...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Working-Class Hero
- 397 statements
- 73 feature instances
- 125 referencing feature instances
| Working-Class Hero | type |
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| Working-Class Hero | comment |
When a working-class character or group of characters is shown to be highly intelligent and capable because they learned everything by doing it on the job rather than in school, this is an impressive achievement. Figuring everything out themselves gives them initative, common sense and folk wisdom that makes them able to solve problems creatively and intuitively. Highly-educated characters may marvel at this character's ability to figure out problems that go beyond the textbook procedures. This character, at times, tends to be disdainful and negative to higher social class characters who learn things through formal education and/or display conscious/unconscious elitist class assumptions. In communist nations, a Working Class Hero reads books, learns about ideas, and generally isn't anti-intellectual. This character type is more common in socialist and communist literature, which usually averts Working-Class People Are Morons. Likewise, this character type, for a variety of reasons, tends to be male. Poor women when represented are usually wives, sisters, or mothers of the male hero, and their issues are usually seen in gendered dimensions rather than class ones — such as being a Struggling Single Mother, a Single Mom Stripper or in some cases working as prostitutes, in spite of the fact, that at least since The '80s, women represent a disproportionate number of the world's low-income earning population and were victims of some of the worst workplace disasters. Nonetheless, female examples of this trope have become increasingly popular in some media. Historically, in the vast majority of literature and theater, the heroes and heroines tend to be from a high socioeconomic status group, either because of wealth, education, or aristocratic birth. Lower middle-class and working-class characters are either supporting characters or they are confined to comedies. For a long time, critics and artists regarded aristocratic issues such as fall of a ruling family seriously because it aristocrats were essential to the state as it existed then. Also, realistically speaking, they had better career opportunities to be captains, commanders, governors, and heroes, so artists should not be faulted for reflecting the confined and restricted worldview as it existed then. In authoritarian countries, artists didn't have much of a choice, due to censorship. In the wake of the revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries, when working classes started uplifting themselves, working-class heroes and artistic modes to represent them gained increasing currency. This trope is common in the military stories, usually portrayed as the hero has risen Up Through the Ranks. While a majority of officers tend to come from the upper classes, militaries are by their nature meritocracies, and some talented working-class youth may attain a surprisingly high position.note In 2010, 82.8% of US army officers had a college degree, which shows that there are some officers without a degree. Source: https://facethefactsusa.org/facts/tanks-and-humvees-caps-and-gowns Related to Farm Boy. See also Book Dumb, Almighty Janitor. Magical versions may be a Blue-Collar Warlock. For a more negative example, see Social Climber, who is usually regarded as a working-class villain, in that the working-class hero does not deny their roots or forgets about their family and where they come from. Can overlap with Science Hero or Nerd Action Hero (or even both) depending on the job. Contrast Crimefighting with Cash for wealthy superheroes who rely on their income to fight crime, and the Lower-Class Lout for hard-drinking, lazy and/or even villainous working-class types (though the two can overlap if the working-class hero is also a a particularly dark Anti-Hero like a Sociopathic Hero). |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_1929cbce | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_1929cbce | comment |
The Super Mario Bros. Movie: The Mario Bros. blew their entire life savings starting their own plumbing business and their commercial and van is of low quality. Said investment managed to lead to a series of events where they became heroes in another world and later their own. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_1ad9726b | comment |
Hunter: The Vigil: The Union are made of blue collar workers who hunt monsters, contrasting the scholarly bent of Null Mysteriis or The Loyalists of Thule. | |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_2216a158 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_2216a158 | comment |
A lot of the recent Discovery/History Channel reality/documentary shows have focused on this, including Ice Road Truckers, Ax Men, American Loggers, Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs. The shows often emphasize the danger of these jobs to the workers, painting their struggles as epic battles for their lives, or for the betterment of ours. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_261c8d3f | comment |
The Simpsons: Homer Simpson may be working-class and a lot of episode plots revolve around his struggle to make ends meet, but many other episodes showcase that he's an Invincible Incompetent Idiot Houdini who walks away from his work on a constant basis and has done some really, really crazy things in his lifetime (been an astronaut, won a Grammy...) and he has never lost his financial status when other men have lost it all. Two episodes ("Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Beyond Blunderdome") revolve around the guest character believing that Homer's incredibly simple tastes represent the common American man and grant him power to mould their projects, only to find out the hard way that that Homer's tastes, while simple, are just too damned weird for anybody else to enjoy. | |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_2d92442d | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_2d92442d | comment |
