Class Diary #4

I am a hopeless romantic so I love movies which end with the underdog winning.  One such movie is Maid In Manhattan.  For those of you who have not seen this movie it is about a maid in a posh hotel in New York City who finds herself in a relationship with one of the guests who does not know she is the maid.  Through amusing anecdotes and laughable situations she manages to turn this possible lovely one night stand into a relationship to last a life time.  My question, however, is what happens after the movie is over?

We recently read about how people who are attempting to switch from one social class to another can experience survivor’s guilt (a label that I dislike greatly).  This makes me wonder how a single mother from the projects is going to psychologically fit into the world of a white upper class elected representative.  Of course the movie does not look into life after the happily ever after but if it did I believe it would see many things not so romantic.  For instance, can a working girl give up her job to live a life of banquets and caterers? Sure the thought sounds nice but I would go crazy! Also, can she change the way that she speaks and acts to permanently fit in with the crowd of people this man will be introducing her to?

To be honest the whole idea of the movie is absurd.  The premise is one that every little girl dreams of but one that rarely happens.  There are famous examples of women who were taken from working class backgrounds put into posh settings and eventually had to leave.  Now, these experiences changed the women forever but something ingrained in them could not be taken out, something stopped them from being fully able to assimilate into their new social class.

The struggles that the Maid must overcome to have a relationship with the man in this movie cause her to “borrow” clothing, lie, and eventually lose her job.  Is all that worth giving up who you are? Would you want to be someone different just to have someone notice you?

The most striking line in this movie is when the Maid confronts the man about the fact that she was invisible to him when she was cleaning his floors.  It was only after she “borrowed” clothes and pretended to be someone she was not that he even saw her.  This scene makes me think of how many times the people around us are invisible to us.  Chris mentioned in class last week that he thanks the cleaning crew at South Station.  This is an act that does not happen enough. 

If you ever watch this movie you will realize that the whole thing is about class differences.  And, even though it makes for a great movie, it makes for a horrible representation of the working class while glorifying elitist society.

PS: The term survivors guilt is not high on my list of liked phrases because it implies that lower social classes are something to crawl away from.  It says that they are bad and that one must survive to live better.  It also implies that those who do not rise above their social class are failures.  While the idea behind the term is something that I can get behind (feelings resulting from a change in one’s social standing) the term itself should be replaced with something more fitting or just done away with all together.