the HIERARCHYits relevance today
One of the easiest concepts to understand that Kenneth Burke discusses is the idea of the hierarchy since it's such a prevalent force in our society today. As stated on the home page, our society has many varying types of hierarchies that include social ladders (race, gender, age, class), democratic layers of power, and more. Read the sections below to view specific examples of how hierarchies are represented in visual media today. |
Social Hierarchies
Movies and television shows are notorious for displaying social classes and the various struggles people have with others of differing classes or within their own. |
Wealth and Social Class
Hierarchies of wealth and class are prevalent in our society as well as in our visual media. Movies and television shows are notorious for displaying social classes and the various struggles people have with others of differing classes or within their own. Gilmore Girls is one example of a television show that displays differences and struggles between classes. Lorelai, the mother in the show, came from a rich family but left when she was only sixteen. Much of the drama deals with issues of money and the two main characters visiting Lorelai's wealthy parents each week. Movies, such as In Time and Titanic, also portray differences in social class and the issues that arise as a result. In Time shows people not living as long because they are poor and others having lived centuries since they are wealthy. Titanic is about a "seventeen-year-old aristocrat [who] falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic" (IMDb). Most movies, if not all, portray social classes in one way or another. These are just two examples. Advertisements also display hierarchies of class, particularly when the target audience is of a specific rung in the hierarchy. The Versace ad on the left displays a woman of apparent wealth and power and another woman on the adjacent page who appears to be their servant or maid. The target audience of this brand or perhaps just of this marketing campaign is upper class citizens. All of these movies, television shows, and advertisements aid in the normalizing and establishment of differing ranks of class. |
Gender
Woman have traditionally been viewed as the inferior gender. Advertisements and other visual media have thus represented this hierarchy and still do today despite the advancements and support of equal rights. The advertisement on the right is a car commercial that showcases three women tied-up in the rear of a Ford SUV. Even the tagline "Leave your worries behind" implies that women are inferior and the cause of man's troubles. Women are often over-sexualized, as the three in the back of the SUV are, and portrayed as animals or slaves. An advertisement at the top of this page directly compares a woman to an animal, claiming "All animals have the same parts" and labeling the woman's body to prove the claim. Since women are viewed as animals, slaves, and the cause of man's troubles, they are represented and believed to be on a lower rung of a gender hierarchy. Click on the button to the right to view more advertisements that marginalize women. |
Race and Ethnicity
Even though the United States abolished slavery over 150 years ago, racial stereotypes and prejudices are still prevalent today. The racial hierarchy hoists the Caucasian [man] to the top and proceeds down the ladder with skin variants that increasingly darken. Racial inequality has remained an issue despite the effort and promotion of equality, similar to the issues of gender inequality discussed above. Those with colored skin are viewed as inferior and are even represented this way in visual media, such as the Intel advertisement on the left that portrays a white male in the center of the photo and six darker skinned men around him practically bowing down at the white man's feet. The Dove advertisement also demonstrates that lighter skin tones are superior by displaying three women of varying ethnicities and having the darkest displayed as "before" and the whitest woman as "after." This implies that whiter skin is more beautiful. The use of Photoshop to manipulate someone's skin color and even the use of skin lightening pills demonstrate the prevalence of racial hierarchies in our culture. Beyoncé is a very successful and beautiful woman, but her skin is lightened via Photoshop and is also rumored to be lightened with the use of skin whitening pills. These endeavors further push racial hierarchies and establishes the allure and apparent beauty of white skin. |
Dystopias
![]() Future of Social Hierarchies?
Dystopian movies and novels have gained a lot of fame recently. Many dystopian plots include an extreme difference in social class, where there are exceedingly wealthy characters and those who are incredibly poor. The Hunger Games series and Elysium are two examples that embrace such contrasts. Is this trend a reflection of something happening in our culture today? There are extreme differences between social classes; some people make millions of a dollars year year, even billions, where others are living on the streets. But our society isn't quite as extreme or chaotic as those in dystopian books and movies. This genre though demonstrates and could be the result of something Kenneth Burke proposed during the mid 1900s. He claimed that those "on the lowest rungs of a hierarchy fear slipping to even lower rungs, and those at the top fear they will be surpassed" (Foss, Foss and Trapp 204). In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is afraid of slipping even lower, which would easily result in the death of her loved ones. Wealthy and powerful characters like President Snow are represented as fearing Katniss and her potential to become more persuasive and powerful. Elysium similarly displays such friction. |
The American DreamThe American Dream is a prevalent concept in our culture and has been for a long time. This concept revolves around the idea that anyone can better themselves and produce a rags to riches story. People have immigrated to the US to acquire such progress and provide better lives for their families. The American Dream is claimed to be dead, mostly because of social hierarchies that control one's ability to progress, but its ideals are still very prevalent in visual media today.
Click here to read an intriguing article on the issues Kenneth Burke would have with the American Dream. |
Keeping Up with the Joneses
Kenneth Burke mentioned the "effort to 'keep up with the Joneses'" in some of his work, which relates to people's fear of being surpassed or falling to a lower rung on a social ladder (Foss, Foss and Trapp 204). Much of our culture is obsessed with the wealthy and famous and strive to mirror them. Some people watch shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians in order to stay up-to-date on the lives of those who are rich and popular while also enjoying the drama that happens on screen. Advertisements, movies, and other visual media represents such personas that individuals tend to idolize, which shapes their perceptions of reality and makes people strive towards the apparent success of others. |