Leads in Pump Six and Other Stories are often with working-class background and sensibilities: Travis Alvarez from Pump Six is the most intelligent and competent person in the entire city of New York... by the virtue of being a pipe repairman doing his duty and keeping the city sewage system running, while everyone around him is a complete imbecile. Lalo in The Tamarisk Hunter is a Determined Homesteader, hunting down the eponymous tamarisks and gaining his water bounty. He's smart enough to not only earn his share, but also to make sure tamarisks won't go completely extinct, fully knowing exterminating them all would make him jobless and, more importantly, without access to water. Lalji from The Calorie Man is an aging smuggler, coming from a poor farm in India. He uses every opportunity to make some profit on a side, using his knowledge of the world before oil run dry and most of the crops were wiped out by seed-making MegaCorps. On top of that, he maintains a profile of a good, loyal citizen, by playing bureaucrats and security guards like fiddles. |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_31e1eca3 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_31e1eca3 | comment |
In Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, a Worker on Iron Island refers to himself as a working-class hero when he challenges the player and after being defeated. | |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_330b008c | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_330b008c | comment |
The Confirmation: Walt, the protagonist, is an out-of-work contractor. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_33dd1d8f | comment |
Barney Calhoun in Half-Life and Half-Life: Blue Shift is a humble security guard without the fancy education of Gordon Freeman or the advanced military training of Adrian Shepherd. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_33f14086 | comment |
The version seen in The Amazing Spider-Man Series is probably the most downplayed example; this version of aunt May has to work two jobs after Uncle Ben's death, and Peter himself earns some cash on the side with the Daily Bugle to cover costs, but on the large and by this aspect of his character is Out of Focus in favour of worldbuilding and the Myth Arc. | |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_352bb510 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_352bb510 | comment |
In Jupiter-Men, Arrio works part-time jobs as a Burger Fool to help his little sister and widowed dad make ends meet. He mentions using his magic powers to light his room at night so he doesn't have to switch on the lights and drive up the electric bill. The author also says that Arrio tries to cut Jessie's hair for her instead of going to a hair salon. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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A running theme throughout the Alien series, especially the first two films, is that the protagonists are working-class people who are routinely abused and manipulated by their bosses at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, which sees them as expendable. In the first film, the human characters are Space Truckers who brought a xenomorph onto their ship because Weyland-Yutani wanted a sample for their own purposes, and didn't care about it killing their workers one by one. In Aliens, meanwhile, the protagonists are Ellen Ripley, the Sole Survivor of the first film, and The Squad of implicitly blue-collar Space Marines around her, while the main human villain Carter Burke is a sleazy corporate suit sent by Weyland-Yutani to once more retrieve a xenomorph sample. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_36795c0f | comment |
William Foster in Falling Down is an educated man who made his bones as an aerospace engineer working for a paycheck rather than a scientist or an academic. However, when he snaps after being laid off, he is the Angry White Man personified, raging at a society that left him and others like him behind and treading a very dark path that leaves nothing but destruction. For every cogent point he raises about the world he, the other characters, and the viewer live in, he then proceeds to cast a very dark shadow over it through his increasingly horrifying actions and his pettier and more questionable concerns. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Ryo of Shenmue very briefly does a stint as a forklift driver at the harbour. Eventually, he sticks up for his workmates against the bullying antics of the local biker gang, winning a fight against them and driving them away for good, but costing his job in the process. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick is The Captain of a whaling boat who began as a simple fisherman who steadily rose through the ranks, from crewman to his current position. He's regarded as a rare example of a working-class Tragic Hero. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Yu-Gi-Oh!: Katsuya Jonouchi/Joey Wheeler is a delinquent from a broken home, and specifically has permission from the school to work multiple odd jobs to pay the bills. He also happens to be one of the most competent and lucky duelists in the series, defeating cheaters through fair play and coming within a gnat's whisker of besting Dark Marik. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Most of the detectives in Homicide: Life on the Street come from working-class backgrounds. The only exceptions are Pembleton and Bayliss, who implicitly come from middle-class or upper middle-class backgrounds; in Bayliss's case, it generally doesn't lead to much conflict, but Pembleton's snobby behavior leads to a lot of friction with his peers. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Discworld: Sam Vimes is just a beat cop in the town watch who moves up through the ranks to become Captain and has a Duke-ship thrust upon him against his will. The ruler sends him as a diplomat/ambassador where he uses street smarts to beat the bad guys. Harry King has built an empire on collecting and recycling garbage, after starting out as an urchin. However, he does recognise that fancy book learnin' can be useful at times. He is also impressed that William de Worde knows what a tosheroon is due to his love for the written word. |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_524e2e3b | comment |
