Chrys Ingraham writes:
"We are planning a film series for spring which deals with social issues
and need suggestions for popular films, preferably recent ones, which
deal with issues of class in some respect, e.g., labor, capitalism, class
discrimination...
Can anyone offer suggestions as to what might be good for this series?"
 
Class is a subtext--and a muted one, at that--in most American films, but
here are a few possibilities:
 
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU--romanticized, to be sure, but does address some
        class issues in a Capraesque way.
THE CLIENT--One feature of the film that I think has been overlooked is the
        role of the mother, fretting about "mundane" things like health
        insurance.
 More overt explorations of some class issues occur in Paul Schrader's
BLUE COLLAR and Oliver Stone's WALL STREET.
 
There are also class issues raised in several films of the late 1960s/early
1970s, such as BONNIE AND CLYDE, Antonioni
's ZABRISKIE POINT and others.
 
Also consider--bear with me, now--STELLA, the remake of STELLA DALLAS with
Bette Midler.  It was a pretty old-fashioned story when Olive Higgins
Prouty wrote the novel, but it still turns on the issue of class differences.
 
For class/race relations, there are films from the recent wave of black
filmmakers, notably BOYZ 'N' THE HOOD, STRAIGHT OUT OF BROOKLYN, and so
forth.
 
I hope these are of some help.
 
--Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN