve the whole.  But in this way, the social structure as seen in the documentary serves little or no Functionalist role in the greater concept of society in the United States.

It would be naïve to say that there are no social classes in America.  It is obvious that there are different levels of socioeconomic status.  The differences have become so clear that each different class has its own visual identifiers, and these have become the most important parts in defining each class.  Because of this shallow perspective, the view of class conflict in People Like Us most clearly aligns with Marxism, but in a kind of passive way.  Instead of calling for change, it cynically points out the materialistic, embarrassing way that Americans approach social class.  After watching this documentary, the best possible choice seems to be to avoid identifying with any social class, just to stay clear of the meaningless drama of being judged and classified by your car or shoes.

Work Cited

People Like Us. Dirs. Louis Alvarez, Andy Kolker. Center for New American Media, 2001. DVD.