Is Educating Rita a comedy of gender or social class Essay

Is Educating Rita a comedy of gender or social screen - Essay ExampleThe program line she would receive there, she believes, would liberate and enlighten her by way of which she hopes to move away from the social strata of her birth. Professor Frank Bryant, on the other hand, is a middle-aged alcoholic, who has no interest what so ever in his professorship. Instead he openly displays his melancholy and acts indifferent to the requirements of his work. So when these two characters from disparate social and economic backgrounds spoil paths, new and elicit developments take place in both their lives. While comedy is used by the director as a suitable communicative implement, the recurrent theme is one based on class. In Educating Rita,Ritas desire for self-discovery places her in conflict with her class background. She is, thus, a kind of female version of the mid-fifties scholarship boy whose involvement in education and middle-class culture inevitably takes her away from her soci al origins. In this respect, the film follows the older school of working- class films in placing particular emphasis upon cultural rather than economic divisions. Unlike many of the working-class films that follow it, there is little evidence of unemployment or poverty. What Rita (who is herself employed) aspires to melt down is not so much economic hardship as cultural deprivation (Kramp & Humphreys, 1993).It is true of Educating Rita too, that the British nation can stake out ingenious turf as they have always done with class warfare. Running all the way from Richard Sheridan through George Bernard Shaw and John Osborne, the theme of class-conflict has provided the staple of comedy of attitudes and manners. In Educating Rita, the lead characters Julie Walters and Michael Caine bring to screen contrasting but complementary kinds of energy. To their credit, the lead pair also makes life in British academia more interesting