Donald Duck didn't study (in Paperinik New Adventures he even jokes he completed grade school only for seniority), and only ever learned things through hard experience. He has an immense set of accomplishments and skills, and that's before bringing in the fact he's a superhero and a secret agent. He's also intent to avert this for his nephews, as he's painfully aware he could have done much better had he gone through college... And he's making sure he'll be able to pay for their college. | |
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Anequs of To Shape a Dragon's Breath is quick to inform anyone that thinks too highly of her position as a female nackie dragoneer that she's the daughter of a whaler who grew up working a farm on a island, never intends a high society life, and wants to take her education back to her people rather than integrate into upper Anglish society. | |
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Chris and Troy from Freedom Fighters (2003) start out as plumbers. They are also an allusion to Mario and Luigi, as both are siblings, one is fat and the other is thin) | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Tetris (2023): Alexey Pajitnov is an odd case. Despite his game becoming a national sensation, he and his family are still stuck in poverty thanks to being screwed over by his country's communist government. | |
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Black Lightning (2009): Compared to his jerk friend Maxim and an evil businessman Kuptsov, who both have everything, Dima is a relative nobody who lives in a small flat with his family. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Wolverine: In most stories where Wolverine isn't an active super hero or living as a wild animal, Logan prefers a low-key, blue-collar lifestyle, usually as some kind of manual laborer and hanging out at the local bar. Origin revealed him to have worked in a stone quarry for most of his adolescence. | |
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Solaris United from Warframe is a labour union of Corpus workers who juggle working with terraforming technology and fighting for their fellow workers against AnyoCorp's, their employer's, horribly exploitative policies, such as having to spend more than they earn on incredibly dehumanizing cybernetics (They even have heads replaced with them!) just to keep up with Nef Anyo's demands, having to work off their relatives' debts, or getting deeper in debt just trying to pay it off in the first place. Luckily they have the Tenno on their side, elite transhuman warriors who themselves are children of the working-/middle-class people chosen to cross the interstellar space aboard the Zariman. | |
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Lee Brice's "Drinking Class," which makes the claim that working class people are tougher and more resilient, and therefore deserve a good drink. | |
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Akira from Spirit Hunter: NG lived in poverty before his aunt took him in, and he frequently shows his greatest assets to be his practical mind and his almost superhuman physicality, trained by underground fighting. | |
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Lastly, the version seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe applies the Decon-Recon Switch to this trope. The movies have a significantly more realistic take on how Peter and Aunt May's living conditions in the modern, expensive New York, as the two live in a small apartment. While Peter is enrolled in an exclusive school for gifted children, the movies also deliberately contrast Peter, who got there on merit, with a Privileged Rival who got there because of his family's wealth. He is also introduced as a literal dumpster diver in order to supply his intellectual work and gear as Spider-Man, wearing a "costume" that is visibly a refashioned onesie. On the other hand, from his introduction onward the Avengers and Shield hook him up with gear, thereby preventing his life as Spider-Man from seriously affecting his civilian life financially. The events of Spider-Man: No Way Home body-slam him right back into this role fully — after becoming an Un-person to the whole world, Peter's resources are whatever he can get from odd jobs and a Spidey suit he sewed together. | |
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Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Scrooge McDuck may own a family castle, but by the time he was born his family was on extremely hard times and was well behind with the taxes on their land. After leaving house at thirteen he slowly and painstakingly built his own fortune through hard labor, also taking care of giving a chance to succeed to those who try the same. Donald Duck didn't study (in Paperinik New Adventures he even jokes he completed grade school only for seniority), and only ever learned things through hard experience. He has an immense set of accomplishments and skills, and that's before bringing in the fact he's a superhero and a secret agent. He's also intent to avert this for his nephews, as he's painfully aware he could have done much better had he gone through college... And he's making sure he'll be able to pay for their college. In the present day Brigitta McBridge is fairly wealthy, enough she could become Scrooge's greatest rival if she actually tried, but her Origin Story reveals she started out as a business owner in Dawson and only became rich at a later point. According to one of her origin stories, Magica is a villainous version: her uncle and aunt threw her out as a teen over her fascination with magic, leaving her just enough money to last until she'd come back and renounce magic, but she instead taught herself enough magic to potentially fix the spell to create the Midas Touch charm and become well off while she collected the coins she needed. Her parents and uncles were the same, at least until her parents blew themselves up in the attempt to create the Midas Touch charm (leading to her uncles to swear off magic and take her in) |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_6ac55ec7 | comment |
Dungeons & Dragons: In 2nd Edition, there is a kit (sub-class) called Peasant Hero, which lets you play as a heroic Farm Boy. Also, there is a myriad of lower-class backgrounds in 4th edition. The 5th Edition background Folk Hero also lets someone play as a hero from a small village or the poor part of a large city who's more in touch with the common folk than most other backgrounds. |
