Ruling Class - in The Media

In The Media

There are several examples of ruling class systems in movies, novels, and television shows. The 2005 American independent film The American Ruling Class written by former Harper's Magazine editor Lewis Lapham and directed by John Kirby is a semi-documentary that examines how the American economy is structured and for whom. Although it is a US film, the same principles also apply to many other countries as well.

In the novel Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, everyone is genetically made and classified into class. The Alpha class is the ruling class because they have the highest positions possible and control most of the world in the novel. This situation can also be found in the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four where Big Brother and the government literally control what the nation hears, sees, and learns.

Examples in movies include Gattaca where the genetically-born were superior and the ruling class and V for Vendetta, which had a severe totalitarian government in Britain. The comedic film The Ruling Class was a satire of British aristocracy, depiciting nobility as self-serving and cruel, juxtaposed against an insane relative who believes that he is Jesus Christ, whom they identify as a "bloody Bolshevik".