Film & Theater studies

The idea of how Hepburn’s upper social class was used as a weapon to bring her down whenever she appeared to be making progress fits into the screwball comedy “Holiday”, genre’s domineering ideology of “classlessness” in many ways. This can be seen when even fellow members of the so called classy families do not want to grow up like their elder siblings who were brought up through the classy life. An example is shown when Linda Seton (played by Hepburn) doesn’t want to grow into a wasted personality like her brother Ned. In this context, her class is trying to separate her from some one she has fallen in love with, that is, Johnny Case.

In addition, the idea of classlessness can be seen when Linda shakes Johnny’s hand in a different way from the rest of the family showing that she does not treat him as an outsider because he is of a lower class. She even goes ahead and confesses her love for him to her sister Julia. By doing so, she is trying to overlook her social class because she knows it may not allow her to get close to Johnny due to the fact that he is from a lower class. Another scene on classlessness is shown when Johnny admits in front of the Seton family his humble origins. This brings a lot of reaction mostly from Julia, Linda’s sister, who seems very surprised from the type of class that Johnny comes from.

Linda also demonstrates classlessness in “Holiday”, when she starts doing somersaults with him. This is mostly not an act meant for the classy people but the fact that Linda does not care is brought out when she not only does the somersaults with a person of a lower class, that is Johnny, but also when she does it in front of her classy family. This shows how Linda has decided to avoid being denied the stuff she likes and enjoys, in this case athletic, by the high social class of her family.

In “Holiday”, the ideology on how Linda’s high social class could be used as a weapon against her was both furthered and contradicted. It was contradicted in that Linda refused to have her social class discriminating her from spending time with Johnny whom she adored a lot. Moreover, she refused to be associated with all the bad stuff that would be brought about by her high class life like when she refused to grow into a spoiled person like her brother Ned. Her determination to overlook her high class is also seen when she treats Johnny differently even though he is from a lower class. This is shown by the way she shakes his hand differently from the rest of her family.

Furthermore, Linda refuses to let her class deny her the stuff she likes. This is seen when she starts doing somersaults on the couch with Johnny even in front her family members. She also makes sure that her social class does not deny her the chance of being close to Johnny. However, this ideology is furthered mostly by Julia who seems very surprised and in disbelieve when Johnny admits of his humble origins. It is also shown by how Julia avoids spending a lot of time with Johnny unlike Linda who is enjoying Johnny’s company a lot and is not ashamed of spending time with him.