"We had a certain kind of really big prestige among, I suppose not just intellectual folk, but a sort of nice middle class intelligent folk of a very urban nature"
About this Quote
Prestige, in Adolph Green's telling, isn’t the glittering kind you chase; it’s the quiet social currency you discover you’ve accumulated almost by accident. The phrase "a certain kind of really big prestige" is doing double duty: it’s boastful on the surface, then immediately hedged and domesticated by "a certain kind" and "I suppose". Green is both claiming status and puncturing his own claim, the classic comic-writer reflex to undercut sincerity before anyone else can.
His real subject is audience ecology. He draws a fine, slightly prickly map of cultural class: not just "intellectual folk" (the credentialed tastemakers), but the "nice middle class intelligent" urbanites who want to feel adjacent to sophistication without being required to write a dissertation about it. That’s the mid-century Broadway sweet spot Green knew intimately: musical theater that could read as smart, stylish, and modern, without becoming forbiddingly "highbrow". Think of the way On the Town or Singin' in the Rain can be buoyant entertainment while still signaling craft, wit, and metropolitan taste.
The repetition of "folk" softens what could otherwise sound like sociological sorting; it’s affectionate, even as it’s faintly snobbish. "Very urban" is the tell: Green isn’t describing a mass audience but a scene, a set of people who use culture as identity. The subtext is both pride and a comedian’s suspicion of prestige itself: it’s real, it’s flattering, and it’s also contingent on who’s doing the admiring.
His real subject is audience ecology. He draws a fine, slightly prickly map of cultural class: not just "intellectual folk" (the credentialed tastemakers), but the "nice middle class intelligent" urbanites who want to feel adjacent to sophistication without being required to write a dissertation about it. That’s the mid-century Broadway sweet spot Green knew intimately: musical theater that could read as smart, stylish, and modern, without becoming forbiddingly "highbrow". Think of the way On the Town or Singin' in the Rain can be buoyant entertainment while still signaling craft, wit, and metropolitan taste.
The repetition of "folk" softens what could otherwise sound like sociological sorting; it’s affectionate, even as it’s faintly snobbish. "Very urban" is the tell: Green isn’t describing a mass audience but a scene, a set of people who use culture as identity. The subtext is both pride and a comedian’s suspicion of prestige itself: it’s real, it’s flattering, and it’s also contingent on who’s doing the admiring.
Quote Details
| Topic | Nostalgia |
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