What makes royals different from their subjects? What makes them stand out, admired and respected? Well, one obvious answer would be that they are monarchs and have some power over their people but if we were to add some sociological understanding to it, it would come down to one concept, cultural capital. Cultural capital is, “a concept associated with Bourdieu, for whom cultural capital acts as a social relation within a system of exchange that includes the accumulated cultural knowledge that confers power and status” (The Sage dictionary of cultural studies, 2004) or it can simply be defined as forms of knowledge, skills, education, and advantages that a person has, which give them a higher status in society. Therefore, the difference between royals and their subjects can be seen by the way they were brought up and educated.

While Professor Moorehead was explaining this concept in class, I could not help but remember a movie I had watched a couple of years back called The Princess Diaries, a comedy produced in 2001 that shows a perfect example of cultural capital. In this movie, we are introduced to a very young Anne Hathaway who plays Mia Thermopolis, a fifteen year old teenager who discovers that she is the heir to the throne of Genovia after her father dies in a car crush. Her grandmother Clarisse Renaldi played by Julie Andrews hopes to introduce her to the Genovian government at the upcoming State Dinner but before that, Mia has to undergo ‘princess lessons’. she is taught how to sit, dine, talk, walk, dance and dress. Well, couldn’t she do all these things before she discovered that she was a princess?  That is where cultural capital comes in. Mia had always been getting basic education at school and no one had ever tried to teach her how to conduct herself in public. Fortunately for her, when she becomes a princess, all this changes. She is taught how to act and behave like a royal contradicting all the other teachings she has been getting from her middle class school and home. From this movie, it is clear to see the difference between social classes of people. The upper and middle classes of people are brought up and educated in different ways and that is why people in the upper class succeed more than those in the middle class. They have more cultural capital since they are taught a lot of things that are relevant in society and this may not be the case with middle class people.

Reference:

Barker, C (2004). The Sage dictionary of cultural studies. London: Sage Publications Limited

by Allan Kastiro