Movin' on Up: Class in America in the Movies ((4 Credits))

Catalog description

The purpose is to study the issue of socio-economic class in American society, in part by examining how it is portrayed in films. The student will gain a better understanding of the following: how class structures affect the social and economic lives of Americans, how class differences affect educational opportunities, what barriers prevent social mobility (i.e., mobility between classes), and what factors encourage social mobility, how race, gender, culture, and other forms of identity interact with class to affect the lives of Americans in various classes, and how Americans incorporate their class into their overall identity. This course, in studying the issue of socio-economic class in the U.S., will address social justice issues, including race, class, and gender, as well as explore matters of intersectionality so that students gain an understanding of how overlapping forms of identity-based discrimination interact with one another.