doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
haves and have nots
The American Ruling Class
Year: 2005
Writer: Lewis Lapham
Director: John Kirby
Producer: Libby Handros
Length: 100 minutes
Media: On TV
Studio: Cactus Three
Distributor: Maitland Primrose Group
Rating: out of 5
I watched this on the Sundance Channel last night. This film is listed as a documentary but given that the two main characters, Caton Burwell and Paul Cantagallo, are acting a part, it’s more in the realm of “docu-drama.” In fact, Burwell and Cantagallo play Yale graduates but are, in reality, Harvard grads. One plays a wealthy student while the other plays the struggling student who got an Ivy League education to move into better circles.
My question, however, is how can two Harvard (or Yale, for that matter) graduates have any clue about the struggles of the “underclass?” Indeed, at one point Burwell meets up with journalist Barbara Ehrenreich at an IHOP, where she is taking minimum wage jobs around the country to see how people can live on that wage, is treated to a conversation about how he will never be able to understand the struggles of the underclass, with his promising career at Goldman Sachs.
I found this film to be an insult to those of us who are the working class, to those of us who have been homeless, used welfare, or struggled each and every day to have enough money for food, shelter, and clothing. They kept speaking to people who ARE the ruling class and asking them if there IS a ruling class. Of course they wouldn’t think so…they are a part of it. But there is. There are the haves and have nots and those of us who are the have nots do not rule anything. We simply work to stay alive.
And in the end, I don’t think this film portrayed that well enough.
Dear inchoate,
I’m sorry you found our film insulting, because I think you have described the point we were trying to make quite well: “My question, however, is how can two Harvard (or Yale, for that matter) graduates have any clue about the struggles of the “underclass?†That of course, is the problem, that these kids will in most cases not even attempt to understand how the “other half” (or vast majority) lives. And when they get into postions of power in government and business, it will be all the easier to defraud and kill.
Though perhaps we didn’t highlight this enough, we thought it was sort of funny, in a sad or absurd way, how the oligarchs couldn’t admit to there being an oligarchy.
It reveals their mendacity, their reflexsive lying.. perhaps some of them have lied to themselves?
We were trying for satire… unfortunately we didn’t always hit the mark. We’ll try again next time, though, with a film on the uses of warfare in a democratic society, in “To the Health of the State! A Champagne Toast to War” a musical-documetary-satire.
Thanks for thoughtful comments,
John Kirby
director, The American Ruling Class