Saturday, February 16, 2019
Gold Diggers and Social Climbers
The Lady Eve portrays the ambitions and schemes of the lower classes to achieve their piece of the American Dream and the anxieties of the upper class to be hoodwinked and cheated by the lower classes. Jean Harrington and her con artist partners will lie, cheat, and even feign love to get their piece of the pie. Charles Pike and his family navigate in a rarified world of expeditions, ocean liners and suburban Connecticut mansions, free of mingling with the hoi polloi, and they flee any whiff of scandal. Yet, somehow Jean and Charles fall in love and even are happily partnered at the end. Is social mobility possible in this movie, at that time (1941)? Can people from different classes find common ground? Do the well-to-do have a reason to fear the lower classes? What is the movie telling us about the politics of class and wealth?
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ReplyDeleteIn Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve, he sends a message that lower class citizens see wealthy people as above them, but once they get to know these “superior” individuals the lower class finally sees that they are real people, just like them. The character of Jean Harrington delivers this idea, as she devises a plan that would consist of her pretending to fall in love with the wealthy Charles Pike in order to eventually steal his money. Jean Harrington and her other professional con-artist colleagues think that taking advantage of high class individuals, like Charles Pike, is the easiest way for them (lower class people) to move up in society. Though Jean’s goal was to just trick Charles Pike into falling in love with her so she could find an “in” into his monetary fortune, to her surprise, her personal emotions get intertwined with her professional goals. This ultimately changes Jean’s end goals of just stealing from Charles Pike, as in the third act Jean ends up marrying him because she falls in love with his sweet personality, not his money or status. Leading Jean to put behind all of her evil desires of just chasing Charles Pike for money in order to move up in social class. Therefore, social mobility was possible in 1941 for people in different classes, but it was rare as it was only possible if each of the individuals took the time and effort to see each other for who they are, not for how much money they have. Finally, Sturges shows this concept as Charles Pike is able to look past Jean’s immoral past and Jean is able to see Charles Pike for who he is as an individual instead of his money.
ReplyDeleteThe movie The Lady Eve shows that people from the upper class will not voluntarily interact with people who do not have as much money as they do. During this time around 1941, there was a certain expectation for people to act depending on their social status. Charles Pike is from a wealthy family and would have no reason to talk to anyone with less money than he does because he has plenty of options. The only reason that he even meets Jean is because she pretends as if she has a lot of money. She even shows him her many pairs of shoes to further convince him that she is just as important in society as he is. However, when Charles finds out that she is actually a con artist, he starts to second-guess the relationship and leaves the boat. The fact that she was from this class of society was enough for him to abandon what he thought was true love and never want to speak to her again. Soon after, as luck would have it, Jean finds a way to make her way into a part that he is at, but this time as Lady Eve, and they fall in love yet again. Her strategy is very similar to her first one because if she had stayed in her real social class, she never would have gotten into this high-class society and encountered Charles again. These repeating situations emphasize that Jean has to pretend to be someone else to catch the eye of the rich, handsome man, even though at first she only wanted to steal from him. If he knew who she was from the beginning, he never would have talked to her or fell in love three times. Varying social classes from this time never would have interacted naturally, but if one decides to be from the other, they can find common ground.
In the movie, the Lady Eve, the happy ending that puts Jean and Charles together proves that love will overcome the division in class despite hardships that might lead the way. Right away from the beginning of the movie as they are put on a cruise ship that told us that it was filled with the upper class. Because of that connotation Charles must have assumed that he Jean was a member of the elite and had nothing to worry about when beginning his relationship with her. After Charles found out that Jean and her father were very infamous card sharks and known for their deceitful acts to earn money, he ends things were her because of his angriness at the fact that she lied about who she was to him. The second time Jean or “Eve” makes her move on Charles he once again falls for her completely gullible enough to believe that Eve and Jean are not the same person. It can be inferred that if Jean were to tell Charles the truth at the beginning they would be able to overcome the class difference right away as they are so in love. However, because Jean kept her gambling a secret, she pushed Charles away from her. At the end, when Jean and Charles see each other again they immediately give each other the look of longing and are back together. With him knowing of the danger Jean brings, Charles falls back in love with her defying their gap in wealth.
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