Media shapes our perception. Hollywood does plenty of damage with their types. One type that does not damage but is steady is the Aspirational Upper Middle Class Wife. 🧵 
Upper Middle Class is an achievable upper class slot for middle/working class members. It’s what they strive for as Upper class is out of reach or sight (thanks Paul Fussell). It’s aspirational and mass media geared towards this class and those who aspire to it uses these models
It was a small class but has grown with time as our economy shrinks the broad middle class and the downwardly mobile become working but many become UMC. This is a huge post 1970s trend. It’s golden age for security & purchasing power was the late ‘80s and ‘90s.
Original post used a poster woman for this AUMCW role: Sela Ward. Ward was a beauty, and aged spectacularly. She didn’t look Shakira Hot but a timeless, classy beauty. Also looked/sounded intelligent as if she could be a college grad who could work but didn’t because you made $
The UMC is full of single income households where mom could work but Opted Out. NY Times first noted this in 2003 reflecting the ‘90s trend of successful households where mom opted out but they still were UMC households.
Female viewers could see themselves as a smart, pretty wife with a successful, desirable husband who conversed with her as an equal about interesting things. Not just arm candy for display. Ward played adults with serious things to do (and a bohemian).
Sela Ward & this type sells a package: beautiful, sexy but not crass or trashy. There is an elegance. Thin, great legs, pretty face & overwhelmingly played by brunettes. They age well. Classy moms. You know the lead still burns with love & passion for his wife 25 years later.
A perfect example is Bridget Moynihan. She played the employed, charming young wife of Big on Sex & The City. Big couldn’t commit to Carrie but he did for this. Fits the AUMCW profile Sela Ward set up. Beautiful but looks smart. Classy, not trashy.
They tried casting Moynihan as a trashier, bitchy beauty in Coyote Ugly, and it fell flat. Men saw the beauty, and they were not buying her being a brawler. That is wife material, not fight breaker.
Moynihan best played the Aspirational UMC Wife in John Wick. Fools say “Wick rampaged over a dog.” No. He rampaged because the woman who he did the impossible to escape the mob underground for died. He literally pledged a life debt just to play house for one woman he loved
Moynihan plays these roles: beautiful wife, Asst District Attorney, etc because she is so classically beautiful that all of America thinks Tom Brady traded down wifing up a >checks notes< Victoria’s Secret model. Classy, pretty and smart looking!
The Aspirational UMC Wife is *not* a trophy wife. Perfect contrast is Laura Harring vs. Sofia Vergara. Harring played beautiful wives like Vergara but the sophistication difference is noticeable. On the screen, Harring can be calculating or sophisticated and it is believable
Sela Ward is the gold standard. America’s UMC & strivers are more Asian now, so we will see who Hollywood casts to fill this role. Even in an age of declining marital rates, people aspire to that life & all that comes with it; including a pretty, classy wife who can think.
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