The Media's Portrayal of Preppy

The media, specifically the entertainment industry, portrays preppy women and men in unique and over-exaggerated ways. Identifying stereotypes assigned to preppy people is not incredibly important in surpassing negative typecasting or marginalization in the media, but I still find it interesting to examine how preppy people are portrayed. I've identified two types of preppy, country club-esque preppiness characterized by argyle, pastel colors, and alligator embossed sweaters and new wealth preppy characterized by fake tans, gold chains, and huge sunglasses. The first form of preppy often comes attached to wealth and intense neurosis or intense laziness. Sometimes they play the super controlling and anal-retentive best friend or mother and sometimes they play the lazy frat boy who doesn't need to do anything as they'll inherit their parents wealth and/or big bucks empire. Below are a few pictures of characters who fulfill this type of preppy.

Above is Taylor Townsend from the popular teen show The O.C. and Andy Bernard from the Office. Taylor represents the neurotic preppy who has a rough family life and tries to take control of life through controlling others. She's actually a bit of a tragic character because her preppy guise is all part of her trying to fit in, and in some ways she superimposes the preppy stereotypes upon herself in order to fulfill some standard she fells she needs to reach. In some ways preppiness in the media is used to represent misguided or misunderstood characters. Andy Bernard above spends all his time talking about his ivy league education at Cornell and flaunting his bow tie collection, but he has absolutely no game and is constantly failing at picking up a girl in the office who already really likes him. He's a hilarious character and is completely lovable as he's very genuine in his pursuit of her and his pursuit of the other's acceptance, but he seems to use preppiness to pretend to be something he's not. Only the makers of the documentary in the show are able to capture his true side.

Below is a video for Smirnoff alcohol that blatantly pokes fun at the phoniness that is preppiness. Preppy people in the media are often portrayed as fake. While some of them are used to represent troubled characters like Taylor and Andy, some are used to represent the necessary big jerk. Sure, people who attend prep schools and wear lilly pulitzer and vineyard vines can be perfectly nice, but often they're used as the prop for making jokes about wealth and privilege. This video is really funny, and it also represents an amazing advertising feat. I appreciated all the preppy terminology they use, including "wasp," "Martha's vineyard," "Greenwich," "New England," "yacht," "ivy league educations," topsiders." Many of these words don't naturally involve preppiness, but have become associated with wealthy, preppy, people over the course of what I imagine has been many years. This video epitomizes for me the way the world views people who attend prep school. Of course, this is a huge over-generalization, and I've spent countless hours convincing friends from home that the people at my school aren't all like this.

What is appealing about having character's like this in television shows? Besides for often being humorous, it seems this lifestyle is not exactly envied by many people but reminds us all of what we're working for in our lives. These people are prospering. They have money, they have girls, and they have tangible success. A lot of us aren't looking for polo shirt filled futures complete with yachts and crochet. We might look to find other means of success, but at some point it would be nice for all of us to have tangible success like them. We might want homes or cars or children or businesses of our own.

The West Coast preppy portrayed in the media often represents success in beauty and looks. West Coast preps are portrayed as stunning yet overly made up and tanned, something that while we might not strive for, represents an ideal that many of us look towards. Looks matter a lot in our culture, probably a lot more than they should, and we all have goals for perfect bodies or nicer skin. Some of us just want to be comfortable in our own skin, like these confident people on television are. The below video shows Smirnoff's representation of West Coast preppy. The guys are wearing tight v-neck shirts, the girls close to nothing. The hit words they use to represent the wealthy preppy population of the west coast are "botox," "new wealth," "higlights," "platinum blonde," "implants," "gated community," "designer sunglasses," and "life coach." These words are not inherently preppy but they're used often when describing apparent west coast preppiness.

It's easy to identify the stereotypes of preppy people, from both the east coast and the west coast, but its difficult to identify why these characters appear so often in television and movies. There are many representations of wealth and beauty that can be used in television. It's really not necessary to have wealthy people wearing preppy clothes anymore for people to understand that they're of the upper class. I wonder if it has something to do with the accessibility of stereotypes pertaining to preppiness. We've all been exposed to the media's representation of preppy time and time again and have learned the little undercurrents that run from preppy character to preppy character. Maybe the media uses preppy characters because we're predispositioned to believe they'll be beautiful but troubled, wealthy but snotty. In some ways preppy characters could be short cuts, used to represent the exact things the director or writer believes the public believes of preppy people or they could be used to surprise us. When we see a preppy person who is nice in television it's often surprising. When we see a preppy person who works really hard it's often surprising. The preppy character can be used in many different ways, but they all seem to represent some form of financial and aesthetic success.