A working class background:
I started off in what most people think of as America’s lower class. I was given up for adoption when I was 3; I spent the next four years in seven foster homes. When I was 7, I was adopted and subsequently settled in Red Bluff, Calif., a working-class town, population 13,147, median household income $27,029. Two years later, my adoptive parents got divorced; after that, my adoptive father severed ties.
When I was 15, I got my first job, as a dishwasher at a pizza restaurant, and on breaks, all my conversations with co-workers eventually turned to the topic of money. We would fantasize about what we would do if we suddenly had it: vacations, cars. In high school, we’d hear rumors that so-and-so was rich, because their parents had a second house or a boat. We all thought that money was the important thing: If you had it, you were “rich” — which for us was indistinguishable from “elite.” If you didn’t, you weren’t.
This was true, to an extent. But it wasn’t the whole story. How did I learn it wasn’t? From television.
Henderson goes on to tell us more about his life and then tells us about watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where he learned that education was valued among the elite. What got my attention, though, were some remarks about The West Wing ("not very good"):
Why did he find it "particularly interesting"? I would imagine it's because in the world he grew up in you don't help your opponent, in this case a political opponent, especially when they've bested you in a contest. That reminds me of some remarks I made about Saturday Night Fever some years ago:And though the show was not my favorite, I was fascinated by its characters. They were constantly engaged in debates about contentious social and political issues. One plotline I found particularly interesting was when President Bartlet’s deputy communications director, Sam Seaborn, loses a debate against a Republican woman named Ainsley Hayes. To her surprise, Hayes is subsequently offered a job in the Democratic administration; the president cites her “sense of civic duty.”
The more I watched, the more the characters reminded me of the Warrior-Scholar Project tutors. Characters like Josh Lyman and C.J. Cregg were educated at elite universities and, despite their flaws, tried to live up to their moral principles. They engaged in fierce debate with political foes, but respected them too. The characters who staffed the Bartlet administration were highly educated, extremely witty, clever and idealistic. It made me wonder: Was this show so popular among elite college graduates because they saw aspirational versions of themselves in it? And if this was how they aspired to be, was this also how I should aspire to be?
Seems to me to be pretty much the same story in both cases. But in Saturday Night Fever Manero didn't have a middle-class example to guide him, at least not that we saw. He figured out that virtue, however you want to characterize it, for himself.In 1977 John Travolta became a star by playing the lead role of Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever. Manero worked a nowhere job in Brooklyn and lived for the dance floor. That’s where he felt most alive, and most fully human. And that’s where he staked his identity. He was Tony Manero, king of the dance floor.
In the movie he sets out to win the dance contest at the local disco. A Hispanic couple danced better than he and his partner did, but he gets the prize anyhow. Why? He is well-known at this particular disco, he is Italian, and so are the folks who run the disco.
It was in inside job. It was corrupt.
Though winning seems to have meant everything to him, he rejects the prize because he feels he didn't deserve it. It turns out that his dedication to the craft of dancing means more to him than the prize. Until he lost this contest he didn’t know that.
Thus to accept the tainted prize would be to assert that dancing, in itself, is of no consequence. If dancing is of no consequence, then what’s the value of being Tony Manero, dancer?
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