Film 1070

Alisha Ricks
Sarah Lehleitner
Final Assignment

Upper Class

Middle Class

Working Class
 For my final assignment, I decided to do a digital illustration depicting the

stereotypes between the working class, middle class and upper class. To explain the

structure of the image, first it is a staircase with unequal sized steps. The unequal steps

represent how hard the working class has to work to reach the middle class, then the

middle class reaching towards the upper class.

The lower class has a bunch of pigeons pecking at the ground for little pieces of

food. This is representative of the working class trying to get the little pieces of extra cash

they can, after working a lot and narrowly being able to pay bills. With the gap between

working class and middle class being difficult to obtain. Placing them in the bottom step

and also in a hole. The pigeons represent a bird that is not well known and therefore

represent people who are usually underrepresented in political parties, the economy and

represented less in government decisions.

This is also how I feel in the clip from City Lights, 1931 the “little tramp” was

treated. Not noticed until he was on the statue and I think that pigeons are seen in the

same way, go unnoticed and are an undesirable bird. This is all the stereotypical

representations, none of it is accurate, nor can it depict an accurate representation of a

person’s life. Every case is different and every individual budgets differently. Each person

cannot accurately be represented in a way to show how they live their lives day to day.

The middle class represents a gap that is father away from the working class. It is

considered a step up from the working class. The gap in wealth I have represented as a

posh beagle. Working on a computer at home. Working at home is often a luxury of having

a higher paying job. Unlike the working class which usually makes you come work in
person doing manual labor, or in person customer service jobs. The beagle is usually a pure

bread, highly trained and skilled dog. I have that representative of the amount of training a

job that pays more than a working class living, will put into training their employees.

Middle class usually has more spending money and usually has better working options

than the working class does. It will usually take the working class a longer time to reach

middle class status than a person who came from a working class. Middle class families

often set up college funds for their kids, or even are able to help cover living expenses for

their children to set them up for success. Again, everyone spends money in different ways

and saves more or less as well.

Lastly, we have the upper class step. When I think of the upper class, names come

to mind such as Elon Musk, or Jeff Bezos. A lot of times people will view the rich as a bunch

of snakes. For example Amazon, Jeffrey Bezos makes millions of dollars every year from

sales on the website. Elon Musk has a bunch of businesses such as Tesla. Tesla is a high

end car manufacturer that generates a lot of revenue. Point being, the snake on the top

step with the money in front of it is all that people are able to see sometimes. Again, full

disclosure, the stereotype is there, although some people do live in smaller houses and

save and invest their money to have fun when they are retired.

Concluding, there are many stereotypes regarding money and how that affects

people. Every person decides how to spend it. Whether in a good way, like investing,

paying bills, buying cars and houses. Or in a bad way, drugs and alcohol, missing paying

bills, leading to missing work etc. Wealth can never accurately be shown because it is a

vast, case by case basis that is chosen per each individual.

 References
City Lights

Chaplin, C. (Director). (1931). City Lights [Motion picture on DVD]. USA: Charles
Chaplin Productions.

Permissions: Fair Use - Section 107 of the Copyright Act

Coile, Caroline. "Beagle". Encyclopedia Britannica, 16 Nov. 2023,

https://www.britannica.com/animal/beagle-dog. Accessed 2 December 2023.

Pidgeon pictures are available under a royalty-free license

Carrier Pigeon
https://depositphotos.com/photos/pidgeon.html

Pigeon Feeding Peck - Free photo on Pixabay

https://in.pinterest.com/pin/616219161506796789/?amp_client_id=CLIENT_ID%28_%29&mweb_unaut
h_id=%7B%7Bdefault.session%7D%7D&amp_url=https%3A%2F%2Fin.pinterest.com%2Famp%2Fpin%2F
616219161506796789%2F&open_share=t

University of Colorado Boulder

https://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum/snakes-colorado