Blinded by Classism

In life, there are people who are rich, people who are poor; some are well educated, while others are homeless with no educational skills. Having such variety in people’s life and skills created what is called in sociology as social stratification, in which people with higher skills and greater wealth are ranked in a higher places where as people who are less educated and less wealth are ranked at the bottom of the scale. Having social stratification created a map or a road for each individual’s life. Individuals are no longer the ones who choose what to work in, what to achieve or even where to live. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone is going with the flow of such classism.

Some people believe that no matter what your ranking scale is, you still have the chance to decide where to work and who to marry depending on your skills and personality. Such belief is usually depicted in Asian drama, especially Korean, as they tend to show that a lower class girl can marry a higher-class man and vise versa. Such story can be seen in the Korean drama “Secrete Garden”, where Gil Ra Im; a poor girl who is working as stuntwoman, preforming all the fighting and serious actions instead of others actresses, got to fall in love with Kim Joo Won, an arrogant CEO who has the image of perfectionist. 

Left: CEO Kim Joo Won - Right: Stuntwoman Gil Ra Im
(Korean Drama: Secrete Garden)

        That doesn’t mean that everything in their relationship went smooth, as the director showed the opposing side of the relationship, which was Kim Joo Won’s mother. Hence, we now can pull out where the consequences or opposing sides appears. Family comes first to follow classism, while society comes the second; however, they both depends on each others, as families are usually afraid of what other would think (Others = society), therefore, an individual struggle in order to overcome the power of society on his/her own life. 

Secret Garden - Kim Joo Won argument with his mother

Secret Garden - Kim's Mother trying to break them apart.

But, could such a story occur in real life? I think yes. People marrying someone with a less qualification in the ranking system, could overcome society issues, as the system is not constant and not permanent. Wealthy people can get bankrupted and become so poor, while poor people can gain skills and become rich. No one knows what life hides for us; therefore, people shouldn’t go with classism.

Money come and goes

That was for the marriage part, but what about the other fields in life, education is also a part of classism. People with higher wealth, are usually the one who get the higher education as they have the money. Money is the base of classism actually, as in society money gives power to the person, and it been like that since ages ago. For example, even during the French revolutions, wealthy people where the ones who were enjoying all the luxurious parts of life. Such power than created racism (slavery) and dominant powers.

Marie Antoinette Movie

Classism can be seen as a good thing in some people's eyes, however; they couldn't see the fact that classism causes different problems and issues between group of people or between individuals. They no longer see the individual him/herself, their personality, but they only see their social ranking, how much they've, how much knowledgeable they are. Not thinking of the facts that lead people with lower statues to have such a life is something that we usually do; we’re usually blind to think of such stuff. That’s why we have classism, because we can’t see what lies behind an image of a person. 

Gil Ra Im dressed up as rich lady - Secret Garden 

Gil Ra Im usual look - Secret Garden

The wealthy side of cultural consumption

Why does the image matter so much? The answer lies in what is called cultural capital. Cultural capital is best demonstrated in the behaviors of the wealthy class in the society and simply stands for the consumption of the upper-class families in the society.

In the movie The Nanny Diaries, It is very obvious that cultural tastes have value and could be transferred to others as well as they could be converted to financial wealth to help reproduce the class structure of the society. This means that wealthy families introduce their children to arts and take them to museums, plays, concerts and send them to private piano, violin and ballet lessons.

This process is represented in the movie through the X family who are an example for the stereotypical upper-east side family in Manhattan. Through the movie it is reviled that the wealthy X family has several traditions including forcing their child to eat expensive French food and to spend his time in educational activities which include learning French so he could be enrolled into a prestigious French school. If school was canceled or if he ever has any free time, he is allowed to go visit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Morgan Library and the French culinary institute. 

These attempts made by the X family was to cultivate in their child the sense of respect and esteem for the fine arts and cosmopolitan culture that they themselves have come to appreciate or least value.

However, these attempts are pricey, such private lessons, foreign travel and private schools cost a lot of money. In this sense, economic capital could be converted into cultural capital as an investment. 

This means that cultural capital is transferrable (form parents to children) and converitable (to economic rewards) which means that it plays a role in reproducing the class structure of the society which starts from wealthy, upper-class parents. As much cultural capital they put into their children, as much as their children generate enough cultural capital on their own to effectively continue the cycle.


During a job application process and on the job itself, those who make the most of their cultural capital are able to convert it back into economical wealth through the financial rewards of the high-paying job itself. This cycle means that upper classes are reproducing themselves over and over again and building a wall to distinguish between their elite cultural consumption and the ones who lake it.