Hollywood's idea of being poor

Cafe Society
61

I have a friend who knits [or crochets, can’t remember offhand] using reclaimed yarn from yard sale/flea market/goodwill store knit goods she unravels. Last cardigan I tried on from her she sold for over $500US, and she admits that it should have sold for $750 but she wanted a fast sale. There are other yarn craftspersons who sell stuff for more than that because it is had spun homegrown vicun~a and stuff like that.

I remember the shopping trip episode, at the time I had a roomie who liked the show, and occasionally I had the evening off and would sit and watch it with him.

Meh, we didn’t take much in the way of vacations from 1990 to 2003, the Navy doesn’t like to have guys take lots of time off when they are on a boat, and he spent a fair amount of time on subs, only had about 4 years total shore duty - and then he had to try and work vacations in around the other guys in the division and job requirements. Lots of little 2 and 3 days off mainly. I would put a Navy family firmly in upper lower class/very low middle class. Definitely married with-furry and feathery kids [sheep, poultry :D]

I got into an argument with a vice president of the last company I worked for when they changed the dress code in the week between paychecks. I pointed out that I didn’t have the money for a new work wardrobe and he had no concept of what it meant when I informed him I have NO credit cards when he told me to put the new wardrobe on my credit cards … :smack::dubious::rolleyes: and I pointed out that probably half the people in the call center and some of the other departments were in the same fix, and that most people didn’t actually have credit cards, they use the bank debit cards for their purchases, and probably most of the people he saw out shopping did the same.

SIGH I would love to be able to whip out a credit card or charge card and not worry about having either enough in the bank to pay it off at the end of the month or be able to make the payments on it. My dad could do that, he had a $100 000 US credit line on one of his cards [He had a balance on it of $59, a tank of gas. sigh]

62

Does she knit “shabby acrylic-looking cardigans” and sell them for $500? No one was saying every sweater was a sign of poverty. Salinqmind was talking about the poorly made things constructed from cheap plastic-y looking yarn.

If she’s selling those for half a grand each, let me know. I need to grab some old McCall’s patterns and dollar store yarn and start cashing in.

63

$500 :eek:? I’ve never even held a pair of knitting needles in my life, but sign me up for lessons!

64

It’s a documentary, rather than a Hollywood series, but an excellent depiction of gritty poverty on TV these days is MTV’s Teen Mom.

65

No, she does all sorts of kids. She will knit anything from one of your basic iceland cableknit sweaters through any pattern you can find for a sweater from one with Starry Starry Night to pound puppies. See, people donate/throw away/sell all ranges of sweaters from the crappy commercial acrylic stuff from walmart through antique alpaca/cashmere seriously expensive stuff. Right now she is working on a shawl from a pattern that looks like a giant spiders web [sort of, it is just really lacy] that the yarn for is like $40 a skein :eek:

66

Both girls graduated from high school and Darlene goes to college.

67

Only one got knocked up, Darlene, but she was in college and had a plan all worked out. She didn’t drop out and go on welfare as so many ‘poor’ girls are assumed to do.

68

Well, the show always played up the fact that Earl’s father is quite ashamed of what his son had become – petty thief, criminal record, and all that. Once Earl got his lottery winnings and began his quest to become a better man, he quite often mentioned that he had disappointed his father, and sought to correct the situation, often with very hilarious results!

The show did do a very good job depicting “trashy” folk like Earl, Randy, and Joy, I think.

69

The Frank Grimes episode of The Simpsons dealt with Homer’s financial lifestyle by saying “Don’t ask me how the economy works.”

70

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.:smiley:

71

Shameless does a pretty good job of depicting poverty, although the plots can get a bit farcical.

72

[QUOTE=aruvqan]
I got into an argument with a vice president of the last company I worked for when they changed the dress code in the week between paychecks. I pointed out that I didn’t have the money for a new work wardrobe and he had no concept of what it meant when I informed him I have NO credit cards when he told me to put the new wardrobe on my credit cards … :smack::dubious::rolleyes: and I pointed out that probably half the people in the call center and some of the other departments were in the same fix, and that most people didn’t actually have credit cards, they use the bank debit cards for their purchases, and probably most of the people he saw out shopping did the same.
[/QUOTE]

Some bosses are just flatout clueless.

I worked for a non-profit medical y once. The boss was the wife of a retired Colonel, both she and her husband were from wealthy families, and her salary of around $50,000 from the agency (which I will freely admit she more than earned-worked 80 hour weeks routinely), while obviously bigger in and of itself than any of her employees earned, was a fraction of her household income. She loved to wine and dine local doctors and medical students at nice restaurants- the type where most people go once a year if that- at least once or twice a month; the organization paid for whoever the person being hosted was, but employees not only had to pay for their own, they were expected to attend at least every other one.

There was another woman there who was the wife of a surgeon, and there was a physician’s assistant who worked for the program and probably had an income at least in the very high 5 figures, and for them this was doable, but she honestly had no clue that most of us lived exclusively on our incomes if we were single, and for those who were married-with-children they just didn’t have disposable income and this was a major financial imposition. The P.A. was the only one of the rich trio who seemed to understand- he complained about it to her and she laughed it off as if he were teasing her. She would actually get pissy if you didn’t attend these events.

I only kept that job a few months. After I left I understand she got furious because she took some med students or whatever to dinner and nobody else showed up, and it got really ugly with people threatening to quit and her crying at the mutiny and the like. The place is still in operation but hers is the only name that I recognize from my time there.

The weird thing is that I’ve known college professors like this. They not only bitch non-stop about their own salaries but seem to assume that most if not all of their students are from rich families and having the time of their lives (on Mommy & Daddy’s credit cards) once class gets out- if they come to class. When I was in school I had to miss more than a few classes 100% due to my work schedule, and I could have been locked away if I’d acted on any of the violent fantasies I had when the professor would go on about how “some of you are too busy partying at the local nightclubs or going to concerts to come to class”. (I remember thinking and occasionally almost saying “No, asswipe, I was busy taking shit from a boss who has flat out told me and other students in her employ she doesn’t give a damn about our school schedules and trying to write a paper or keep up with reading in the rare 5 minute break here and there- one of those things that 25 years later still pisses me off to think about, and my social life involves a drive through window and hoping my lights don’t get turned off this month, which in spite of your continual moaning about your pay I’m guessing you don’t have to worry about”, or something like it, and this was with multiple professors over the years who didn’t realize that yes, some students really do still struggle to go to school.)

73

Agreed, and it was a departure, because Hollywood usually shows modern rural poverty as something out The Hatfields & The McCoys, with stumped-toothed actors in string ties and gingham frocks in interiors sparsely decorated with furniture from an 1890’s living history farm.

74

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.

75

A bachelor’s degree might actually be plausible in this situation, but it wouldn’t be a BS. Instead, it would be a five-year Bachelor of Architecture, according to this site still one of the three acceptable degree plans for qualifying as an architect. There is such a thing as a BS in architecture but it’s more on the academic side so the student would then need to obtain a M.Arch. degree.

76

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.

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?

77

The opera is later than the novel, of course, but well after the novel, premiering in Venice in 1895.

78

In that case, I agree.

Which makes her home situation implausible - even though I won’t speculate on what the rent control deal was like in the past, nevermind what it’s like today - and her financial situation flat out preposterous.

79

I imagine she’s probably faster, but that would be about $5 an hour for me, and I’ve been knitting for years.

80

I haven’t seen the series in a while but didn’t he lose his scholarship once he got hurt and couldn’t play?