This is an excerpt from an interesting take on this movie. I never considered the underlying theme of class struggle. I was just yucking it up with the rest of the world. http://d2rights.blogspot.com/2013/10/talking-point-dean-wormer-is-secretly.html
Typical leftist drivel. Grow up and lighten up Francis.
shareLiterally you're looking too deep, it's a film, a comedy film at that ...
Why you leftists always have to bring 'class struggle' and make everything political is beyond my imagining, usually it's Conservatives who are told to lighten up and take a joke but this time, its you....
Live for Nothing or Die for Something.
I've got to take issue somewhat with what you said. I attended Cornell University during the 1980's and I did not come from a rich family. There is a class system that is in place in such schools and I recall that I had to "know my place" at times with certain professors and students. The sorority of a girlfriend that I had did a background check on my family to see if I was suitable for my girlfriend which in the end I was not (in their eyes). And at the same time some people were more than accepting as I had a chance to join a fraternity but decided against it as it would have been way too expensive for my budget in terms of room and board. As it was I was living in an university subsidized co-op.
shareOh, you didn't have to go to a private school to see class divisions like that. They were all over the place at Illinois, at least when I went there. I used to referee for the intramural leagues and almost invariably you could tell the rich kids from the poor ones...or at least the snobs from the regulars...by how they interacted with you. You get all levels of income at a place like that. Which is sad, because you figure a student body as smart as you'd have to be to get into Illinois would mean you'd be past acting condescending towards others. But I was wrong.
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"Have we won?"
"No, but it got me apple tart brought in."---Waking Ned Devine
I want to clarify one thing with you. Cornell is not 100 percent a private school. Cornell started out in 1867 as a land grant college by the state of NY to provide instruction in agriculture but that mission changed almost immediately. Fast forward to the 1980's Cornell had several schools of which a few were the statutory or state schools that had reduced tuitions fees. I attended the CALS or agriculture state college which had many curriculums besides agriculture. The remaining are the endowed or private schools that fetch the big tuition money. The nice thing about the state schools at the time was you could take a certain number of credit hours in the endowed colleges and still pay the state or public tuition rate.
shareThat's right, Biff. There is a difference between an upper middle-class kid from somewhere like the Midwest attending an Ivy League school alongside the East coast prep-school types whose families own yachts, private planes, and live in $10-20 million mansions. The upper-middle class Ivy League kid may be privileged compared to your average Joe, but there is a world of difference between him and some of the snobs he shares classes with.
shareAs others have stated, Animal House is not an ECONOMIC class struggle movie, but a social class struggle. The struggle is narrowly confined to the fraternity system. Delta accepted the guys the other frats, such as the Omegas rejected.
If you went to prep school or an elite college, you might remember how cruel the social hierarchy can be. Kids who from ethnic minorities or cultures other than the dominant one get kicked to the curb. Kids from rich WASP families who are merely dorks or misfits get kicked to the curb. The film shows how this works when Pinto and Flounder are at the Omega rush party. They get politely steered back into the reject pool with the weirdos and the people of color.
So, anybody who's ever been rejected by the social elites (I know I have!) feels a kinship with the Delta brothers. They're underdogs, yes, but only in the context of the movie, and the movie does not delve into the home lives of the brothers, except for Flounder's brother (and his car).
Dean Wormer is a Nixonian prick who enrolls the elites, such as Greggie and Dougie, to do his bidding.
The film culminates in a cartoonish farce. If you ask, "what would REALLY happen if...?" you lose sight of the satire.
As for "Senator and Mr. John Blutarsky," that's supposed to be a joke...but these days, God only knows!