|
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1.0 | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_6ac55ec7 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_6e17a0d1 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_6e17a0d1 | comment |
John McClane of Die Hard fame is the ultimate everyman who learned everything he knows from on-the-job honest policing in the NYPD. Then becomes a generic Super Cop in Live Free or Die Hard. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_6e17a0d1 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_73d7930f | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_73d7930f | comment |
Martok from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a Klingon who comes from a low-ranking house in the Ketha lowlands and was initially denied an officer's commission by the aristocratic Dahar Master Kor. He would eventually earn a battlefield commission due to sheer badassery and rise up to become a general...and then Chancellor of the Klingon Empire. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_73d7930f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_73d7930f | featureConfidence |
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| Star Trek: Deep Space Nine | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_73d7930f | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_74f7210c | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_74f7210c | comment |
The Legend of Zelda: In the games where he is old enough to have a job, Link usually has a working-class occupation. This includes being a goat herder in Twilight Princess and a train engineer in Spirit Tracks. While there are games where he is a "knight" before the start of the main plot (such as Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild), the word seems to refer to a skilled, armored fighter rather than the more nobility-associated position of real life knights. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_74f7210c | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_75149ccd | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_75149ccd | comment |
Wedge Antilles from X-Wing Series never went to an Imperial academy, and New Republic military academies didn't form until well after he became a serious Ace Pilot. Just in general his education isn't detailed (his parents ran the spaceship equivalent of a gas station/garage), but it can be inferred that he got a lot of it on the job. He doesn't look down on people who were trained by the Empire, though, since so many of his friends and comrades are ex-Imperial. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_75149ccd | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_791fca44 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_791fca44 | comment |
Bill McDonagh from BioShock is a working-class Self-Made Man who represents what Rapture was meant to have become. His disillusionment with Ryan and Rapture itself as everything began falling apart would lead to his death. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_791fca44 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_7f34e3b4 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_7f34e3b4 | comment |
Pizza Tower stars Peppino, who is basically Wario if you replaced Wario's greed with the fear of his humble little pizza place going under. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_7f34e3b4 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8258e260 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8258e260 | comment |
Mario from Super Mario Bros. remains highly original as a video game hero. Despite being the first major video game star, and living in a fantasy world that is not realistic, he stands out as a stocky, mustached plumber in working overalls whose real powers are his ability to move with his hands and legs, as opposed to video game heroes who are elites — soldiers, warriors, super-soldiers, etc. Donkey Kong, as well as the marketing for Super Mario Maker, also depict him as a construction worker, and several early games had him and Luigi work jobs like demolition, pest control, or bottling. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_8258e260 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_84f4b62f | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_84f4b62f | comment |
Trustee from the Toolroom: Keith Stewart started as a fitter. He is fond of his sister, a former chorus girl who married an aristocratic naval officer but never envied her rise in social and financial status. He loves his job as a writer for Miniature Mechanic, but knows he could have earned more as a factory foreman or as an instructor at a technical college. | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_898bd243 | comment |
In Armageddon (1998), our heroes are oil drillers, none of whom exceptionally intelligent (with the exception of one character who specializes in geology and hides his intellect behind acting like a perv), but who get to save the day by being astronauts and drilling a giant hole in the killer meteor. It is stated, outright, that apparently it's easier to teach drillers to be astronauts than it is to teach astronauts to be drillers. Buzz Aldrin would like to have a word with you. This one is debatable because it was a matter of how much time they had available for training. Offshore oil drilling is an extremely specialized technical field, and the only real "astronaut-y" task the drillers have to learn is how to operate in a space-suit, something that wouldn't take too long, since they're supervised the whole time anyway. It's not that the astronauts are incapable of learning, it's that there isn't time to teach them. |
|
| Working-Class Hero / int_898bd243 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_898bd243 | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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The Rolling Stones' "Salt of the Earth" is sung from the perspective of affluent liberals who lionize the working class as compliant underclasses who they have never have to interact or deal with personally: | |
