Well, Donald's father Fred Trump while very wealthy made his fortune basically from low to modest income housing rental and development. I remember reading in Donald's book, " The Art of The Deal " how his father went for the cheapest bricks he could buy when he was developing a property. They weren't inferior bricks, just say yellow instead of red bricks. If Fred could get them at one penny less per brick because they were yellow instead of red, that's what he went for. The same with plumbing, sockets, nails, carpet, etc.
You kind of had to be tough, loud, and vulgar at times to survive in Fred's hard scrabble world. There was a very big divide between Fred and Donald when it came to Donald's desire to build luxury buildings. Fred wanted the least expensive materials and Donald wanted the most expensive. Luxury buildings were not Fred's area of expertise, I agree with Donald that if you are going to build a luxury building, it damn well better be luxurious.
From what I have read, a wealthy family is not considered to be true blue-bloods until they reach the third generation. Your grandfather had to be wealthy and socially prominent, not your daddy for you to qualify.
The real problem with being a blue-blood, is that the family tree tends to grow exponentially with each succeeding generation. The youngest Kennedy's aren't really all that wealthy anymore from my understanding given this factor.
I suppose that's another good reason to live fairly modestly for a wealthy person, in a dignified but non-flashy way, it helps preserve the cash.
I read this really great article about working-class people who had attended places like Harvard and Yale. There was this one Ivy League graduate who had gotten a job at the State Department. He said that given his working-class background, the first thing he thought about when meeting a guy for the first time was could he take him in a fight.
He did say that having a degree from say Harvard was very helpful in getting a job at the State Department, but given a lack of family connections a person could expect to make it to the middle-ranks but basically no higher.
The reason for that was mostly the subtle things when it came to social interactions, it's very hard to downright impossible to hide over the long haul one's working-class thinking and mannerisms. It also helps if you have a recognizable name like Bush, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, etc.
I am rather dubious that someone like Valentine could refrain from using street-language for a lengthy period of time, his ghetto background would be bound to come out sooner or later.
If one ever gets or earns or inherits a huge sum of money, it's a really solid idea to manage it well by living conservatively like a real blue-blood, instead of say going and blowing it all.
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HarveyManfredSinJohn
9 years ago
You may be right about Donald Trump not being a true blue-blood if his father was a self-made man, but surely we could say that his children are blue-bloods going by the, sound, logic you have used.
And look at the behaviour of George W. Bush and his daughters. There name may be 'Bush' but they have, on many occasions, presented themselves with almost as little class, in the figurative sense, as Trump. And it's partly examples like them and Paris Hilton and Paige Laurie and Kate Upton, who is descended from the family that founded the Whirpool Corporation about three or four generations ago, that demonstrates, at least to me, that blue-bloods or people from a long line of wealth, aren't quite as demure and reserved as you seem to be suggesting.
Maybe it's a generational thing as today's young heirs and heiresses try to compete with self-made celebrities for cultural relevance, which means more ostentatious and showy behaviour than perhaps would have been exemplified by their grandparents.
With respect to Valentine, I think it would be too much to expect a guy who'd come straight from the streets to be able to affect the mannerisms and attitudes of someone who had been born-to-the-manor, in such a short time-frame, but given a few years in the same environment and position, it's not beyond the means of possibility for him to finally get rid of his ghetto habits and instincts, assuming that was what he wanted. But the film is basically a 'Prince and the Pauper' fantasy so perhaps we can forgive the filmmakers for such contrivances.
Finally, speaking as a working-class guy the first thing I think of when I meet another man for the first time is emphatically not 'can I take him in a fight'. I'm actually amazed that someone with those anti-intellectual, base instincts could get into Harvard in the first place. Maybe he was let in as a social experiment or as a source of amusement for the faculty, because where I come from working class people do not act like the two-dimensional thugs the elite would like to believe we are.
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eddysl12
9 years ago
I wouldn't say that blue-bloods necessarily have class, rather it's an ideal that is put out there for public comsumption. As you mentioned, a lot of blue-blood behavior is downright rotten and even crimminal.
Paris Hilton exmplifies the " I am so wealthy I can act like trash " mindset that some of the wealthy kids can display and live out.
Valentine could probably shed most of his ghetto / street self, but there would always be a residue that I think would be detectable. Not that it really matters when dealing with normal, regular people.
One subject I thought about starting a thread on was do you have to be wealthy to have self-respect and dignity or at least the pretense of, or is that something that tends to be reserved for the well-to-do as seemingly promoted to a certain extent by this movie?
My answer to that is no, a person can act classy or trashy regardless of wealth.
My dad came from a working-class background, under the GI Bill he was able to go to college, Clemson University which at that time was called Clemson Agricultural College. I remember my dad talking about a professor who told him college wasn't really meant for the likes of him, he might as well forget it because he just wasn't going to make it through.
My dad sent him a copy of his bachelor's and then his master's degree when he received them. He said every time he thought that college was just too hard he would remember what that professor told him and just try harder.
The Harvard guy I mentioned was in an article about the difficulties in transitioning from one class to another, from working-class to middle-class or higher.
My dad's family did have issues with him going to college, an agricultural college was just the same to them as if he had gone to Harvard. It's odd because as brick masons they tended to make a much higher salary than he ever did as a school teacher.
When they came down to brick up that old house in the country that I mentioned, one of them put his arm around my dad and told him he was lucky to have them for brothers, because even with all his fancy degrees there would be no way he could otherwise afford them.
I can't resent anyone for doing the best they know how, if one of his brother's had gotten a great job in a factory making way more money than any of his brothers, should he have turned it down? Of course not.
Unfortunately there are people who basically get disowned by their own families for going to college, or becoming a plumber instead of a doctor, etc. I remember reading a fight a guy had with his blue-blood family because he wanted to become a lawyer. They told him that lawyers worked for them, people of their kind did not go and become lawyers.
As a young person, generally the sooner you can get away from Mommy and Daddy, the happier you are going to eventually be.
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boxerrebellion
9 years ago
You might be surprised. I know people who can sound and act 'ghetto' or 'cracker' and turn around and be totally middle of the middle class, or totally posh. I've actually met a lot of African Americans who downplay their middle class background if they are with African Americans who would consider it 'putting on airs'.
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eddysl12
9 years ago
There is also the reverse of that. I remember seeing this Jack-and-Jill type black girl talking about this black guy she had been dating, he seemed really nice with a good future ahead of him, and she seemed to be falling in love with him.
One day however they were having a discussion and he mispronounced a certain word. She decided right then that it was game over, his mispronunciation of that word was just too much for her and she deserved much better.
I was like what? You are going to dump a guy just because he said a word the wrong way? I think he was probably better off without her.
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