Author Topic: Education and class in BBM  (Read 5017 times)

Offline serious crayons

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Education and class in BBM
« on: April 24, 2006, 03:40:00 pm »
Hey folks, I decided we've been spending WAAAAY too much time discussing the thrillingly romantic and breathtakingly carnal aspects of the movie, and it's time for something dry and academic and potentially boring! Everybody agree? OK, here goes:

I'm really impressed by the way both education (lack thereof) and class are treated in this movie. I can't think of any other movie off the top of my head (I'm open to corrections) that handles these matters so completely unpatronizingly.

How many movies portray a main character as matter-of-factly poor -- yet that poverty is neither pitiful nor a major plot point? Yes, we see how poverty limits Ennis' life: he has to save half-smoked cigarettes, can't get away to see Jack easily, gets nagged by his wife to get a better job and apartment. But we are never asked to feel sorry for him or even spend much time dwelling on his finances. In most movies, if somebody's poor, that's pretty much the whole point of the movie.

And as for education, how many movies feature main characters who barely made it out of high school (Jack), or didn't (Ennis), and yet are portrayed so respectfully that they're the objects of enormous unbound affection for so many well-educated, intelligent people (us)? The only times their education level is even alluded to, it's just cute -- their grammar, the condiments thing, Jack's misspelled postcard and Ennis' lips moving as he reads it. Otherwise, who cares?!

Anybody else have any thoughts about this, or are you too busy pondering who fell in love with whom when and who's the hottest? (OK, me too.)


Offline nakymaton

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2006, 03:56:35 pm »
I want to have coherent thoughts other than YES! YES! But you've said it all extremely well, I think.

Poverty and poor education (and rural upbringing, as well) tend to be treated either as adversity to overcome for a hero (see Walk the Line) or as part of what is yucky about a villian (see Hilary Swank's family in Million Dollar Baby). And BBM could very easily have treated poverty and rural upbringing as The Villian... I mean, rural areas are particularly homophobic, and it's homophobia (at least in part) that kept Our Lovers apart. (And may have been what killed Jack, depending on which version of his death you believe is true.)

But class and education and everything are simply treated as part of the background, not idealized and not demonized. And that's one of the many, many things that I love about this movie.
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2006, 04:09:42 pm »
Katherine, you put it so well it's difficult to think of anything else to say.

It's been a while now, and I don't remember, and I also don't have the screenplay with me here at work. Is there mention of Jack finishing high school? I think in the "AP original" they're both drop-outs. We just learn more of the circumstances of Ennis's inability to finish. Poor guy, he just wanted to be a sophomore, felt it had some kind of distinction.

It always surprised me that "back in the day" he could get a driver's license at 14 (!) in order to go to school.
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Offline isabelle

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2006, 04:46:50 pm »
Katherine, this is a very good point to bring up. To me, both from reading the short story and seeing the film, their poverty and lack of education as given facts, not as the central plot, is one of the main aspects of this film that make the characters SO real, and therefore make me feel like I know them, they are like friends. I love them. To me, they HAVE existed, do exist - I will see Ennis, no doubt, when I go to Wyoming!
Also, I am a teacher, and became one in the first place because I believed in education to help kids - especially from poorer backgrounds - have better opportunities in life, and I'm not talking only of the financial aspect. However, even as a teacher, I have never given a fiddler's fart about people's level of education, i.e the number, or names, of degrees on their resumes, and have a definite soft spot for those who could not get an education, particularly for reasons like Ennis's (lack of money).
But you are right, I cannot think of any other film where poverty/class is not central to the plot.
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Offline Kd5000

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2006, 06:21:49 pm »
Poverty/class is not central to the plot.

It's not central to the plot, but the poverty/family situation/time period/education attainment do play a role in the costly decisions they make. Would Ennis choose to get married to ALma at age 19. Would Jack have married a woman? Afterwards, Jack's marriage will certainly make his life more complicated, however it is a ticket to more material comforts.   I don't think Jack is anymore happier because he has attained, it would seem, the American dream.

Would you still feel sympathy for them if they were from affluent backgrounds, well educated, and wordly? They could escape far more easily. There would be more options and the situation wouldn't seem so HOPELESS from the get-go. 

