What I do when I should be studying...or not taking part in a Reality Television show
In Cannes recently, along with all the rough diamonds that humanity can provide and all its glitz and glam, there has been a strike going on to protest the cuts in unemployment benefits that the French have had to suffer.

Now to put it in context, film festivals and strikes are the two things that the French know how to do with consummate ease. It would be hard to discern whether the French prefer a good film festival or a good strike, both having merits that are peculiar to themselves.

While the strikers and paparazzi had to humble themselves with the public places of Cannes, Hollywood’s young gods are having parties in the divinely expensive and Olympian privacy of the Hotel du Cap. The Carlton (another luxurious hotel which usually harbours divinity when it comes into Cannes) has only just been able to provide full service after they threatened their striking staff with the hiring of replacement workers if they didn’t leave their god forsaken socialist selves at the door.

The thing that makes this interesting to me is that this provides the perfect example of a trend that is emerging in the wider world.

Are we soon two become a two-tier economy, with the top tier being, comprised entirely of A-list celebrities and A-grade/Premier League sports stars, crushing the rest of us who are running nations and economies purely to support their wages and whims.

It would not be inconceivable to imagine a world in which these “Blessed ones” (as a category we should limit this species to humans who earn, lets say, over $20 million a year and have their pictures in the mags and rags at least 3 times a week) choose to inhabit a whole continent (why do I suspect that they would choose North America, or maybe I’m disregarding the lazy luxury of the tropics).

They just buy it all up like Real Estate and pay all who had previously considered themselves to be Canadian American and Mexican to move to Australia - a vast empty continent, which is close enough to America to ease the suffering of those recently bereaved of their countries. The Mexicans and Canadians might be disappointed though.

This new “Super Continent”, a place that needs no power stations because they have personalities that light up all on their own, will be a resource sucking, movie making, make-up wearing, blockbuster making, and world record breaking machine.

Of course the rest of the world will be consigned to a lifetime of slavery. Producing the frocks and booze and drugs and self help books that this nation of defective light bulbs needs.

Supposedly they don’t need food, but this won’t make it any easier as we will have to sell our harvests to pay bribes to educate our children. The enlightened ones of La-la Land have deemed education heretical as it hurts their box office takings.

Of course there would be an entire nation of lawyers to take care of their breaches of international law. I would think that this would be the entirety of Great Britain, that country that has had so long an esteemed judicial tradition.

This all sound like fantasy, but if the salaries, contracts and percentages of films keep on going up – it’s going to sound more like common sense for them and more like slavery under new masters for us.

It would be better of each of them buying an entire, single nation and having the entire population bowing out their feet. This way at least we wouldn’t have to put up with the bastards wondering around in our midst.


Comments (Page 1)
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on May 19, 2004
Good article. The amount of money these people make is obscene. And the way some spend it is even more obscene.
on May 19, 2004
I agree. It is obscene.

For the life of me I can't think of one single justification for the pay checks. People who risk life and limb on a daily basis don't get 1/500th of the pay these people get, and all they risk is a bad review (Hush little baby, did that nasty critic hurt you, let Mommy make it better).

I was only half joking when i wrote this blog. If these people keep on getting paid more and more, there will be noticeable effects on economies. Most people who have wealth behind them are at least responsible for comapanies or ideas that drive economies and provide goods and services. These people provide neither, and their contribution to the culture industry, proportionaly when measured against total screen time, etc, is negligable. Too much money that contribute to little.

And this in an environment where it has been proven that you do not need "stars" to ensure the success of a film. You just need a good film and imaginative marketing.

As for sports "stars"...i won't even start
on May 19, 2004
Until the buying public looks deep into what these people are they will be able to continue on the path they are on now. Until the public decides it has had enough of forking out $20.00 to $100.00 for tickets to plays, ball games (all), and concerts these so called super stars will again continue on their marry way. $20,000,000 for a movie that takes only a couple of months to make is another reasons movie prices continue to raise.

Those who pay for this have yet to figure that they are being taken for a ride, and until they do. . . .

Also, remember that these self appointed gods think they should control the governments of the countries they live in, hence, you are facing another problem.

Pam
on May 19, 2004
Pam,

So true. Arnie as govenor. The soul trembled when it was a possibility. I don't even know what I feel knowing it as reality.

And you're right. It is our fault. We continue to pay, they continue to profit.

Marco XX
on May 19, 2004
Yes, it's downright sinful the amount of money these people make for a few weeks of work that they do every year, especially when we have in this country little old ladies cutting their heart pills in half becasue they can't afford the high costs of medication, or deciding on food this week? or medicine? Hey, I know! Why don't they all donate a million from their multi-million dollar salaries to something that will make this country better!? For one example, how about the North Eastern "ancient" power grid? Maybe they could fix that with some of the money. After all, even Central Park West got dark last year for a couple of days. They should all be hanging their heads in shame on that "red carpet" rather than showing off their bling-bling! Tsk, tsk, tsk....SHAME on them!
on May 19, 2004
Entertainment figures are rich because people buy their stuff. If people didn't buy their stuff, they wouldn't be rich.

