# Death Of The Working-Class Leading Man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 18, 2019, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744 "2019-04-18T22:22:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/41 "2019-04-19T22:47:21Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I dunno, someone’s got to be paying for all of those fancy cars, and all the other characters at least have access to them. I think “my rich friend lets me drive his Ferrari whenever I want” is enough to put you out of “working class” territory, even if your own personal wealth is low. F&F is a kind of weird franchise, because it started out as a story about a cop infilitrating an illegal street racing circuit, and somehow morphed into basically a superhero franchise where everyone’s super power is “fancy driving.” But the first movie was definitely about people who were working class or lower. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/42 "2019-04-19T23:31:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Do Iron Man and Batman count? Well, both are crazy-rich, and both are heroes, though they’re definitely flawed ones, with those flaws being portrayed often (and usually not in a positive light). Stark is egotistical, narcissistic, impulsive, a womanizer, and, at least in the books, an alcoholic (though, as the movies have gone on, he’s grown out of the worst of those traits). Wayne is obsessive, and prone to depression and extreme violence. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/43 "2019-04-20T00:07:07Z")
Hey, write a happy, even tempered, clean living rich-from-the-start (important condition, it doesn’t count if he is a millionaire at the END of the story but is a working stiff through most of it) character, and see if his story will sell tickets. People may have noticed and I think I commented it in some other post on such media matters, the modern audience has grown not just to accept but to _expect_, that a well written hero(ine) must have some character flaw or defect that “makes them more human”. That said, yeah, I too need clarification on what’s the deal with “working class” protagonists and when were they abundant vs. recent times. Unless we are getting into the oft-raised issue that a lot of protagonists in film/TV could not possibly be living their portrayed lifestyles on the income from their portrayed employment, so you can’t suspend disbelief. Is it a matter that the author is thinking that he “can’t buy” the current acting crop as common-man leading characters? What IS that makes the hero “working class” and why should it matter? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/44 "2019-04-20T01:16:54Z")
I disagree with the posters who have been counting police officers as working class. 45% of them (in the U.S.) have college degrees, and a college degree is generally necessary for the best jobs. They average more than $60,000 per year. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/45 "2019-04-20T01:35:39Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > People may have noticed and I think I commented it in some other post on such media matters, the modern audience has grown not just to accept but to _expect_, that a well written hero(ine) must have some character flaw or defect that “makes them more human”. That’s is hardly a modern innovation. Aristotle was writing about the importance of flawed protagonists in drama over two thousand years ago. > [@a dead Greek](#): > > A perfect tragedy should, as we have seen, be arranged not on the simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation. It follows plainly, in the first place, that the change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this moves neither pity nor fear; it merely shocks us. Nor, again, that of a bad man passing from adversity to prosperity: for nothing can be more alien to the spirit of Tragedy; it possesses no single tragic quality; it neither satisfies the moral sense nor calls forth pity or fear. Nor, again, should the downfall of the utter villain be exhibited. A plot of this kind would, doubtless, satisfy the moral sense, but it would inspire neither pity nor fear; for pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves. Such an event, therefore, will be neither pitiful nor terrible. There remains, then, the character between these two extremes- that of a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice or depravity, but by some error or frailty. He must be one who is highly renowned and prosperous- a personage like Oedipus, Thyestes, or other illustrious men of such families. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/46 "2019-04-20T05:05:49Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I disagree with the posters who have been counting police officers as working class. 45% of them (in the U.S.) have college degrees, and a college degree is generally necessary for the best jobs. They average more than $60,000 per year. Perception is more important than actual income or education. Police officers are generally perceived as being blue collar, rather than being the equivalent of office workers. How do you expect a cop (in a movie) to talk, like a regular joe or like an accountant? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/47 "2019-04-20T05:27:02Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Rick Blaine is almost the equivalent of Stan Kroenke, an American who owns a club overseas. Sure, Kroenke’s club is called _Arsenal_ and not _Stan’s_ but still… A seedy dive for “the usual suspects” in Hollywood’s idea of a romantically exotic location (you haven’t been to Highbury, have you?) was never going to make billions off the TV and image marketing rights. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744/48 "2019-04-20T09:36:22Z")
Accountants are about the same in income as police officers in the U.S., somewhere between $60,000 to $70,000 a year. Most but not all accountants have college degrees. Both jobs are on the low side of white-collar jobs. Police officers and accountants are both not working-class jobs in my opinion. The problem in the OP is the definition of working class. Jobs where the people seldom have college degrees (and the degrees would be irrelevant anyway) are just rarer now than they were during classic movie times (say, 1965 and before). Jobs where people work entirely outside of an office are rarer now. You can call jobs where people often need college degrees but don’t make more than $75,000 a year on average blue-collar jobs if you like. In that case there are just as many blue-collar jobs now in movies as during classic-movie times. Or you can call such jobs white-collar jobs. In that case there are less blue-collar jobs now in movies as in classic-movie times, but that’s because there are less blue-collar jobs now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-of-the-working-class-leading-man/832744.md?page=2)