# 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:** 5
**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, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/81 "2012-06-07T23:34:14Z")
[QUOTE=Eve] No, dear, the opera came much later: this was based on Henri Murger’s wonderful book Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Many of the chapters are actually hi-larious; the Rodolph and Mimi story is only one chapter. [/QUOTE] > [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > The opera is later than the novel, of course, but well after the novel, premiering in Venice in 1895. I’m almost disappointed to learn it was based on the novel. I liked the notion of a silent opera; I was imagining the movie playing while live musicians and perhaps a live diva in the theater played/sang selections from Puccini. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/82 "2012-06-08T00:31:21Z")
She knits about 4 hours a day, mainly while watching TV. It is her second income, it started out as a combination of hobby and physiotherapy for a hand injury. I like to crochet but I can’t see doing it 4 hours a night :eek: I can pretty much manage an hour before my hands feel like someone has been pounding on them with a rolling pin.☹ ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/83 "2012-06-08T00:43:23Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > How was Good Times blue collar and not poor? They ate oatmeal for dinner. The boys slept in the living room. They sat with their coats on in the living room because there was no heat. They were robbed and mugged. When the daughter got married, her husband moved in because he couldn’t become a football player. Blue collar workers aren’t necessarily poor but can be, and vice versa. From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-collar_worker): > [@](#): > > A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work. From Merriam-Webster: > [@](#): > > of, relating to, or constituting the class of wage earners whose duties call for the wearing of work clothes or protective clothing— Jobs that James lost in various episodes included car wash, dock worker, and filling station, all of which required jumpsuits or other work clothing. [QUOTE=Biggirl] BTW, that always bugged the hell out of me. The man had a college education but since he was injured and couldn’t play football he became a cab driver. WTF? [/QUOTE] That bugged me too, as did the fact that James couldn’t hold down a job. It’s not surprising that a man with a 6th grade education (or whatever grade he had) couldn’t get a _good_ job, but James couldn’t hold onto the shitty jobs, and he wasn’t just going through a bad spell- the show made it clear this was the norm. I think there was something he wasn’t telling Florida. I also never understood why he wouldn’t let her work except in a couple of episodes. She had experience as a maid and managed to work for Maude for at least two years; the work might not be rewarding but it’s reliable money coming in and better than total poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/84 "2012-06-08T00:44:14Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I haven’t seen the series in a while but didn’t he lose his scholarship once he got hurt and couldn’t play? Nope. He was about to get drafted when he blew out his knee. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/85 "2012-06-08T01:23:44Z")
I think the thing about Carrie Bradshaw is that she clearly _couldn’t_ afford her lifestyle. She never has any money (“I just charged tomatoes.”) and needs a lot of help once her living situation is uprooted (Charlotte gives Carrie her engagement ring). Clearly it’s still not 100% realistic, but I can see it considering she’s surrounded by friends who have a lot more money than she does, and she dated an extremely wealthy man on-and-off from the first episode of the series. Also, while the Simpsons is now something totally else, when the show started I thought it did a good, funny job of showing how poor the family is. Everything they owned broke all the time, Santa’s Little Helper’s surgery practically bankrupts them, Homer steals cable and has to buy Christmas presents from the dollar store when he doesn’t get his Christmas bonus, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/86 "2012-06-08T01:36:55Z")
Even if Carrie is supposed to be living beyond her means, it’s still not even remotely believable. It’s as if on _Friends_ the characters were somehow eking out a living in Manhattan by running a lemonade stand and psychiatry booth for 5 cents a session. Carrie wouldn’t be charging tomatoes; she’d be a homeless street person. ---
**Author:** ![Fionn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Fionn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fionn)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/87 "2012-06-08T01:43:38Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I think she did drop out. She didn’t go on welfare, but then her family did win $103 million lottery before the baby was born and that helped a bit.😃 I remember an episode where she was thinking about dropping out of college to take a job offer that paid really well, but I can’t recall when that fit in the timeline. ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/88 "2012-06-08T01:50:07Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > That bugged me too, as did the fact that James couldn’t hold down a job. It’s not surprising that a man with a 6th grade education (or whatever grade he had) couldn’t get a _good_ job, but James couldn’t hold onto the shitty jobs, and he wasn’t just going through a bad spell- the show made it clear this was the norm. I think there was something he wasn’t telling Florida. > I also never understood why he wouldn’t let her work except in a couple of episodes. She had experience as a maid and managed to work for Maude for at least two years; the work might not be rewarding but it’s reliable money coming in and better than total poverty. They were eating oatmeal for dinner and he was to proud to let his wife work? I was, what 10 years old when this show came on and I remember this angering me beyond what a sitcom should be able to anger a pre-teen. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/89 "2012-06-08T04:38:58Z")
> [@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. Grimes: How do you do. Uh, look Homer, I’m, I’m late for my night job at the foundry so if you don’t mind telling m-- [trails off as he looks around the casa de Simpson. The camera momentarily shifts to Grime’s point of view and gives us a 360-degree look at the family’s living room] Good Heavens! This is a palace! H-How can, how in the world can you afford to live in a house like this, Simpson? Homer: I dunno. Don’t as me how the economy works. ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/90 "2012-06-08T09:34:19Z")
The Simpsons are on their fifth mortgage, however, and Abe helped them out initially by selling the family farm. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/91 "2012-06-08T10:00:12Z")
