On Class

An article in Babble takes (yet another) pot shot at Gossip Girls and the alleged rich invasion of the YA aisle. (She even disagrees with Fancy Nancy, which is sort of a repudiation of all of that, if I understand correctly.) However, what does she compare GG to? Uh, Ramona Quimby, who is young MG. And Ramona, like Nancy, longs for fanciness beyond her family’s means. What’s the difference?

To me, there is a similar other-ness to the Gossip Girls as there was to Caroline or Anastasia. I didn’t live in Manhattan, where I could just jaunt over to the Museum of Natural History on a Daily basis.* The whole idea was as foreign to my beach-raised southern self as rich teens jetting around the Upper East Side. (Also, when I finally found out what parsnips were, in my twenties, I was appalled that Caroline’s mother thought that made a complete dinner.) Neither was I raised by a bohemian artist and a poet in a castle-like Victorian in Cambridge. The literati of Boston? Not so familiar either. All of it was what I was not familiar with — which, hey guess what? Was why I read them in the first place. To read something else. I’m not Julie of the Wolves, either.

Personally, I prefer Anastasia and Caroline and Sheila the Great and Julie to Blair or Serena, and if you are also looking for that, there are plenty of non-gossip girls on today’s shelves as well. Jennifer Echolls’s band geek Virginia, Simone Elkeles’ half-Israeli Amy Nelson, any of the characters of Sarah Dessen, Megan Mccafferty, Elizabeth Scott (leaving aside her recent “issue” book, which features a girl who has been imprisoned and tortured by a child molester for five years), Carolyn Mackler, Maureen Johnson, Laurie Halse Anderson (whose post pointed me to this article in the first place, and Ann Brasheares. I specifically left fantasy or paranormal novels off this list, but the present-day works of Scott Westerfeld all feature middle class “peeps” (no pun intended), and in Holly Black’s urban fantasy, they are occasionally clinging to the bottom rung of the social ladder.

It’s mildly ironic to write an article like this in the time when there is such a celebration of the queen of the Middle Class YA novel: Judy Blume. This Entertainment Weekly article by screenwriter Diablo Cody (who, one may recall, won an Oscar for her film about a middle class teenage girl) talks about the big group hug for Blume, and even mentions the collection I participated in last year, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume.

I suppose there’s an argument to be made that i have no right to make this point, as I–writing as I do about students at an elite Ivy League school–am part of the problem (though the books are not YA, they enjoy a large teen audience). And yet, class is very much an issue in the world of my books, perhaps even more so because of its “elite” setting. It is not perhaps, as strongly felt as it might be on Veronica Mars, but there is a distinct contrast drawn between those students to whom Eli is a right and tradition, and those to whom it is a wide-eyed first time privilege. Amy has a decidedly middle class background, and recognizes those who move in circles above her social class. Her initial dislike of Clarissa is very much a product of class perception. Clarissa would be friends with Blair Waldorf and co. In high school, she was a gossip girl. Legacy George, starlet Odile, shipping-heir Nikolos, politician’s son Malcolm — all come from a position of wealth and entitlement. But there are also characters who have struggled to get there. Jenny has money, but she made it herself. Lydia’s enrollment was a strain on family finances when her father was laid off. Demetria, Josh, Ben, Brandon—all come from middle to upper middle class backgrounds. Perhaps nowhere is the class struggle felt as strongly as in the character of Poe, whose decision to attend Eli put such a financial strain on himself and his family that he hasn’t had a new pair of pants since he left the prep school he attended on scholarship.

The world of my books reflects my reality at college. I had some super rich friends, who thought nothing of wiping up spills with designer cashmere sweaters. I had others whose parents were eating dog food in order that they could attend Yale. The world is no more comprised of happy suburbanites than it is of jet setting super rich. And it’s not a new thing to be fascinated with the lifestyles of the rich and famous. I grew up watching 90210. What’s on the air now? 90210.

Things haven’t changed as much as you think.

________________

* Let’s also talk about the fact that there are far fewer middle class residents of Manhattan proper now than there were in the 70s. Would Caroline’s candied-parsnip-serving single mother be able to afford the upper West Side walk-up they lived in these days? Maybe with rent control…