# Hollywood's idea of being poor **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 6, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235 "2012-06-06T03:27:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/41 "2012-06-06T20:51:53Z")
Quite often the wardrobe indicates ‘poor’. The only example I can think of right now is the woman, no matter what her age, wearing a shabby acrylic-looking cardigan sweater, as if for warmth in her cold hovel. As there is currently little difference in fashions that cost megabucks or peanuts, that stupid grandma cardigan signifies dire poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/42 "2012-06-06T20:57:03Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > And Ted is a lead architect on a skyscaper and a prof at NYU. If anything, he’s probably more wealthy then his lifestyle suggests. BTW, does it make sense that Ted is a professor (or even an instructor)? I mean, we know that he and Marshall were undergraduates together, and lived together in Manhattan while Ted worked at an architectural firm and Marshall attended law school. So as far I know, Ted never got a masters or PhD. So does NYU (or whatever school this is supposed to be) hire faculty with just a bachelors degree? (And another thing; Wesleyan doesn’t even have an architecture program.) ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/43 "2012-06-06T21:02:01Z")
This is one thing that South Park gets right. Kenny and Cartman are different shades of poor, and it’s actually fairly girttily accurate. Back in the day, “Alice” got it right as well. ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/44 "2012-06-06T21:03:52Z")
I agree with **ZipperJJ** , _Malcolm in the Middle_ is actually a pretty good call. The “stuff” in the yard and garage and a lack of grass along with room sharing seem pretty reasonable. I don’t think they were poor but definitely teetering on the brink- and presented it realistically. Military school has many methods of paying for it- including state mandated. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/45 "2012-06-06T21:09:30Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Concur. Some people might look at the apparently large acreages some of those people lived on and think they must be quite land-rich, but truth is, that land is probably next to worthless. I’m from Alabama rather than Missouri and my family didn’t traffic in meth, but even so that movie reminded me a LOT of my childhood. The land, the pastures, the stock yard scene, how they spoke (Dale Dickey specifically), the pond, etc., were all familiar. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/46 "2012-06-06T21:22:32Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > I think My Name is Earl did a good job. The two brothers lived in a motel room and Joy and Crabman lived in a crapped out trailer park. On a side note did they ever make note in the series that when compared with their parents, the four main characters have all slipped noticeably down the socio-economic ladder? Earl and Randy’s parents’ house is a comfortable dwelling in a solidly middle class neighborhood while Joy’s parents, while not rich, seemed to earn a somewhat substantial income from her father’s furniture store. Crabman’s also living at an income level lower than his parents but, in his case, it’s out of necessity due to the nature of his real job. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/47 "2012-06-06T21:24:04Z")
I grew up lower middle class. My dad was a mailman and my mom a teacher’s aid. We lived in public housing. Granted it was right across the street from the beach in Brooklyn but it was still lower middle class. College was never a consideration for my parents and money was often scarce or squandered by my parents on silly items. My parents gave me seriously grief aboout reading too many books, not having an after school job and asking them for money to take the SAT. I wore hand me downs from my richer cousins. I loved the show Roseanne. Loved it. Roseanne is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to my life depicted on television only of course funnier and smarter. The main character starts out with a job in a factory and then takes a series of blue collar jobs including magazine telephone salesperson and hair dresser’s assistant. The girls don’t graduate from high school. Dan opens a business only to see it fail. My father did the same thing and then went back to his safe government job. Their house is small and in a mediocre neighborhood. They do typical lower middle class actions like having to ask their own parents for money, kiss a boss’s backside and worry about paying bills. At one point Roseanne gets a wonderful new job only to lose it when they find out she doesn’t have the computer skills they want. One of my favorite episodes is when Roseanne takes Darlene’s class on a trip to the supermarket. She puts the fancy meat back and takes out the meatloaf. Every penny is counted. The only misteps they made when was they tried to indulge in stereotypes about the poor. At one point the Connors get picked to be a Nielsen family and Roseanne bans all the shows Dan likes and tries to pretend she likes PBS. That was a bit phony and came across as talking down to her characters. But the rest of it was often not only realistic but brave, thoughtful and clever. I don’t mean to politicize the thread but I remember being furious that George Bush the First had the nerve to criticize Roseanne Barr. All I could think was hey asshole maybe you should watch her fucking show and learn what life is really like for the people you want to govern. They ruined it the last season with that stupid fantasy year but for a few years it was probably the best thing on television: funny, insightful and above all real. If the show wasn’t quite poverty it was possibly the closest we’ll get to seeing it on mainstream American television. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/48 "2012-06-06T22:59:35Z")