Someone thinks what they do is valuable because they pay for it.

on May 19, 2004
Debidoll - even if they gave 50% of their incredible incomes, it would be enough to relieve an astonoshing amount of suffering. I know that some of them try, but to often it turns out to be a public relations stunt that hopes to catch a ride on the back of "fashionable" causes. Sometimes they even end up "profiting" from their very public attempts at "alturism"

Madine - I agree with your position. Pam also made a similar comment and it is true that we freely offer our shoulders and spines so they can stand in triumph over a mound of humanity. It is ironic and shameful that the same industry that plays us as emotional harps and uses us as the walking trail to get up top, usually sells us back this humanism - and it makes a pretty penny doing it.
on May 19, 2004
How /dare/ those bastards be rich and successful. Every dollar they make is one less dollar you could have had! Yes, we must crush the wealthy and divide up the spoils between the rest of us. Then life will be fair and we'll live in the EUtopia we've all dreamed of, with our rainbows & unicorns.

*rolls eyes*
on May 19, 2004
I don't envy them their wealth. I don't wish it upon myself. I tried to paint a picture of a world in which individuals are making more than the entire GDP of nations.

I don't find it extensively worrying on any sort of moral dimension. I do find it worrying for its economic and social ramifications. I don't mind a pay system based on meritocracy, but i would want that meritocracy to be based on standards that are both prgamatic and just.

Don't you?

Marco XX
on May 19, 2004
But who is to judge what merits a high salary and what doesn't? The current system tends to give the best salaries to people who generate the most money. Any other system tends to break. Do you have an alternate econimic system in mind?
on May 19, 2004
No i don't.

I am not one of those people who believes that the free market and capitalism exclude fairness and even-handedness. I believe that people do that.

Just because someone gets paid a certain amount, it does not mean that they are compelled to spend it all on themselves. Redistribution of wealth does not have to come through the blood shed of revolution, but it has been proven through history that the tight-fisted actions of individuals can be revolutions precursor and cause.

Alternates never come from the "I", always from the "we". The first option is called dictatorship.

Marco XX
on May 19, 2004
But when people spend money on themselves, they /are/ redistributing the wealth. It doesn't go into some black hole, it's going directly to the people who are providing goods & services to the spender. Then /those/ people have money that they can spend. Bloody revolution only benefits the people who aren't receiving money through their own work.

We don't live in a society that prevents people from generating their own wealth (many of us, anyway). Anyone who can provide something that people are willing to pay for can improve their lot in life.
on May 19, 2004
Living in societies where the ability to generate wealth is increasingly dependent on education and the ability to generate, store and process information - many are lacking even the ability or opportunity to find work that will give them above subsistence wages.

In Australia the minimum wage is around $490 a week. There is a startingly large proportion of Australians on this wage. This is not enough to give a quality of life that would allow the development of all a persons potential.

This is a developed nation. Imagine the third world. What opportunity to you have to generate wealth if you can't even eat and you suffer medical conditions brought down upon you by this malnutrition and you can't afford the medical bills that would get you well again.

In this world and in these economies, too often, where you end up depends on where you begin.

Marco
on May 19, 2004
But why should people who aren't able to generate money be given access to luxury goods? Here in San Francisco, just $250 a week can get you a downtown apartment ($600/month), with money left over for food, BART tickets (the subway) and classes at the City College. It sounds like the lowest common denominators are able to get the basics that they need. What they don't have is cash left over for luxury goods, services, and nice houses.

Our ancestors had to work their asses off just to not die in the winter time. If your life is in /any way/ easier than "gotta work my ass off so I don't freeze to death during the cold season", then you should count yourself damn lucky.

Now, if what you're saying in your article is that we spend too much of our extra money on luxury goods (like going to the movies), making the people behind those things wealthy, and we should stop because we should spend our money elsewhere, then I think that's totally valid. You can spend your money wherever you wish.

But it's 100% wrong to vilify celebrities just because they have a lot of money. They did /earn/ that money. They provided a service that generates a lot of cash, so it's very easy to distribute much of that directly to them. Their wealth does not come at the expense of anyone else, beyond those who chose to pay for that service.
on May 19, 2004
There is no crime in striving for an ideal.

There is a crime in denying the vast majority of humanity what is possible.

As for the proportional contribution of stars in films, that's a point that can be argued.

No cameraman - no film

No sound technicians - no film

No editors - no film

No writers - definitely no film (unless you classify porn as cinema)

Continue ad infinitum

Who is to say that any of these other people involved in the production of a film/TV series/etc deserve less of a reward than those that are most visible.

I don't mind paying people well for a job they excel at. I just don't agree with the perpetuation of excess. Moderation applies to more than just diet and the consumption of alcohol.

Marco XX
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