The Chronicles of the Struggles of the Working Class - Essay Example

? 21 April Norma Rae: The Chronicles of the Struggles of the Working Class and Women Based on the story of Crystal Lee Jordan, a female worker who had been debarred from working in all textile unions in Southern America because of her battle against the working situations at the mills, makes an excellent illustration of workers labouring towards a union, with manifold impediments built by management, and most of all, the significance of working women. Norma Rae is a stirring and poignant representation of a woman's struggle to improve her personal life and the disgraceful conditions that take place in the mill where Norma is actually working. Pompously reflecting the working class, and an obviously in support of labour unions, it is likewise a profoundly feminist movie that makes notes of a woman's course of liberation and enfranchisement and connections that course to “guiding” rather than sexual romance. In the plot summary, Norma Rae, a single parent of two, works in a textile milling company. Incidentally, she works in a company where all of her family members and fellows are also employed. The working conditions are more than just terrible: the ambiance is hot, depressing and covered in dust, and jammed with an ear-piercing clang of obsolete equipment. The working conditions are relatively unhealthy and potentially injurious. Most of all, the benefits do not seem to equate the amount of work carried out by the workers: inferior salaries, extended working hours, and marginal health protections. Seen this way, there is indeed a marginalizing and struggling employment conditions among those belonging to the working class, especially women. The perspective of class in the America possesses a quality that is relatively difficult to pin down. In an unprejudiced and fundamental expression, it is a dominant reality in the United States. But still, the intricacy and changing aspects of class relations, especially the undercurrents of class brawl, have been touched on by the mass and popular culture in conditions that equally personalize and compress the inconsistencies characteristic in such dealings (Giroux, 1). In other words, the notion of class has been downgraded to expectable methods that signify modes of conceptual shorthand. Apparently, highly influential industries like the Hollywood have taken the part of a no inferior or negligible role in contending with the class-based issues in ways as to deprive them of any societal definition. This turns out to be, for the most part, apparent when evaluating how the world's biggest entertainment industry has described the working class in life, culture and civilization. With relatively small number of exemptions, Hollywood's dealings with the those belonging to the working class and happenings has been portrayed by the kind of reductionism that operates simply to support those myths and moral standards that provide the conceptual foundation for the predating arrangement of social relations (Giroux 2). The form and substance of most Hollywood movies, including "Norma Rae", that touches on the issue of the working class, especially women, provide the content in plane, superficial illustrations that convey nothing regarding the hidden existing reality of the life and skirmish of the working-class. Basically, the representation of the working class life and culture is established within the ideas that weigh in to its concealment (2). Social mobility substitutes class brawl in movies such as Blood brothers, Working Girls, and The Devil Wears Prada. Illustrations of psychosis and short-lived irrationality flourish in movies such as Taxi Driver and Joe. In "Norman Rae", there is a subtle exaltation of masculinity and a fete of racism and sexism, which provide the description of the plot of the film. Aside from the struggle that Norma gained from belonging to the working class, and working in a rather masculine type of job, there is a racial indignation in the fact that the salaries are low and the working conditions are worst at its best. Furthermore, while the current passion with the working class may look uplifting, in actuality, it is merely a reprocessed, second-hand form of the old (3). Norma Rae is a stimulating movie that talks about the working-class struggle, which also, while minimally, touches on the issue of sexism and gender discrimination among working women. It is likewise a film pertaining to the establishment of labour unions and feminism; although, these are only secondary premises, carefully intertwined into the impartial and slanted configurations of working-class culture and daily living. The gradual development of the connection between Reuben and Norma Rae turns out to be the crucial factor that enlightens the remainder of the movie. It is a connection that is abundant in its description of the forces that describe the make-up of each character's class encounter. Most significantly, nevertheless, "Norma Rae" is not merely pertaining to an evolving personal connection between a multinational labour organizer and a rather maltreated and feisty southern woman (5). Its true influence draws from its persuasive representation of how social, class-based determining factors manipulate the characters theoretical at the same time sensed experiences. In effect, this signifies that the movie clarifies how the subtleties of class-based culture and class struggle, with the significant addition of sexism and gender discrimination, are duplicated by the lives and experiences of two characters. The outlines of this changing aspects are perceived not just in the connection of Norma Rae and Reuben; it is likewise discovered through the innumerable relationships that the two characters have to their individual undertakings and functions, families, ambitions, and the perplexing taciturnity that, at times, ineptly discuss their disturbances and sufferings. To discuss it in different terms, every social class bears its individual cultural principal; however, the leading class have the authority and power to cultivate their own thoughts and viewpoints as the most reasonable and respected (5). For instance, the leading classes not just possess the authority to dispense commodities and services, which can be considered as economic principal, they likewise employ the authority to duplicate, by means of the many organizations of social mixture, verities of cultural principal which legitimizes their individual authoritarian connections while diminishing the cultural principle of the working class and other inferior clusters at the same time, that display a possible struggle to class dominion. In the framework of cultural capital, the idea of class becomes real and specific such that it turns out as more than just a mere classification of political economy (6). Class is now partly described based on the obtained and conventional facts and ways of existence that typify varying social clusters and individuals (6). On the whole, working-class cultural capital is considered to be unpolished, distasteful, and ordinary (7). This notion characterizes more than just a manifestation of elitism and intellectual perplexity but it is a chunk of crude philosophy that is adopted by most of us. Therefore, any person might have to say that the class brawl does not only subsist in the flaws and inconsistencies that we have adopted. On one hand, it comes into being as part of the conflict that arises between impartial and prejudiced politics. In other words, the most understated and delicate undercurrents of class struggle comes to being in the historical account that we bear and the demarcating and oftentimes oblivious impact it has brought to how we exist and carry out our one-sided politics on the many aspects of work. This aspect of the class struggle is definitely represented in the person of Reuben in his dealings with Norma Rae. Also, the significantly apparent display of sexism, although sometimes understated, corroborates the claim that one-sided politics supplements the notion of gender discrimination in work. Work Cited Giroux, Henry. “Norma Rae: Character, Culture, and Class.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media (1980): 1-7. Print. Read More