If you really want to get what being prep is all about, you have to be very careful who you read. Birnbach is actually a pretty astute commentator when she wants to be but she is more interested in making money that presenting an honest account of the values. And that is a problem if you are part of the culture.
Preps are self-critical people. They read not to to reinforce their values but to challenge them. This is even true of Birnbach in a not terribly profound way. The preppiest author of them all is Edith Wharton but Wharton is very critical of prep values. Her heroines Lily Bart and Anna Leith are not a role models for prep women but, rather, they are the woman they are afraid of becoming. The same is true of John P Marquand whose The Late George Apley does for men what Lily Bart does for women. (Although it must be said that Marquand is not Wharton's equal or even close to it.)
Another problem is that preps actually read stuff. I mean they pick books up and read them from the start to the end and they go back and read them again and again. That means that just listing a bunch of preppy texts is not much use because most people have images that go with these books that often bear little resemblance to what you actually find in the books if you read them carefully. One of the classics of prep literature, for example, is Walden. Now that may give you a certain impression if you've only ever skimmed the book and heard some prof lecture about it but go back and read it carefully. I always suggest people start by paying attention to Thoreau's attitudes about trains. At first he is bitingly critical of the train but read it through and watch him change his mind and, this is really important, see why he changes his mind. It's a very preppy book.
The final problem is that an awful lot of what you can read about preppies is written by people who hate preps. You have self-loathing preps such as JD Salinger and John Cheever and you have mainstream journalists and university professors who need to attach personalities to the hated "rich"and generally settle on preppy as one of these. The truth is that preps are far less wealthy than they appear. There is often money there to be sure but it's slowly accumulated money and, even then, there is less security than their appears to be. There is a lot of downward mobility in the upper middle class and those of us who are in it are painfully aware of the downside.
So where do you go to get a good portrait of what preps are really like. Whit Stillman is your guy. His movies and his one novel are the best place to start.
Not unrelated, the following clip from his Barcelona is a brilliant explanation of where anti-Americanism comes from. If you replace "Americans" with "Preps" it makes just as good a point.
Judging from her interview on Nightline last week, Lisa seems to have matured a bit and True Prep seems less satire and more a paean to Prep and a "how to" manual. She articulated very well the virtues of Prep that everyone can aspire to.
ReplyDeletePrep culture, aside from wearing certain clothing, is really the virtues and lifestyle espoused by the old WASP monied class. That class of people created what we now call Prep, going back to the early 20th C. The other person besides Lisa Birnbach to capitalize on this in an even bigger way is Ralph Lifshitz, better known as Ralph Lauren. His clothing lines of the '70s and '80s--especially for men--and the way they were marketed--photo shoots on estates in Greenwich CT and the Hamptons--said "you can be like this too, just wear my clothes."
However, as you correctly point out "The truth is that preps are far less wealthy than they appear...and there is less security than there appears to be. There is a lot of downward mobility in the upper middle class and those of us who are in it are painfully aware of the downside." Don't I know it. I think affecting the dress and also the mannerisms, e.g., being polite and respectful, of old money is a definite help up the ladder of success, its not a guarantee. But not doing that is most certainly a guarantee of not succeeding, at least for most people.
I was thinking, Prep is the public face of a certain way of life. But I think we delude ourselves if we believe that the original "Preppies" or those who created that way of life, i.e., the WASP old-monied class, were able to do that by always being polite and respectful and keeping their shoes polished. The "virtues" of hard work and success can and I'm sure quickly did give way to "do whatever it takes," "rank has its priveledges," and other rationalizations for behaving in a less than virtuous fashion. The money that the original Preps had that built the great estates on Long Island and Newport, was also used to curry favor politically and even worse ends. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to donate my navy blue blazer to Goodwill, but I think its important that we not fall prey to skillful marketing and remember to keep things in perspective.
ReplyDeleteIts interesting that you mention Salinger and Cheever as self-loathing preps. One has to wonder if it was because they knew that life firsthand and not as wannabees from the outside looking in. Also, Cheever, as we now know thanks to his daughter, was haunted by a secret that ultimately led him into chronic alcoholism. Contrast them with John Updike (who admired both Salinger and Cheever), who had all of the outward--and inward--attributes of Prep though he did not come from money, was educated at Harvard, from all accounts was pretty "normal" and deeply spiritual, no scandals or dark secrets, lived modestly, etc etc. Yet all or most of his novels and short stories are about--indeed homages to--middle class, often blue collar people, and his love and admiration of them.
I agree. I wouldn't want to argue that preps were or are perfect.
ReplyDeleteBut it is a model for success. It's hard to see, to pick just one example, how kids modeling themselves on celebrities is going to lead to much happiness.
Cheever is a deeply disturbing figure and a type that is more common than anyone likes to admit: a homophobic gay man.
I totally agree with you, it is a model that kids can use to achieve success that is far better than celebrities. I don't know about you, but the celebrity model wasn't something I had to deal with, it just wasn't an issue when I was growing up. The Prep model, in its pure form, was and still is my model because that's who I am and it is most consistent with my values. But after great resistance because I was so naive and idealistic, I had to finally admit that the old adage "its not what you know but who you know" was true. That caused me to become very disillusioned for a long time, but after a while I accepted it and did a Plan B. Essentially what I had been dealing with was the "old boy network," and it affected not only women but also not well-connected men.
ReplyDeleteCheever is indeed very disturbing. I agree the homophobic gay man is far more common than anyone likes to admit, and ironically is treated with scorn and derision by the gay community rather than sympathy. But here again, Cheever was a victim not only of the times in which he lived but also the mores of the Prep culture. The moral conservatism of Prep had to have created an irresolvable tension for him throughout his life. Not that he was the only one: who was more Prep than Cole Porter? I think it was the kind of thing that everyone knew perhaps, but was never talked about in polite society, which would very easily cause a person who believed he was gay to be homophobic.