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The Wire, which of course is an absolutely excellent longform meditation on class, has a couple really great scenes illustrating this exact thing: http://m.you

• WalterBright 11y ago
  For other good (albeit fictional) accounts of social class, there's "Gone With The Wind's" treatment of Rhett Butler by southern society, and "The Blue Max's" treatment of Bruno Stachel who rises from being an innkeeper's son to a role formerly reserved only for the nobility. (Neither is about money, but manners and behavior.)
  • TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    UK class is all about manners. And money. The upper classes are effortlessly sociable, polished, and polite, even if they think you're an idiot - unless you're the help, in which case they aren't. There are some subtle markers you can only learn either by being born into them or being told about them. E.g. when middle class are introduced they say "Pleased to meet you." When upper class people meet they say "How d'you do?" - and if someone says "Pleased to meet you, they immediately know they're not dealing with one of their own." I spent some time on the edges of the upper class scene, and the polish often hides drama and resentment - possibly because public school in the UK can sometimes seem to be a bizarre form of institutionalised child abuse. It's hard to imagine someone who's set to inherit a gigantic country mansion feeling that life has given them a raw deal, but I've seen it happen. There's also an almost complete absence of passionate creativity. I've seen working class kids (almost literally) kill to become musicians or artists. The upper classes sometimes drift into it, but the work is often derivative and shallow, and doesn't have the kick it has when someone has had to struggle.
• n0us 11y ago
  The other one where D'Angelo takes his girlfriend to the restaurant and also when Stringer realizes he has been played are good examples.