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Love is a feeling, emotion, and concept that works indiscriminately. It’s something we have a finite amount of control over, and as the cliché goes “it works in mysterious ways.” While social class remains very much intact around the world, the once strict adherence to dating and marrying within one’s allocated class bracket is a rather outdated, obsolete expectation that is held by few.
That being said, the recent, shocking revelations exposed in Prince Harry’s autobiography, as well as his and Meghan Markle’s network exclusives concerning the difficulties the Royal family have had accepting Meghan’s race and background, serves as a reminder of the hurdles that faced millions of relationships before it became socially acceptable to marry “beneath” or “above” one’s social class. There have been many films that have made thematic explorations into this very issue, here are some of the best…
6 Bright Star
Prior to her Academy Award Best Director win for Power of the Dog, director Jane Campion made her name with films like 1993’s The Piano, The Portrait of a Lady, and 2009’s Bright Star which tells the story of the romantic poet, John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his slow-burning love story with Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), whom he adores, but can’t marry due to his limited wealth.
5 Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Based on the novel by British author D.H. Lawrence, director Laure de Clermont Tonnerre’s screen adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover dropped on Netflix last year. Starring Jack O’Connell as Oliver Mellors and Emma Corrin as Lady Chatterley, the film concerns the affairs of the hearts of a war veteran, and lowly gamekeeper, Oliver, and the Lady of the Chatterley estate, Constance. After Constance’s husband, Clifford returns home from the war paralyzed, their love fizzles out, and distance grows between the pair. After catching each other’s longing gaze, the pair embark on an extramarital affair, despite the disparity in social class.
4 Titanic
James Cameron’s romantic epic that smashed box-office records to pieces turned 25 last year. Detailing one of the most renowned fictitious love stories to have been featured on the big screen, 1997’s Titanic follows the story of Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). After what would prove to be the most unfortunate poker victory of his life, poor artist, Jack Dawson wins a third-class ticket for the RMS Titanic’s maiden voyage across the Atlantic.
On the same trip, in the comfortable, and luxurious confines of her first-class suite is aristocrat, Rose DeWitt Bukater and her socially imperious family. Following a chance meeting, the pair strike up a romantic rapport much to Rose’s family’s dismay considering Jack is several social classes inferior to them. Titanic is the ultimate 20th-century Shakespearean tragedy, even if it is full of rather cheesy platitudes, and it is a love story we just can’t help getting behind.
3 Pride and Prejudice
The British class system was (and to some extent, still is) arguably the most rigid, unflexible, and implacable social structure in the world. While nowadays, there is a greater sense of liberality over who one romantically concerns themselves, there is a disconcerting theme among the upper class who still appear to have an apparent disdain for those considered working-class.
The screen adaptation of the Jane Austen classic, Pride and Prejudice exemplifies the prevalence of such prejudice in the early 19th century, telling the story of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Matthew McFadyen), a nobleman and socialite, whose background requires him to marry a woman of wealth, affluence and considerable standing. However, despite his reluctance and mental objection, he can’t help falling in love with Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley), a woman who is several social ranks his junior. With the matters of pride and prejudice at hand, the couple must overlook their differences in status for their relationship to flourish.
2 It Happened One Night
The highly esteemed It’s a Wonderful Life director, Frank Capra, was pulling the directorial strings for 1934’s It Happened One Night. The screwball-comedy pictures a domineering, and controlling father whose restrictive tendencies mean that his daughter, Ellie (Claudette Colbert) lives a sheltered, and oppressed existence, however, against her father’s wishes she elopes with Westley, a pilot, who Andrews believes is only with her for the family’s money.
When Ellie has a chance encounter with a rough-around-the-edges reporter, Peter Warne (Clark Gable), the pair fall in love, but things don’t quite go to plan in this classic screwball comedy.
1 The Heiress
Adapted from screenwriter Ruth and Augustus Goetz’s stage play of the same name, 1949’s The Heiress is a tale of forbidden love and a lesson in wealth proving to be a regular obstacle during the stages of courtship. Olivia de Havilland delivered a faultless performance that would subsequently win her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She portrays Catherine, a young woman who is repeatedly chastised by her rich father for being useless, she falls for Morris (Montgomery Clift), a man whose neither wealthy, nor of equal social status, and thus, problems arise with her cynical father when he asks for her hand in marriage…
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