Yes, it is classist to dehumanise ‘broke’ men

Materialists, the latest film from acclaimed writer-director Celine Song, centres around ambitious, young matchmaker Lucy (Dakota Johnson) as she finds herself caught in a love triangle between Harry (Pedro Pascal) and her ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans). It’s clear John and Lucy have a deep, undeniable connection, but here’s the rub: he is a struggling actor living in a hellish rental flatshare, while Harry owns a lavish bachelor pad worth eight figures.

It’s a timely drama which speaks directly to the zeitgeist, with the cultural conversation so often dominated by discussions on whether marrying a wealthy man is actually a radical feminist act. In this climate, it’s little wonder one Letterboxd user wrote a tongue-in-cheek review of Song’s film describing it as “broke man propaganda”. But when a journalist from Refinery29 told Song this review “really made [her] laugh”, Song was quick to defend her work. “It doesn’t make me laugh. It really is disappointing to me,” she says in the clip, which has since gone viral.

“Poverty is not the fault of the poor,” she continues. “I find it very cruel to talk about John – a character who loves Lucy, a beautiful character being played beautifully by Chris – in such cruel terms as ‘broke boy’ or ‘broke man’.” She goes on: “I think that is a very troubling result of the way that wealthy people have gotten into our hearts [and convinced us] it’s your fault if you’re poor, or you’re a bad person if you’re poor. So, it doesn’t make me laugh, actually. It just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters [like that], and think about it in such classist terms.”

Many other viewers appear to have had similarly “classist” takes on Materialists. “BROKE PEOPLE SHOULD NEVER LAUGH”, reads one Letterboxd review with over 1,000 likes; “idk about you guys, but i would choose a rich, handsome man who treats me like a goddess over a broke, musty ex any day,” says another. The film’s most-liked review on Letterboxd, with over 22,000 likes, is simply “broke men propaganda needs to be stopped”. But is the film really ‘broke man propaganda’, or is it, as Song puts it herself, an impassioned rallying cry against “the way that capitalism is trying to colonise our hearts”?

It’s unsurprising that so many viewers – and straight, female viewers in particular – baulk at the idea of settling down with a poor man. Despite women entering the workforce en masse in the 20th century, the idea that women should ‘marry up’ is a norm still deeply ingrained in our society, and many men are similarly reluctant to date women who are wealthier or more successful than them (one recent study found that men with wives who outearn them are more likely to be depressed). It’s a standard that permeates pop culture, too: in 2017, one writer on Medium analysed 32 rom-coms from the 1990s and 2000s, and found that while all of them starred intelligent, ambitious, outspoken women, only four featured a woman with a higher-status job than her male counterpart.

The potency of this norm’s appeal has only intensified in recent years. ‘Female dating strategists’, who offer guidance to young women on how to snag a ‘high-value’ man, and tradwives, who have succeeded in perfectly conforming to social norms, are immensely popular on TikTok right now. Offline, it’s common to hear women lament the plague of “broke men” and “losers” in the dating pool. Sometimes this will be couched in less explicit language – in progressive circles, where joking about ‘benefit scroungers’ or someone’s ‘tacky’ taste might be seen as gauche, women might express a preference for a man with “a good job” or “his head screwed on” – but often the subtext is the same: I want a rich man.

It’s likely this stems from the fact that growing numbers of us are facing financial insecurity, as marrying rich can insulate you from the prospect of poverty. At present, however, girls are outperforming boys in school, while young women are beginning to out-earn their male counterparts in the workplace too – meaning fewer and fewer women are actually able to ‘marry up’. So it follows that women are consequently taking out their frustrations on the demographic they believe to be blocking their path: broke men. In this context, it tracks that Materialists has faced intense backlash for rushing to their defence.

The impulse to throw your lot in with someone rich – whether you really love them or not – is understandable, especially as capitalism systemically pressures us to pursue and hoard wealth at any cost. No one is denying that, yes, under the current system, your material life will be more comfortable if you marry rich. You will get ahead. You will have more things. You will even have more time. But Song is right to describe our culture’s tendency to punch down on poor men as classist; it is classist to dehumanise people who live in financially precarious positions, often through no fault of their own, and discriminate against them on account of their socioeconomic standing.

Still, it’s tricky to go against the grain. “When people feel upset about the film, sometimes they say to me, ‘Are you telling me that I need to settle, to not be single anymore?’”, Song said in a recent interview with Dazed. “And I’m always like, ‘The only thing you’re entitled to from somebody who will love you, is that they love you.’ That’s the only non-negotiable.” Some will argue this still sounds like ‘settling’, but it’s clear Song just wants us to ask ourselves: if it came down to it, what would you prioritise – love or money? While capitalism encourages us down one path, our hearts, Materialists argues, might yearn to venture down the other.