Class and Virtue

This essay by Michael Parenti talks about the way Hollywood shows class distinctions in the movies and promotes the lifestyles of the upper class. I can’t really relate to any of the movies that Parenti is talking about because I haven’t seen any of them. However, I think I’ve heard enough things about the movie Pretty Woman to understand what he is talking about in the essay. He talks about how the character played by Julia Roberts, works as a prostitute and is hired to by a rich businessman to be his girlfriend for a month. The job is a dream come true for her, but she doesn’t really know how to act the part of a rich girlfriend because she comes from a lower class background. She learns how to talk, dress and act in a way more suitable to the upper class and suddenly the rich man finds himself actually falling in love with her. This shows that Hollywood movies do typically promote the values of the upper class. Because as soon as Julia Roberts character transformed into an upper class citizen she got everything she wanted and lived happily ever after. I don’t think that all movies follow this same pattern, but a lot of them do tend to favor the lifestyle of the upper class.