Moralizing upward mobility: Investigating the myth of class mobility in working girl

Abstract

Despite the booming U.S. economy, the economic lives of many Americans are not improving. Living the myth of the American Dream often requires individuals to negotiate their inability to transcend socioeconomic class. This study examines filmic narratives of upward mobility as one resource that people use to help them understand their socioeconomic situation. Using Working Girl as an exemplar, this study finds that upward mobility films prescribe a purification of motives for those attempting class transformation while denying the need for social action. Therefore, they separate a person's moral and characterological substance from the social transformation of class and bolster the idea that personal transformation is not hampered by class structures. This essay finds that narrative film has the potential to offer guidelines for negotiating the ideological gap in the myths of the American Dream and to recode social problems as individual problems with individual solutions.