PPl have posted on IMDB.com and newspaper articles about why didn't they just move to NYC or Denver for that matter? What would Ennis or Jack do in a highly urban environment, if they chose to escape the suffocating rural homophobia?  End up working in Times Square?


Offline delalluvia

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2006, 07:47:18 pm »
I for one was very glad to see a movie that showed that poverty and lack of education were not limited to inner city people.  They were/are problems for everyone.

I'm with kd, poverty plays a crucial part in this movie.  Ennis is essentially trapped.  He cannot be anything more than a hired hand because he doesn't have the job skills or education to be anything else and that severely limits him professionally.  Unless Alma Jr. gets more education than she has before getting pregnant by her oll-worker rough neck fiance, she is likely to be no better off than Ennis was.  Matter of fact, the movie ends in the early 1980's.  The oil slump happened in the late 80's.  Likely Junior was going to have a couple of kids by then and her husband would be out of a job.

Jack managed to get out of his trap by marrying up.  Otherwise he would have been no better off than Ennis.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2006, 10:24:04 pm by delalluvia »

Offline hermitdave

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2006, 08:05:16 pm »
 I agree with everything that has been said so far. I am not particularly well educated. I grew up poor, and from the south. In my experience folks dont spend a lot of time thinking about those who have more and are better educated. Life is just lived as it is. Like Ennis said- "you dont have nothin, you dont need nothin."
« Last Edit: April 24, 2006, 09:03:55 pm by hopefulheart »
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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2006, 09:46:29 pm »
Reading through this thread, I'm reminded of those other sad lines from Ennis:

"I'm stuck with what I got here. Makin' a livin's about all I got time for now."

In context the "stuck" part may specifically refer to his marriage and family, but it pretty well covers his economic situation, too, I think.
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2006, 02:04:14 pm »
Thanks for your thoughts, everyone! This is one of the (many, obviously) things that impresses me about BBM and I'm glad to have a place to discuss it. Good point, KD and Del, that poverty and education are not completely immaterial to the plot; if Ennis and Jack were more affluent and educated they would made different choices and had more options (though surely the general outlines of their tragedy have played out many times among people at every socioeconomic level).

But though their economic situations help shape their circumstances, I find it refreshing that they aren't the CENTRAL issue of the plot.

Nakymaton, speaking of well put, this was really good:

Poverty and poor education (and rural upbringing, as well) tend to be treated either as adversity to overcome for a hero (see Walk the Line) or as part of what is yucky about a villian (see Hilary Swank's family in Million Dollar Baby). And BBM could very easily have treated poverty and rural upbringing as The Villian... I mean, rural areas are particularly homophobic, and it's homophobia (at least in part) that kept Our Lovers apart. (And may have been what killed Jack, depending on which version of his death you believe is true.)

But class and education and everything are simply treated as part of the background, not idealized and not demonized. And that's one of the many, many things that I love about this movie.

Thinking about your post, Naky, led me to make the following -- very generalized -- conclusion: In most contemporary American films, heroes who are poor are required to overcome the poverty by the end of the movie, either by hard work (countless examples) or by marrying up (Pretty Woman). At the very least, they must somehow symbolically transcend their economic situation through bravery, pluck and/or talent (Norma Rae and Titanic, among others -- Erin Brokovich does this AND gets a big check at the end). Poor and/or uneducated people who just go about their lives, who don't improve their lot or aren't at least struggling to do so, are portrayed as trailer trash or pathetic victims.

BBM does not fit this pattern, and that's one of the many, many things I love about it, too.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Education and class in BBM
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2006, 10:19:22 pm »
Quote
Thinking about your post, Naky, led me to make the following -- very generalized -- conclusion: In most contemporary American films, heroes who are poor are required to overcome the poverty by the end of the movie, either by hard work (countless examples) or by marrying up (Pretty Woman). At the very least, they must somehow symbolically transcend their economic situation through bravery, pluck and/or talent (Norma Rae and Titanic, among others -- Erin Brokovich does this AND gets a big check at the end).

Not in any way intending to disagree--because I don't--but what you've described here, Katherine, is a lot older than contemporary American films, or even movies, period. You've more or less described what used to be called the Horatio Alger story--poor person makes good--which has been standard in American entertainment since at least the last third of the nineteeth century.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.