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| The Rolling Stones (Band) (Music) | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_89c084b2 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8df5521b | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8df5521b | comment |
Superman: Several observers and Grant Morrison observe that the original appeal of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's Superman was that of a Working-Class Hero (though as a civilian news reporter he's middle-class) who in the early issues tackled the Corrupt Corporate Executive, slum lords, strikebreakers and was a Wife-Basher Basher. Morrison specifically compared Superman to Batman as class opposites, the former grew up on a farm and needs to draw a salary while the latter is filthy rich. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8df5521b | featureApplicability |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_8df5521b | featureConfidence |
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Working-Class Hero / int_8df5521b | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8ec33a87 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8ec33a87 | comment |
Rex, the main protagonist of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, makes a living as a salvager, in a Scavenger World where people live on the backs of Titans that swim on a boundless sea of clouds, at the bottom of which lie the remnants of long-lost technology. Salvagers dive into the Cloud Sea, braving submerged monsters to retrieve these trinkets and sell them at market exchange points. Rex himself makes a point of not getting mixed up in salvaging weapon-based technology, in spite of the growing military tensions between the Ardanian Empire and the Kingdom of Uraya making this a particularly lucrative option for salvagers, out of a sense of idealism and refusal to support armed conflict, although he eventually gets reminded that armies need far more than just weapons to function. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_8ec33a87 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_8ec33a87 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_91c00be5 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_91c00be5 | comment |
Tanner Sack from The Scar, a felon sentenced to what was basically death by hard labor in the colonies, ultimately ends up being the man to turn Armada around, saving it from destruction. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_91c00be5 | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
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Corvo in Dishonored was born a son of a Serkonos tradesman and rose Up Through the Ranks to become Jessamine and later Emily's Royal Protector. His class remains an issue with some people in Dishonored 2 where Mortimer Ramsey laments taking orders from someone so lowborn. Delilah taunts Emily by reminding her that the former is also a bastard child of a commoner and royalty, just like Emily. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_95bd5a8e | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_960062b7 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_960062b7 | comment |
My Hero Academia: Ochaco Uraraka's family owns a barely-afloat construction company and she sticks out compared to the more well off students of U.A. Her initial motivation for becoming a hero is simply to earn more money to support her family. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_960062b7 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_960062b7 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_976efc02 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_976efc02 | comment |
The hosts shot up into space in Mystery Science Theater 3000 include Joel, a janitor; Mike, a temp; Jonah, basically a space trucker; and Emily, a rigger. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_976efc02 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_97b2bd33 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_97b2bd33 | comment |
Savage: In Invasion!, Bill Savage was a lorry driver before the Volgans attacked, and his working-class common sense is frequently what allows him to succeed where the top military see no chance of victory. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_97b2bd33 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_97b2bd33 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_998cbda3 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_998cbda3 | comment |
Daredevil (2015): Matt Murdock, Karen Page, and Foggy Nelson all have working-class backgrounds. Matt was born and raised in Hell's Kitchen by his father, a boxer, until he was murdered for refusing to take a dive for the mob. Then he spent his pre-teen and teenage years in St. Agnes, during which he got trained by Stick, and then got a full-ride scholarship to Columbia Law. Karen was born and raised in Fagan Corners, Vermont, where her parents ran a struggling diner on the outskirts of town. Foggy's family has run a butcher shop out of Hell's Kitchen since 1957, though Foggy opted to go be a lawyer rather than help his brother Theo run the shop. This disconnect actually comes to bite him in season 3, as Foggy's disconnect from his family in recent years allows Wilson Fisk to trick them into committing fraud as a means to blackmail Foggy, and it's over a year before Foggy even finds out that Fisk is blackmailing them. |
|
| Working-Class Hero / int_998cbda3 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_998cbda3 | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_9fc0dbb7 | comment |
The Joads from The Grapes of Wrath. Just like everyone else, they flee to California to try and escape the worst of the Great Depression. Tom Joad in particular became an icon in folk music as a hero of the Depression, for the likes of Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_9fc0dbb7 | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b30ae4db | comment |
Game of Thrones: Davos Seaworth is a competent commoner who learned his trade on the seas before he was knighted. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_b30ae4db | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b36c38cd | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
