I do not understand where the idea came from that opera is only for privileged people, I am as happy singing before 70,000 people at the Millennium Stadium, as I am in front of a few hundred in a small concert hall.
The film industry is about saying 'no' to people, and inherently you cannot take 'no' for an answer.
Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.