Split Decision: Working Class Heroes

Welcome to MovieJawn’s Split Decision! Each week, Ryan will pose a question to our staff of knowledgeable and passionate film lovers and share the responses. Chime in on Twitter, Facebook, our Instagram, or in the comments below.

This week’s question:

In honor of Labor Day this past Monday, who is your favorite working class hero from the movies? 

My favorite working class hero in movies is Mark Ashton in Pride (2014), played by Ben Schnetzer. Pride is based on the true story (and real people) of the group “Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners,” which was when working class solidarity was needed during the Thatcher regime in the UK in the 1980s. Pride is one of the films in the great tradition of heart-warming British true stories (with ensemble casts) that often have a political element, including Brassed Off (1996), Made in Dagenham (2010) and Misbehaviour (2020). Schnetzer brilliantly portrays Ashton (with a pitch-perfect accent), a socialist activist who tragically died of AIDs aged just 26. –Fiona Underhill, Contributor

I love that in no other movie more than Fargo, Marge Gunderson makes being a cop look like a job. She doesn't spend sleepless nights investigating evidence. She doesn't split with her husband over her obsession with homicide in her small town. Instead, she investigates leads, interviews witnesses and eventually makes an arrest based on her hard work. In between the grit and the ugliness, she has time to get Arby's with her husband and watch PBS in bed. –Billy Russell, Staff Writer

This might be cheating, but I have two:

First, the doorman from F.W Muranu’s The Last Laugh. He has pride in what he does and tries his best at his job, even if it’s demeaning. His life is dragged through the mud and this critic would like to thank Murnau for filming that improbable epilogue; it gave hope, maybe foolish hope, but hope for a brighter future. The film’s theme has and always will persist until the end of time. It’s a tragedy that some of us live and is a reflection of the common man’s struggle for honor in a ruthless world. 

The second is Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He makes being an average joe badass. Too many people in Hollywood try to “make it”, Cliff’s too busy being Rick Dalton’s confidant to care about such a silly notion. He has a sober look at tinseltown, and is willing to get his hands dirty, even if other people take the credit.  –Miguel Alejandro Marquez, Staff Writer

Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey), the ruthless social climber in Room at the Top. This is one of the angry young man antiheroes that grappled with class, ambition, and desire in a classic film of the genre. Taking a job in Warnley, and falls for Susan Brown (Heather Sears), a pretty, wealthy daughter of an industrialist. She is out of his league, and Joe begins a tryst with the older Alice Aisgill (Simone Signoret). The film was groundbreaking back in its day. It remains potent today. –Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

My impulse was to go with one of the born losers from Blue Collar, but they want to rob their union, and that feels like the wrong way to celebrate an important day. Instead, I’ll go with Daniel Blake from I, Daniel Blake, because we need some Ken Loach here. Blake is as resilient as a person can be, but the bureaucracy of his situation just whittles away at him. I love movies where people defy capitalism and transcend their pre-determined station but it all feels disingenuous next to something like I, Daniel Blake, where minor characters are punished for even trying to help other people caught in the system. It’s already in place, all Daniel Blake has to do is get crushed by it. But the dignity is sincerely inspiring. –Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

Obviously, the greatest Working Class Hero in cinematic history is Alex from Eat The Rich (1987), a quasi-Comedy Strip film with many of their regulars in cameo appearances. Al Pillay’s quasi-drag, completely unexplained performance as Alex is brilliant, along with her socialist plan to bring down the government by taking a page out of Sweeney Todd’s playbook and feeding the wealthy their peers in mince form. With Motorhead’s Lemmy in a supporting role as a secret agent/rock star, it’s a brilliant, subversive film that answers the question, what does one do with a restaurant full of dead jackasses with more money than sense? –Anthony Glassman, Contributor

My wife is Finn and loves filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki - I’ve only seen Shadows in Paradise so far thanks to her, and main character Nikander is such an unexpected hero - at the beginning of the film, he’s just your regular, run-of-the-mill garbage man with a touch of the sads. But after meeting equally lonely grocery store cashier Ilona, he blossoms into one serious kickass dude.  –Jaime Davis, Staff Writer

I raise a can of Miller Lite to Daisy, Kat and JoJo, the young Portuguese-American restaurant workers of Mystic Pizza (1988). Obviously, romantic comedies don’t aspire to document reality, but this one does a pretty fine job capturing class consciousness in eastern Connecticut of the 1980s. There are those who are served and those who do the serving, with Daisy (Julia Roberts in her breakout role), Kat (Annabeth Gish) and JoJo (Lili Taylor) falling into the latter category in more ways than one. Mystic Pizza didn’t inspire anyone to rush out and join a union, but Daisy’s weaponization of seafood surely provided many working class gals -- the ones who must wear the equivalents of “Slice of Heaven” tee-shirts -- with inspiration. –Jenny Swadosh, Contributor

As Claudine Price in 1974’s Claudine, Diahann Carroll is constantly trying to make it work. Her housekeeping job doesn’t pay enough to support her six children, and her ex-husbands are worse than no help - they’re out of the picture entirely. She relies on welfare benefits to make ends meet, but if the social worker finds out that she has a job, or worse - a boyfriend, she can say goodbye to those benefits. And she can’t even sneak James Earl Jones’s charming garbageman Roop Marshall into her crowded apartment without her kids making it clear that they want nothing to do with him. Released the same year the term “welfare queen” was coined, Claudine gives lie to that racist myth. Claudine isn’t shown to be exceptional (though, since she’s played by Diahann Carroll, she is exceptionally gorgeous), she’s just a woman doing the best she can in a system that’s stacked against her. It’s easy to imagine thousands of other women in her same position: worn down by an unfair and uncaring society, but still looking for a little romance. –Ryan Smillie, Staff Writer

Chaplin. Modern Times. ‘Nuff said. –Ryan Silberstein, Red Herring