Trading Places Sociology

The concept of class can be defined as the order of people divided into sets based on perceived social and economic status. Trading Places takes on the role of displaying a comedic view towards the differences of class in the 1980s. Through the juxtaposition of contrasting classes between the characters Winthorpe and Valentine, the movie Trading Places reveals the major differences of class and shows the underlying effects these differences have on people in American society. Trading Places exemplifies class conflict in American society through the reversal of roles between two individuals of different classes. Billy Ray Valentine and Louis Winthorpe display the reversal by having Valentine become rich and Winthorpe become homeless and poor.
Take the Duke brothers for example, they are: racist, arrogant, and greedy. The myth that moral character has something to do with economic success is fragmented due to the fact that the wealthy Duke brothers are the complete opposite of morally just. Another good argument to incorporate from the article is when it mentions how people living with inheritance have a general head start on what they want to do in the world. Take into account Winthorpe and Valentine, two opposite class citizens. Winthorpe was born into inheritance and managed to attend Harvard University while executing an average, or even below average, performance of his job at the brokerage firm. On the other hand, Valentine was poor and homeless, however both the Duke brothers knew he could perform the job very well based off the information Valentine knew about people and the way stocks worked. Tying it back into head starts, Winthorpe has had a head start his whole life, yet he still manages to fail at being a good employee, while Valentine has to battle and show that he could take on the job of being the managing director. Even in the article, the writers mention that “education is thus often seen as the primary means of upward social mobility” (McNamee and Miller 281).
In the article Destructive Power of Money by Karl Marx, Marx discusses the complex relationship between money and people who possess it. One assertion Marx makes relates to the two Duke brothers in Trading Places, about how wealthy people can “...have, through the power of money, anything…” (Marx 289). The Duke brothers are millionaires and have control of anything they desire, so they deem it necessary to wager one million dollars on a bet regarding the central plot of the story: Valentine, a homeless man, switching roles with Winthorpe, a wealthy stock broker. The amount of money and the willingness to take forth in a million dollar bet sparks conflict over the wealthy class and how they are portrayed in an arrogant way. That amount of money could help people in need, rather than being tossed around off bets. Incidentally, the differentiation of class is vividly illustrated by the Duke brothers’ greedy scheme, leading into further characterizations of how class types are portrayed in film. Also, the main idea that the rich fear being poor is explicitly stated in the movie where Louis Winthorpe says: “I had the most absurd nightmare. I was poor and no one liked me. I lost my job, I lost my house, Penelope hated me and it was all because of this terrible, awful Negro.” The poor want