Billy Madison, Comedic but Stereotypical?

December 7, 2008 ehullman

For our last and final blog, we are asked to select a type of person in the media and analyze how he or she is portrayed. I chose the character Billy Madison from the movie “Billy Madison” (1995) to analyze as portraying the stereotype of the life of a kid in a very wealthy family. I will be qualifying my analysis in the way that Bonnie Dow (1996) qualified her arguments in the book “Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture, and the Women’s Movement Since 1970.”

In my opinion, the movie “Billy Madison” (1995) is a disservice to people who have a lot of money for two reasons: (1) it sends the message that people with money are not intelligent and (2) it defines the life of a wealthy person as unproductive.

One reason why “Billy Madison” (1995) is a disservice to people who have a substantial amount of money is that it asserts that the children that come from families with a lot of money are not as smart as families who are of average wealth.

In the movie the character Billy is the son of a wealthy couple and seems to know hardly anything. He is a grown man and wants to get an education so that he can take on the family business, but he has to start in elementary school because he has very little knowledge. When he does go back to school he does not take it very seriously, but eventually gets through it.

The second reason why “Billy Madison” (1995) is a disservice to wealthy people is because he shows the audience that kids like him have an extremely easygoing lifestyle. And by easygoing I mean no job, no responsibilities, not so grown up.

 He is portrayed as a spoiled drunk who does nothing productive all day.  He mainly sits around his pool and drinks. He does act like a grown, intelligent, respectable man. When he begins school and throughout his school career Billy is not the kind of student that parents are proud of. He does not take class very seriously and hardly passes each grade.

Yes, this movie was made for comedic effect and not to intentionally try to push the opinion that wealthy people have an easygoing lifestyle, but audiences should take into consideration how they view the people portrayed in movies. I think this does really affect the way people with lots of money are viewed in real life.

References

Davis, T. (1995). Billy Madison. United States: Universal Studios.

Dow, B. (1996) Prime-time feminism: Television, media culture, and the women’s movement since 1970. Philadelphia: University Press.

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