"Romanticizing Poverty" Provides Legitimacy to Social Inequality

“Romanticizing Poverty” Provides Legitimacy to Social Inequality

By Global Research News
Global Research, October 21, 2013
socialworkdegreecenter.com

Url of this article:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/romanticizing-poverty-provides-legitimacy-to-social-inequality/5354948

by Claire Quiney

How pop culture and Hollywood portray a working poor life as uncomplicated, void of stress, pure, and moral.

Working poor is not a lifestyle choice:

…

Source: Socialworkdegreecenter.com

Romanticizing Poverty

How pop culture portrays a working poor life as uncomplicated, void of stress, pure, and moral.

Working poor is not a lifestyle choice:

Job promotions and performance reviews[1]

Simple routine and morality

We’re oversimplifying.

Movie Portrayals of Poverty:

1.)Deeply moralistic and contented:
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Slumdog Millionaire,The Son,Good Will Hunting[1]

2.)In need of assistance from a wealthy–often white–character from higher socioeconomic status:
The Help,The Soloist,The Dark Knight Rises

In pop-culture and fashion:

Bohemian: pushes aside capitalist framework and stability for what they are passionate about.[1]
Bourgeois-Bohemian: mimic the daily “simplicity of working poor, without giving up financial stability.

Dick Haynes, President and Founder, Urban Outfitters:[1]
Urban Outfitters is for the “upscale homeless.”
Nothing says homeless like the $144 “Bitching & Junkfood Algardi Velvet Swing Dress”[2]

The “live below the line” campaign challenged participants to live below Canada’s poverty line ($1.75 a day)[1]
FOR 5 DAYS…
With the knowledge they can return to overblown savings accounts.

We think of working poor as a destination. It’s exotic. But that stage wears off.

1.)Poverty shrinks your brain from chronic stress:
Long term stress shrinks the prefrontal cortex[8], insular cortex, and subgenual anterior cingulate[9] regions.[7]

All of which affect reasoning, decision making, emotions, and self-control.

So… you’re deeper in the hole.

2.)It has the highest correlations to substance abuse, broken homes, violence, and health problems

For every 1 child abused in a house making >$30,000:[5]
22 are abused in houses making <$15,000

Those with only a high school education 12% likelier to commit violent crimes.[6]

For every one child who is stunted, or in the hospital, twice as many impoverished children suffer from the same conditions.[10]

3.) Those living in poverty die earlier.

4.) And for many it never ends (it’s cyclical):
71% of children whose parents were born in the lower half of income distribution are upwardly mobile, but by much.[4]

Only 38% of people born into the lower half of income distribution make it to the upper half.[4]

Romanticizing poverty makes people think it doesn’t need to change. Don’t romanticize poverty.

Citations:

Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.