Another point regarding HIMYM that I haven’t noticed (forgive me if someone else has made it and I overlooked it): There’s an episode where Lily and Marshall visit a house outside New York and when they get home their apartment has shrunk so much, they can’t even open the door fully because of the couch. Narrator Ted says this happens to every New Yorker when they go out of town - they realise how tiny their apartments really are when they get home. ---
**Author:** ![Toucanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/49 "2012-06-06T23:34:20Z")
I realize they are cartoons and not documentaries, but I cannot fathom how the Simpsons and the Griffins (from “Family Guy”) aren’t living under a bridge based on the way they blow through money. Even if one assumes each family carries ginormous debt loads, I still don’t see how they can afford all the stuff they buy given they have just one wage-earner. And he doesn’t seem to be pulling down a big salary. Ah, well…it’s just a cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/50 "2012-06-06T23:40:02Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > It’s amazing how much travel and how many vacations so many middle class and blue collar households take; even the Connors from _Roseanne_, as mentioned above one of the more believable crews, went to Disneyworld and Vegas. Really? Two vacations in what, 8 or 9 years? Not to mention that the Vegas trip was paid for by Arnie and Nancy (who invited Dan and Roseanne to be their Best Man and Maid of Honor at their wedding), and the Disney trip, according to Wikipedia happened: > [@](#): > > …when Dan decides to leave the security of his city job to help build the new prison being constructed outside of Lanford. With the pension, final check and retirement money he receives for leaving his job he decides to give his family the vacation they never had taking everyone, including Mark, David, and Roseanne’s mother along to Disney World. Actually I vaguely remember a third where they went somewhere (west?) in a neighbor’s RV. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/51 "2012-06-06T23:44:04Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > I realize they are cartoons and not documentaries, but I cannot fathom how the Simpsons and the Griffins (from “Family Guy”) aren’t living under a bridge based on the way they blow through money. > > Even if one assumes each family carries ginormous debt loads, I still don’t see how they can afford all the stuff they buy given they have just one wage-earner. And he doesn’t seem to be pulling down a big salary. > > Ah, well…it’s just a cartoon. I dunno… Homer is a nuclear engineer after all and other than hijinks-related expenses they seem to be living pretty modestly. They haven’t bought a new car in 23 years, for example! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/52 "2012-06-06T23:50:05Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Really? Two vacations in what, 8 or 9 years? Not to mention that the Vegas trip was paid for by Arnie and Nancy (who invited Dan and Roseanne to be their Best Man and Maid of Honor at their wedding), and the Disney trip, according to Wikipedia happened: > Actually I vaguely remember a third where they went somewhere (west?) in a neighbor’s RV. Los Angeles. And yes, really. If you haven’t known people who are hard working married-with-children types who haven’t been able to take 3 vacations in 9 years, te salut. Much of _Roseanne_ was filmed during the recession of the early '90s which makes it particularly accessible today. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/53 "2012-06-07T00:06:01Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > I dunno… Homer is a nuclear engineer after all and other than hijinks-related expenses they seem to be living pretty modestly. They haven’t bought a new car in 23 years, for example! I don’t think he’s a nuclear engineer (he just has a HS degree). He’s a safety officer for the plant or something. Still, that seems like a low-level managment position, so if anything, I’d think the family seems poorer then it should be. With its eternal tire-fire and failing public school, I can’t imagine the cost of living in Springfield is particularly high. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/54 "2012-06-07T00:09:28Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > BTW, does it make sense that Ted is a professor (or even an instructor)? I mean, we know that he and Marshall were undergraduates together, and lived together in Manhattan while Ted worked at an architectural firm and Marshall attended law school. So as far I know, Ted never got a masters or PhD. So does NYU (or whatever school this is supposed to be) hire faculty with just a bachelors degree? > > (And another thing; Wesleyan doesn’t even have an architecture program.) I sort of assumed he got some sort of higher degree or technical certification or something while Marshall was in Law School. But I think your right that if that’s the case, the show hasn’t mentioned it. Just having a BS in architecture seems like it would be pretty insufficient to teach at the university level or be lead architect on a skyscraper, but then, I have no idea how architecture works. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/55 "2012-06-07T00:10:53Z")
