Current Forum: Session 5: Ideology and Class	Read 15 times 	
Date: 07-Feb-2001 09:30:45	
Author: SURRENCY, JENEEN K. <jks5127@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Trading Places 	
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       In “Rewards and Opportunities: The Politics and Economics of Class in the U.S.,” Gregory Mantsios, the article’s author, suggests that television sitcoms and feature films, in regards to social class and wealth, tend to “portray instances of upward mobility and class fluidity. These include rags-to-riches stories, Pygmalion tales, and comic instances of downward mobility. Third, they stress that the people who think firm class lines exist come to discover that they are mistaken: everybody is really the same. These are often rich girl/poor boy romances or the opposite”(120). Mantsios adds that these types of movies, although sometimes entertaining, tend to perform “a great disservice: ‘treating class differences as totally inconsequential strengthens the national delusion that class power and position are insignificant’”(120). 
       I totally agree with Mantsios and find the elements he mentions present in Trading Places. For instance, when the movie begins, Dan Akroyd’s character is an extremely snobbish businessman. He believes that because he and his friends have money, they are morally superior to those people who do not have money. However, since he is betrayed by the Dukes, members of wealth society, rejected by his fiancée (yet another member of the “upper crust”), and befriended by Jamie Leigh Curtis’ character (a prostitute and an embodiment of the lower class), Akroyd’s character discovers that financial status is not an adequate measure of a person’s character. Consequently, his discovery allows for a relationship to blossom between his and Curtis’ characters’, thus fulfilling the rich/poor romance Mantosis mentions. Also, Akroyd's character’s discovery regarding morals and people enables him to be more willing to 
enter into a partnership with Eddie Murphy’s character, a partnership that provides Murphy’s character’s permanent rags-to-riches transformation, eventually leads to the Dukes’ “downward 
mobility,” and as I earlier stated, allows for Trading Places to be categorized as one of the type of films Mantsios mentions.
       In regards to the use of film technique and the portrayal of class and power in Trading Places, to me, the most successfully used technique is costuming. In Trading Places, to a certain extent, money equals power, and the people in the movie with or without power are easily discernible by their clothing. For instance, when Akroyd is first introduced, his character is wearing a business suit; this attire adds to the depiction of Akroyd’s character, at this point, as being a man in charge of his life. However, once he gets arrested and is leaving the jail, his style of dress is completely different. He now wears mixed-matched, jumbled clothing, symbolic of how the life he once knew is confused and in dismay. 
       Consequently, the same clothing principle can be applied to Murphy’s character. When Murphy’s character is first introduced, he is a vagabond; thus, his clothing, which is dirty 
and disheveled, reflects this personage. However, once Murphy’s character becomes the tool for the Dukes' ploy and Murphy’s character now has Akroyd’s character’s wealth and power, as 
represented by the house and job, Murphy’s character’s style of dress changes. Now, since he has taken, to a certain extent, Akroyd’s character’s place, Murphy’s character now emulates 
Akroyd’s character’s way of dress by adorning business suits. So, in a manner of speaking, through the aid of costuming, Trading Places shows that, at times in society, not only does 
money make the man, but clothes make the man too.