we got class

While finding images for other topics has been relatively easy for me, I quickly found that looking for images depicting class status was quite difficult. Most of the media that I consume deals with people that are usually considered to be of lower class but are highly popular. Some of them are considered lower class because of the body modifications, some because they have little money, some because of the way they act in public and some because of how they dress. I had to take a step out of my day to day media preferences and go back to my high school music listening and then I found some images from the magazines I have lying around.

"I want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed"

-Ludacris (Usher "Yeah!")

Mama just don't understand

Why I love your hoochie ass

Sex is what I need you for

I got a good girl, But I need a whore

I like my bitch promiscous

- 2 live crew "Hoochie Mama"

There are a lot of references to class in hip hop and rap music. Ludacris does a short rap in an Usher song and he mentiones his need for a woman that will be a lady in the street, seeming classy and lady-like but still attractive and then when they are alone he wants a freak. The way he words the rap makes a distinct difference between the freak and the lady. 

In the song Hoochie Mama, the group talks about how they already have a "good girl," one that is good for image, the one that they are there for mentally but then they say that they need a "whore" for the other stuff that they want to do. This comparison, like the one in "Yeah!" shows a difference between the two ladies. The good girl and the lady are allowed in public, they aren't anything to be embarrassed about and they could fall in line with the middle class and the classic body.

http://redcarpetfashionawards.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

When Christina went to Xtina there was a lot of talk about how she was low class, and this was at a time of many obvious body modifications, fake dyed hair, sexual lyrics and revealing clothing. When she made another transition to her current status, she took out most of the piercings, freshened up, kept her hair one color and while keeping her clothes form fitting, didn't reveal as much skin. Some of her lyrics are still suggestive, possibly even more suggestive than the Stripped album, but because of how she dresses herself she has been brought up in class again. Like with amateur and white trashed porn, Xtina was more popular then her reinvented Christina persona.