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Quint from Jaws is a veteran, competent, and savvy seaman who dismisses Hooper's knowledge of sharks outright because Hooper is a college kid. Hooper, treated with contempt, makes some mistakes in his assessment and also calls Quint out. However, Quint's pride causes him to ignore important advice from Hooper, and ultimately gets killed for it. Hooper, although not exactly effective in his own right, at least survives at the end. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_b36c38cd | |
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Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b3f145cb | comment |
Woyzeck by Georg Büchner is considered the earliest known major dramatic work featuring almost entirely working-class characters. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_b3f145cb | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b4733bfe | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b4733bfe | comment |
In Deadly Harvest, the protagonist Grant Franklin is portrayed as a simple working class man struggling against Corrupt Corporate Executives, organized crime syndicates, and other threats from the upper-class city folk, whom he eventually fights back against. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b4733bfe | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_b4733bfe | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b4996199 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b4996199 | comment |
All three film versions of Spider-Man have this going for them to some extent. A lot of his actions in Sam Raimi's first two Spider-Man Trilogy movies are either motivated or affected by his financial concerns. Even in the third film, his landlord can't stop bugging him for rent, despite the fact that Peter's apartment is significantly beneath standard. The version seen in The Amazing Spider-Man Series is probably the most downplayed example; this version of aunt May has to work two jobs after Uncle Ben's death, and Peter himself earns some cash on the side with the Daily Bugle to cover costs, but on the large and by this aspect of his character is Out of Focus in favour of worldbuilding and the Myth Arc. Lastly, the version seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe applies the Decon-Recon Switch to this trope. The movies have a significantly more realistic take on how Peter and Aunt May's living conditions in the modern, expensive New York, as the two live in a small apartment. While Peter is enrolled in an exclusive school for gifted children, the movies also deliberately contrast Peter, who got there on merit, with a Privileged Rival who got there because of his family's wealth. He is also introduced as a literal dumpster diver in order to supply his intellectual work and gear as Spider-Man, wearing a "costume" that is visibly a refashioned onesie. On the other hand, from his introduction onward the Avengers and Shield hook him up with gear, thereby preventing his life as Spider-Man from seriously affecting his civilian life financially. The events of Spider-Man: No Way Home body-slam him right back into this role fully — after becoming an Un-person to the whole world, Peter's resources are whatever he can get from odd jobs and a Spidey suit he sewed together. |
|
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| Working-Class Hero / int_b9458b2b | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_b9458b2b | comment |
Jennifer Warnes' "It Goes Like It Goes", which was made famous in Norma Rae and Covered Up by Dusty Springfield: | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_b9458b2b | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_bac8d0b6 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_bac8d0b6 | comment |
Margot Mills in The Menu is an Audience Surrogate who grew up poor with a Struggling Single Mother in a Trashy Trailer Home, she's more sensitive than anyone else to the class implications of the meal that's being served, and its revealed later in the film that she's not actually Tyler's girlfriend, but an escort he hired to take to the dinner. The fact that she and the villain Julian Slowik share a blue-collar background winds up saving her life, as it allows her to connect with him and break through his elitist shell, causing him to spare her from his plan to kill himself and everybody else at the dinner (and make her a damn good cheeseburger on the way out). | |
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| The Menu | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_bac8d0b6 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_be1ef4d0 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_be1ef4d0 | comment |
Aaron Tippin's "Working Man's Ph.D." which all but sneers at people who don't work with their hands for a living, classifying them as people who don't "pull their weight." | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_be1ef4d0 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_bf24c7bb | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_bf24c7bb | comment |
Chernobyl: The miners refuse to be intimidated into joining the rescue operation ("You haven't got enough bullets for all of us"), but when the minister explains why their help is necessary, they willingly take part, despite knowing the danger. | |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_bf24c7bb | featureConfidence |
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| Chernobyl | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_bf24c7bb | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_c43df4d8 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
