High society

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, with “high-society” in particular: The editor was not born into high society, but somehow broke into New York’s.

My comments:

The editor, whoever that is, was not born into a family of aristocracy or extreme wealth, but worked their way into New York’s high society.

And that means the said editor is now mingling with the rich and famous people of New York.

Very rich, I may add, and very famous.

High society, you see, refers to the highest social echelon or class. Traditionally, they refer to royalty and the extreme rich. Now, it includes high income earners such as top models, lawyers, sports, film and music stars and rich people in general.

Society being one’s social company, high society is where these people congregate.

Or, yes, socialize.

High refers to what’s on top, as in high and low.

As social classes go, people are divided into, for example, the lower class, the middle class and the upper class.

The lower class includes people who are unemployed or holding low-paying jobs.

The middle class is consisted of people who have decent paying jobs.

In the upper class are people who either earn extremely high salaries or are born into wealth, such as aristocracy or the family of millionaires.
And the uppermost people are thus categorized as high society.

Birds of a feather fly together. Hence, high-society people keep their own company.

That’s a simplistic sum-up. Let’s read a few media examples to put “high society” into better perspective:

1. Donald J. Trump was a president from, but not of, New York.

In the final months of his presidency, Trump attacked New York as a lawless “ghost town,” and got attacked right back. At least 73% of New Yorkers citywide voted against their hometown candidate in election 2020, with absentee ballots still being counted. In Manhattan, where Trump lived before becoming president, every single voting district went for Joe Biden.

When Trump was elected in 2016, it was his first serious venture into electoral politics. In the half-century before his election, the then 70-year-old Trump had been a real estate developer, serial entrepreneur and reality television star.

Back then, Trump’s personal story and style were deeply intertwined with New York. After winning the election, he floated the idea of remaining at least part-time in his home in Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue rather than moving entirely into the White House.

As a New Yorker whose mother and grandparents were also born here, I have long observed Donald Trump’s strange relationship with our shared hometown. Trump may seem like a quintessential New Yorker, but he is in some respects a non-New Yorker’s idea of a New Yorker. He is brash, speaks his mind and is not given to unnecessary politesse, all stereotypes about this city.

But Trump was always difficult to place into New York’s cultural geography.

New York is the biggest, most diverse and most cinematic of all American cities. People worldwide are familiar with the different types of New Yorkers: the hard-working immigrant, the Wall Street banker, the gruff blue-collar Brooklynite, the African American Harlemite a few generations removed from slavery or, like me, the Jewish Upper West Sider.

Donald Trump is none of those.

White Anglo-Saxon Protestants born to money are a well-known New York type as well, but Donald Trump is not your classic New York WASP, either. He is from the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, a wealthy enclave in a working-class borough that’s home to New Yorkers of all races and nations – not the tony Upper East Side.

The brash loudmouth from Queens or Brooklyn is also a pop culture stereotype: Think John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” or Fran Drescher in “The Nanny.” But these “outer borough” characters are usually Italian American, Jewish or African American, and almost always working-class.

Trump was also a secular Protestant in real estate, a heavily Jewish business in New York.

This background makes Trump unusual in New York. He defies the standard categories.

Though he is the scion of a wealthy real estate family, the city’s old aristocracy never quite accepted Trump. In a tribal city, Donald Trump has no real tribe.

Since he began running for office, much has been made of Trump's often failed efforts to gain approval from the Manhattan elite. That hardly made him unique: Many strivers never gain entrance into New York high society.

Nonetheless, Donald Trump’s life in the late 1970s through the 1990s was like a cartoon version of wealthy New York: gaudy apartments on Fifth Avenue, deal-making, nightclubs, gallivanting with models and schmoozing with the rich, famous and powerful – all made possible by inherited wealth.

- The City That Raised – and Rejected – Donald Trump, USNews.com, by Lincoln Mitchell, November 13, 2020.

2. House of Gucci, opening Nov. 24 and based on a 2001 book, dramatizes the murder of Gucci heir Maurizio Gucci. Three decades ago, Jeremy Irons – who plays Maurizio’s father, Rodolfo, in the film – starred in another true-crime tale set in high society and won an Oscar for it.

In 1990’s Reversal of Fortune, based on the 1985 Alan Dershowitz best-seller, Irons, then 41, played Claus von Bülow, a Danish aristocrat charged in 1982 with attempting to murder his socialite wife, Sunny von Bülow (played by Glenn Close), via an insulin injection that left her in a vegetative state. Von Bülow, who had been having an affair with soap opera actress Alexandra Isles, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years.

But he appealed and hired Harvard law professor Dershowitz (played by Ron Silver) to consult on his defense. Dershowitz enlisted some students, including Jim Cramer (later host of CNBC’s Mad Money) and future (and disgraced) New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Von Bülow was acquitted in 1985, aided by testimony from eight medical experts who said Sunny’s coma was not caused by insulin.

- Hollywood Flashback: Jeremy Irons Did High-Society Crime in ‘Reversal of Fortune’, HollywoodReporter.com, November 24, 2021.

3. During author Truman Capote’s time in New York high society, he assembled an inner circle of socialite women he dubbed his “swans” – elegant, poised, and presenting a finely curated image of perfection.

But as Feud: Capote vs. The Swans reveals, there’s more to the “swan” nickname than just coiffed white feathers and polished exteriors. The way Capote (Tom Hollander) tells it in Ryan Murphy’s Hulu series, swans may appear effortless, yet tremendous work goes into keeping up the illusion that they are gracefully afloat. The birds’ feet churn furiously below water, just as Capote’s elegant entourage tirelessly labors to maintain their good standing in society. They weather affairs, illnesses, and anxieties in relative privacy, only presenting their most dazzling face to the world.

As a season of television, Capote vs. The Swans follows in its namesakes’ footsteps, its fabulous facade hiding something deeper and more complicated. Big-name stars, promises of Real Housewives-esque drama, and an air of overall glamor lure us into what is ultimately a tragedy of friendships gone irreparably awry.

At the center of all these bonds is Capote, who, aside from being a celebrated author of works like In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, makes a name for himself by regaling New York City’s wealthiest and trendiest with witty stories and hot gossip. Everything from embarrassing bathroom habits to accusations of murder is on the table. Capote’s eager listeners eat it up: As one character puts it, he’s “the most fun there is.”

That tendency for frivolity has made Capote the friend, social guru, and confidant of a host of high society women. Among them are Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloe Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), and the closest and favorite of all his swans, Babe Paley (Naomi Watts).

These friendships come to a spectacular halt when Capote publishes an excerpt from what is meant to be his next novel, Answered Prayers. Titled “La Cote Basque, 1965,” the story features thinly disguised versions of his dear companions – and their most shameful secrets. Capote’s betrayal leads his swans to shun him completely, excising him from the high society he held so dear. A downward spiral soon follows: Capote’s alcoholism surges, and he is unable to focus on Answered Prayers. His trajectory is as bleak as the swans are beautiful.

- ‘Feud: Capote vs. The Swans’ review: High drama in high society, Mashable.com, January 31, 2024.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）