_Everybody Hates Chris_ did a believable job in general of blue-collar lots-of-jobs-but-never-get-much-ahead family, but I never understood their living situation. For example, if they owned that building, why didn’t they rent out more apartments (they only rented to the undertaker)? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/56 "2012-06-07T00:16:56Z")
In any case, Chris Rock said in an interview that he butted heads with the producers of that show. He specifically wanted a show for people like Roseanne’s fans and Sanford & Son’s fans who knew what it was like to dread bill collector phonecalls and live in fear of disconnected utilities, but the powers-that-be (or powers-that-were) didn’t want to go full on poor, and he said that while he thought some of the writers understood being low on money he didn’t think any of them understood the concept of NO MONEY (as in “broke, no credit cards, no savings… no, really, we have _NO_ money”). ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/57 "2012-06-07T00:42:16Z")
Long ago I read a Reader’s Digest-type quip about a Hollywood producer’s kid who had a school assignment to write a story about poor people. It began, “Once upon a time there was a family that was very poor. The father was poor, the mother was poor, the kids were poor, the maid was poor, the gardener was poor, the chauffeur was poor . . .” ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/58 "2012-06-07T03:21:32Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > She wasn’t supposed to be poor, and in one episode she does have to struggle to keep her apartment when it goes from rent to coop. There was an episode where Charlotte called carry out on her spending habits. Samantha & Miranda had the jobs to back up their lifestyles, if not the free time (then again the line between Samantha’s worktime & leisure time was always fuzzy). And of course Charlotte came from old money, married old money, divorced that old money using one of NYC’s top divorce lawyers, then married said divorce lawyer. > [@ZipperJJ](#): > > …In fact, I’d say _Malcolm in the Middle_ was pretty close to this, too. Except they had enough for a kid in military school… > > Still, not poor. I always thought Hal made alot more money then it seemed, just the him & Lois were horrible at money managment, and had to keep spending on on attorney’s fees, fines, military school tuition, and bills from stuff the boys destroyed. > [@LavenderBlue](#): > > …One of my favorite episodes is when Roseanne takes Darlene’s class on a trip to the supermarket. She puts the fancy meat back and takes out the meatloaf… IIRC the funniest part about the scene was she asked the girl who picked out the steak what her father did for a living. He was a _heart surgeon_. Roseanne told her that that was a sensible meal for her famility, then explained to the rest of the girls how to stretch discounted ground beef with generic corn flakes. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/59 "2012-06-07T03:25:03Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _Everybody Hates Chris_ did a believable job in general of blue-collar lots-of-jobs-but-never-get-much-ahead family, but I never understood their living situation. For example, if they owned that building, why didn’t they rent out more apartments (they only rented to the undertaker)? There are only four stories in the building, and Chris’s family lived in two of them. The layout from top to bottom seems to be 4th fl apt - duplex - garden apartment. You never see them in the garden apartment, but presumably they either had a tenant or it was empty. After all, legit tenants weren’t exactly knocking down your door to rent in Bed-Stuy at that time, especially not on the ground floor. It was a dangerous neighborhood, with lots of vacants, and its not that well serviced by transportation. Finally, there are code violations that an overly-legit tenant might complain to the city about (which the undertaker tenant did do, once, when Chris’ dad wanted to raise the rent). Actually existence of the top floor apartment is slightly magical, because the interior stairs are clearly within the duplex, not a public stairway. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2012, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/60 "2012-06-07T03:26:07Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > _Everybody Hates Chris_ did a believable job in general of blue-collar lots-of-jobs-but-never-get-much-ahead family, but I never understood their living situation. For example, if they owned that building, why didn’t they rent out more apartments (they only rented to the undertaker)? There are only four stories in the building, and Chris’s family lived in two of them. The layout from top to bottom seems to be 4th fl apt - duplex - garden apartment. You never see them in the garden apartment, but presumably they either had a tenant or it was empty. After all, legit tenants weren’t exactly knocking down your door to rent in Bed-Stuy at that time, especially not on the ground floor. It was a dangerous neighborhood, with lots of vacants, and its not that well serviced by transportation. Finally, there are code violations that an overly-legit tenant might complain to the city about (which the undertaker tenant did do, once, when Chris’ dad wanted to raise the rent). Really, they’re pretty lucky to have a reliable tenant. Actually existence of the top floor apartment is slightly magical, because the interior stairs are clearly within the duplex, not a public stairway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235.md?page=4)