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In Doctor Who, several of the Doctor's Companions have come from Working Class backgrounds, turning them into this trope: Dodo Chaplet is introduced with a working-class Mancunian accent. Executive Meddling made her start speaking RP pronto. Ben Jackson is a sailor with a broad Cockney accent, contrasted with his middle-class Implied Love Interest Polly. Ace, a Companion of the Seventh Doctor, is a boisterous lower-class tomboy who got kicked out of school for having been a little too good at making her own signature homemade explosives and then somehow wound up on an alien space station because of some weird portal thing. As a character, she was inspired somewhat by the '80s Punk movement (which often embraced Working-Class Heroes to some extent), and the actress and producers have stated in the past that if they could have gotten away with her speaking a lower-class dialect in an '80s BBC production, they would have. Like many Working-Class Heroes, Ace had a very... direct approach to problem-solving; more often than not her solution to a problem was to chuck an explosive at it, and she's the first Companion with the privilege of getting to attack a Dalek of all things with a baseball bat. It actually works, since the Dalek wasn't expecting an attack from behind; Sophie Aldred has indicated that this was basically the Crowning Moment of Awesome for her whole career. Rose Tyler from the 2005 revival; in contrast with most prior British Companions, she speaks with a lower-class London accent, and before she jumped into the TARDIS, was a low-level "shop girl" (retail worker), who was raised by a single mother in lower-class housing. Cassandra, when possessing Rose in "New Earth", even refers to her as a "chav" which if you know anything about British slang, says that even to snobs from the year 5 Billion, she reads as Working Class. Rose's boyfriend Mickey, who later becomes a Companion as well, works as a mechanic, and the fact that he has access to a tow truck is actually a plot point in the Series 1 finale. The first time we meet Companion Clara by that name anyway, she's working as a barmaid who speaks with a blatantly lower-class dialect... but she is also Living a Double Life as a part-time governess for a well-off family, because it turns out she can fake a posh enough accent to gain employment that way, too. Later episodes, after we meet the original version of her show Clara job-hopping a bit, working alternately as a nanny, a teacher, etc. That last one should imply a middle (rather than lower) class upbringing or at least some decent education, but we don't see enough to know how she got said jobs or education due to the Doctor popping in and out of her life at such intervals. It seems probable that some of her "echoes" were lower and/or Working Class too, though - at least for the culture they appeared in; for example, even the one on Gallifrey appears to either be working Security or in the Repair Shop proper, since she's the one who directs him to the "right" TARDIS. |
|
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Working-Class Hero | |
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In Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood's character Walt Kowalski is implied as not being a terribly intelligent or academic fellow, but he has lots of common sense wisdom and is totally effective at dealing with young gangsters. However, he is incredibly racist toward the Hmong, has a massively restrained relationship with his kids such that they want little to do with him (and appeared to have raised their own kids to resent him), and his attitude makes him lonely and miserable. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_c73e62a5 | featureApplicability |
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| Gran Torino | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_c73e62a5 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ca08598f | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ca08598f | comment |
The Wire has working-class Anti-Villain Frank Sobotka, a union head for a group of stevedores working at Baltimore's dying docks. Sobotka, seeing the gradual death of the Baltimore docks and other local industries, has made a desperate deal with an international crime syndicate. Frank and his men smuggle their goods into the country, and Frank uses the payoffs to lobby the local politicians into rebuilding the docks and turning it back into a center of commerce. All Frank wants is to be a working-class hero, and he essentially makes a Deal with the Devil to allow it to happen not just for himself, but his longtime coworkers and the future generations of Sobotkas that he imagines will still be working the same trade when he's gone. He sums up the slow death of the working class hero with the following, mournful quote: | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ca08598f | featureApplicability |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_ca08598f | featureConfidence |
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| The Wire | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_ca08598f | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_cf840e53 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_cf840e53 | comment |
Tales of Dunk and Egg chronicles the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall, one of the greatest knights in the history of Westeros who started as a mere Street Urchin. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_cf840e53 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_cf840e53 | featureConfidence |
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Working-Class Hero / int_cf840e53 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_d14c3aa1 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_d14c3aa1 | comment |
The eponymous protagonists of both the original 1984 Ghostbusters film and its 2016 reboot start out as scientists and parapsychologists, but after getting fired from their university jobs, they spurn the academy by taking their ghost-hunting technology and entering the world of private business (together with a blue-collar, street-smart new recruit), becoming the supernatural version of vermin exterminators. This proves to be a far more lucrative and fulfilling career path. | |
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1.0 | |
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| Ghostbusters (1984) | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_d14c3aa1 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_d1710608 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_d1710608 | comment |
Sharpe: Richard Sharpe is a great officer because he fought his way up from the ranks, defeating prejudice from the aristocrat-dominated officer corps who know far less about what warfare is like for the common soldier. Because of this Sharpe focuses on what he knows is important from his battlefield experience instead of getting hung up on theory like the book-taught officers. However, Sharpe has great respect for the upper-class William Lawford, who taught him how to read while they were imprisoned together in India. | |