I once watched a movie where the protagonist was supposed to be a part-time journalist. The flat where she lived would have cost more to rent than five normal ones even if it had been normal-sized, simply due to its location on a corner of Barcelona’s Plaza Cataluña. Think of it as being in the NYC building where Lennon used to live. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/92 "2012-06-08T11:42:56Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > 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 don’t want to take the thread on a tangent too much but this paragraph fascinates me. To me, someone living in the UK, this is a perfect description of a working class family. I find it interesting that from an American such a life is still considered part of the middle class spectrum. Given the discussion about these shows is pointing out the disparity between perception of what poverty is and reality itself, and how people never seem to consider themselves working class no matter how poor they are, doesn’t this underscore the point perfectly? I’d like to stress I’m in no way challenging **LavenderBlue** ’s description of their own upbringing or definition of their identity, but it just made me think a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/93 "2012-06-08T11:45:31Z")
> [@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 believe this has been acknowledged by both series - the Frank Grimes episode (which another poster mentioned), where Homer just shrugs the question off, and in _Family Guy_ Joe Swanson (Peter’s neighbour) asks "_How can you afford these things???_ with a mixture of increduility, annoyance, anger, and confusion after Peter has crashed a helicopter and a zeppelin (both bearing the Peter Griffin likeness) into his house. The question is never answered (Peter works in a brewery; his previous job was in a toy factory) but since the Petercopter is at the milder end of Wacky Things Peter Griffin Has Done I don’t think it’s ever really been considered an issue otherwise. As you say, it’s a cartoon. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/94 "2012-06-08T12:13:11Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > I find it interesting that from an American such a life is still considered part of the middle class spectrum. “Working class” is not a description that very many—if any—Americans would use for themselves. It’s simply not part of our cultural language. Also, it seems to me that “working class” doesn’t necessarily mean poor. Isn’t it rather a label for an entire social subgroup? In other words, a plumber is by definition “working class,” but many plumbers are quite well off financially. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/95 "2012-06-08T12:13:31Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > No, she begins the series as a columnist for an alternative weekly, like the _Chicago Reader_, which no journalist could live on no matter what city they lived in. > > Indeed, in real life, such a columnist would either be a freelancer and have other sources of income or would have a regular staff job at the newspaper. But Carrie never seemed to be doing any work other than that one weekly column. She also published a few books. I imagine that if her columns were being collected in book form, her column must have been syndicated. But she was based on a real person - what was her career like? ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/96 "2012-06-08T12:17:30Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > “Working class” is not a description that very many—if any—Americans would use for themselves. It’s simply not part of our cultural language. > > Also, it seems to me that “working class” doesn’t necessarily mean poor. Isn’t it rather a label for an entire social subgroup? In other words, a plumber is by definition “working class,” but many plumbers are quite well off financially. Working class = blue collar, as far as anything = anything when you’re looking at cultural equivalences. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/97 "2012-06-08T12:23:35Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > She also published a few books. I imagine that if her columns were being collected in book form, her column must have been syndicated. But she was based on a real person - what was her career like? Wikipedia lists her life and career as being very similar to Carrie’s. Like with HIMYM (where Barney pays for a lot of their wacky adventures), having rich (and generous) friends can give a person without a fancy job an easier time of living like they have one. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/98 "2012-06-08T12:40:40Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > She also published a few books. I imagine that if her columns were being collected in book form, her column must have been syndicated. That wasn’t until late in the series and it marked the point at which she had made it big, so to speak. > [@](#): > > But she was based on a real person - what was her career like? I believe that Candace Bushnell was a working journalist and writer (I’m thinking freelance) and spent much more of her time working on many more assignments than Carrie Bradshaw ever does. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/99 "2012-06-08T13:07:08Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I believe this has been acknowledged by both series - the Frank Grimes episode (which another poster mentioned), where Homer just shrugs the question off, Grimes never really made any sense to me. The Simpsons house is pretty far from a palace, and again, the cost of living in Springfield must be pretty low. Is it really surprising that a low-level manager at a nuclear power plant could afford a small suburban home? But then, IIRC, Grimes isn’t surprised by Homer’s salary as by the fact that he can be so incompetent in his job and not get fired. Family Guy is of course ridiculous, but then, its supposed to be. > [@Justin Baily](#): > > Like with HIMYM (where Barney pays for a lot of their wacky adventures), having rich (and generous) friends can give a person without a fancy job an easier time of living like they have one. I guess, but having a friend that occasionally pays for a “wacky adventure” or a vacation or picks up the tab at dinner makes sense. But Carrie’s friends seem like they must’ve basically been funding her entire lifestyle. It seems a little weird to have friends that regularly pay the rent on your Manhatten apartment for example. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235/100 "2012-06-08T13:11:35Z")
_Friends_ near the end most of them had jobs which were in consonance with thqeur apparent wealth and even ealier, Rachel, the Geller Sibs and Chandler come from loaded families. You will be amazed how much that can have an effect even if you do not take a penny from them…and I speak from experience how much bank managers suddenly become more reasonable when they learn who mom and dad are. Also Chandler, Monica and Ross at least had high earning jobs almost throughout, especially Chandler. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywoods-idea-of-being-poor/624235.md?page=6)