Class Prejudice

@kiwiboris, interesting thread! Unfortunately, I am not too knowledgeable when it comes to this issue, but I agree with you that it’s quite odd that David’s working-class origins are not seen as a big deal, while the revelation about his Jewish heritage shocks them to the core (also, I may be mistaken, but it seems as if in the aftermath of the Second World War most young Americans were quite sympathetic to the plight of the Jews).
I think that class prejudices tend to be less pronounced in the United States than in most European countries (especially the Western European ones like the Netherlands), so this could be one reason the film producers did not view such a scenario as unrealistic. It’s also possible that the way David presented himself (e.g. his manner of talking) and interacted with the others did not attract (negative) attention; he managed to fit in from the very beginning.

seemed to me that they found being poor is cool. they were impressed when they found out he was in a fight.

antisemitism or any other race/religion hatred is for all ages and size.

I was thinking the exact same thing! The only person who even commented on how David belonged to a lower class was Charlie when they first met. All the guys ,after that, seem to get along just fine until they found out he was Jewish. I think there would have been people who wouldn't have accepted him. because he was poor. Especially that girl and her family, because it would have been very important for her to marry into a wealthy family.
I found it very ironic that all the guys made jokes and statements about Jewish people being greedy, yet they were the rich guys from elite families and David was poor and from a working class family.

This is an excellent post. Certainly in today's world class prejudice overrides anti-Semitism and maybe even dome other forms of racism when it comes to life opportunities. Most prep schools and other elite institutions seem to be made up of WASPs, Northern European Catholics and Jews from the upper-classes, but during the 1950s Jews were still a relatively disenfranchised group, especially where elite East Coast school and colleges, the almost exclusive preserve of WASPs, were concerned. Many Jewish families had only been in the US for a few generations, dating back to the turn-of-the-century Russian pogroms, or 1930s European Fascism, and thus would not be long established. Furthermore, many Americans, particularly among the upper-class elite, would not have known many Jews and thus, the most reactionary of them would have been susceptible to hateful anti-Semitic stereotypes that associated Jews with Bolshevism and anti-Americanism.

Also, I suspect most modern anti-Semitism (i.e. the 20th century onwards) is ethnic/racial and cultural prejudice as opposed to religious prejudice.

I think it's just the limits of the medium. Clearly a crowd of privileged young people like that would have a whole raft of attitude problems. That would definitely include class prejudice. But you can't show everything in a movie. If it's about anti-Semitism, then that's the story you tell.

Still, I think one line about it wouldn't have been out of place. The scene where Green's fellow waiter stops him from going on a rampage would have been a natural place to insert something like, "You know how these people are! Anything to keep our kind down!"

That would have made the point that the school was a whirlpool of various superiority complexes, which it naturally would have to be.

I agree. In real life, those prep school kids would look down at him more bc hes from Scranton. White people segregate themselves by class,way more than any other race! Example...An upper-class white collar executive would never hang out with a blue-collar white. You might see them talking about sports at the office,but they would never go to the bar together after work. Also, white suburban liberals treat working-class whites from the inner-city or rural areas like *beep* Upper-class whites are nicer to minorities than they are to working-class whites! BTW..I'm Latino and have always noticed the way whites interact with each other. Rich whites are definitely a strange untrustworthy group...however,the working-class whites are the coolest people around. I personally can't stand the politically correct upper-class whites,nobody respects them bc they pretend to be too perfect,claim to love everyone, and always say whatever sounds correct.

I went to a northeastern boarding school that was similar to the one in the film. I graduated in 1993, so things had changed quite a bit by then. I still saw plenty of class prejudice, but not nearly as much as there would have been in the 50's. I will say that lots of the true old money people displayed no class prejudice at all. I was from a blue collar town, although my father was a professor so I could not be considered working class. Much of the snobbery I saw was from new money people who from old-money places, places like Greenwich Connecticut. I did see class prejudice among some old money types, but it is not as cut and dry as some would say. Like I said before, most of the worst snobbery was from new money people, people that were TRYING to join old money society and looked down on those of us that were not from the right towns. The students might well have looked down on David for being working class, but he was a popular quarterback so they probably kept it to themselves. When he was not around, however, some of them certainly would have had some snide remarks. Things were much worse back then, so someone from the wrong town would certainly have been looked down upon by certain people at the school. I definitely saw some of that where I went to school, and I graduated 35-40 years after the movie took place. There were lots of Jewish people at my school and I did not see any open prejudice towards them. Then again, I'm not Jewish so maybe I would not know.

Doesn't fit the narrative. Look who wrote the movie. It wasn't a poor person.