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| Working-Class Hero / int_d1710608 | featureConfidence |
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Working-Class Hero / int_d1710608 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_d908efc | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_d908efc | comment |
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: At the beginning of the series, Tanjiro Kamado works as a humble charcoal seller like his ancestors have for centuries; during the first manga chapter/anime episode this is shown to portray how diligent Tanjiro is, his kindness in working to assist his mother after his father passed away a year before the series began. That diligence follows Tanjiro when he becomes a Demon Slayer. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_d908efc | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_de105450 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_de105450 | comment |
In Back to School, Rodney Dangerfield's character, Thornton Melon, is a college dropout who's nevertheless become incredibly wealthy with his chain of "plus-sized" men's clothing shops. Despite his fortune, though, he's a genuinely Nice Guy. When Thornton finds out that his son is considering dropping out himself, he enrolls in the same college (thanks to a generous donation that leads to a new business school being built) to inspire the boy. When Thornton enrolls in an economics class where the snobby professor speaks in pure theory, Thornton —who has actual business experience— offers his own practical knowledge of the economy (such as setting aside money to pay off the teamsters and other kickbacks for the mob's involvement in construction). It's so effective that the students start taking notes from him. | |
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| Back to School | hasFeature |
Working-Class Hero / int_de105450 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_e1a87807 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_e1a87807 | comment |
Sean Devlin from The Saboteur is an unsophisticated car mechanic from Ireland who takes up a secondary job as an explosives expert helping in sabotaging the Nazi occupation of Paris. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_e1a87807 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ecbae142 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ecbae142 | comment |
Scrap Mechanic features, as its protagonists, an assembly of mechanics, male and female, sent to an automated agricultural planet to maintain the robots and machines thereon. Of course, the planet happens to have had a little Robot Uprising, and mechanics have to MacGyver together vehicles and weapons to protect themselves. And hoo boy, are they good at it. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ecbae142 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_ecbae142 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ee161a99 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ee161a99 | comment |
Throughout The Purge Universe, the protagonists are usually working-class people banding together to survive a "holiday" designed to Kill the Poor, while the series' Greater-Scope Villain is the plutocratic elite of its dystopian near-future America. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_ee161a99 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_ee161a99 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f4cc10a8 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f4cc10a8 | comment |
In The Migax Cycle, most of the main protagonists are this: Summer comes from a lower-class background, which ends up giving her an advantage when it comes to not being noticed by authority. Leafsong is tough due to her lower-class background and it makes her more alert and suspicious than others. |
|
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Working-Class Hero / int_f4cc10a8 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f5b58f88 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f5b58f88 | comment |
Catwoman: Catwoman, when portrayed as a hero, is shown to be highly conscious of being a girl from Gotham's poor district and often acts as a Robin Hood-type hero who hasn't forgotten her old neighbourhood even after becoming The One Who Made It Out. | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f5b58f88 | featureApplicability |
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Working-Class Hero / int_f5b58f88 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f5c28dbb | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_f5c28dbb | comment |
The 1632 series has many main characters who are excellent at improvising with what they have, but very few of whom have higher education by the standards of the 20th century from which they were plucked by Alien Space Bats. However, these characters do not underestimate the value of education and knowledge. In fact, that is the primary asset the small Virginia town brings to 1632 Europe. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_f5c28dbb | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_fa750c65 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_fa750c65 | comment |
Magical Tetris Challenge: The good guys all have lower-class jobs, except for Minnie, who seems to be a stay-at-home woman. Mickey works at a factory, Donald works at a harbor, and Goofy runs a farm. This is in contrast with the villainous Pete, who is a rich man. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_fa750c65 | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_fe6ac012 | type |
Working-Class Hero | |
| Working-Class Hero / int_fe6ac012 | comment |
Captain Klutz: The character by Don Martin (from a Mad magazine paperback book) was impoverished nobody who tried to commit suicide from a high-rise tenement, wound up getting wrapped up in some clothing from a series of laundry lines, and inadvertently thwarts a robbery. The burglar calls him a "klutz" before getting arrested. The policeman asks what his name was and dazed he says "I'm a klutz, Captain." So he became Captain Klutz. | |
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Working-Class Hero / int_fe6ac012 |
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