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 2)
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on May 19, 2004
No cameraman? Hire a new one.
No sound technician? Hire a new one.
No editors? Hire a new one.
No writers? Heh, isn't that standard?

No big name actor? You won't be generating the same kind of money. And /that's/ why they earn more money, because they generate more for the film and some are irreplaceable. (Can you imagine a retarded blockbuster romantic comedy about marriage /without/ Hugh Grant?)

It is not a crime to strive for an ideal. But it's just not right to act like celebrities are evil because they earn a lot of money.
on May 19, 2004
In this world and in these economies, too often, where you end up depends on where you begin.


Something makes me believe that these actors and actresses and athletes began in far worse conditions than in which they are currently. If you have a talent that is unique and can't be replaced by a machine, then you can make it to the top. The system works!
on May 19, 2004
Wow. I almost don't know where to begin. But I'll start here:

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.

The customer, that's who. While it's true that anybody can make a film, and in fact a large number of "anybodies" are needed to make a good film, it takes a special somebody to sell a film. People don't go to the movie theater to see the latest film featuring the work of Key Grip Dave, after all.

Well, maybe some people do, but not nearly enough to pay for Key Grip Dave's rent for a month, let alone pay for the entire cost of the movie with enough left over for the moviemakers to treat themselves to a nice wrap party once the work is done.

But you let it slip that Improbably Attractive Bimbo of the Week Julie is going to be starring in the movie, and the amount of wealth that flows through the economy as a result is amazing--or "obscene", if you have some sort of pathological fear of money.

And let's not forget that when that wealth flows, it gets taxed. And those taxes pay for all those things that those of us who aren't fabulously wealthy celebrity asshats know and love: schools, fire departments, national defense, the EPA... And let's also not forget that the after-tax wealth doesn't sit between Bimbo Julie's mattress and her box spring, no: she spends it on stuff. More wealth flowing, more taxes being skimmed, more income for more people who are all working hard every day to make a living...

And while we're on the topic of working hard to make a living, did somebody in this thread actually say "downright sinful the amount of money these people make for a few weeks of work that they do every year"?

Please. Do you have any idea the amount of hard work (of one kind or another--let's be honest here, and admit that even the casting couch path to success involves hard work too repugnant for most of us to contemplate) it takes to be a successful actor?

If it's only a few week's worth of work, why aren't you an actor? And don't tell me it's because you're not pretty enough: there's tons of ugly actors out there. And most of the "pretty" ones look that way simply due to clever makeup and camera work.

No, the reason we're not all actors is because it's not actually a cushy job. It takes huge amounts of raw talent, huge amounts of hard work, and huge amounts of commitment to a risky career path with an extremely low success rate. Given the choice between trying to be a successful garbage collector and trying to be the next Tom Cruise, I'd take the garbage collector career any day. Less work (yay unions!--now there's an "obscene" system of overpay for underwork, if I ever saw one), and a much higher chance of promotion and lifelong job security. Better pension plan, too.

Tom can keep his millions, and more power to him, for all I care.

Let's see... what else do we have here? Oh:

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.

What are you talking about? The primitive peoples of ancient times had no need for some fabulously wealthy precursor civilization to help them bootstrap their way out of a crap lifestyle of agricultural ignorance, constant malaria epidemics, and low-quality footwear.

Where were the U.N. aid programs when the Persians invented cuneiform? Where was the IMF when the Greeks figured out the principles of Agriculture? Where were the philanthropic Hollywood celebrities when the Europeans got over the Dark Ages?

You're laboring under the impression that the Third World is the exception. In reality, PacDragon is right: the Third World is the rule. If anything, we're the exception, but that's not quite true, either. Rather, we're what happens when people start from scratch, and advance out of primitive barbarism to modern civilization. We all began in the same exact place that the Third World is in right now. The nations of Africa have the same exact opportunities to build a better tomorrow for themselves that all our primitive ancestors had.

Actually, they have better opportunities. The cave-men of ancient times didn't have Doctors Without Borders, or the Red Cross, or the U.N., when illness and malnutrition kicked in. The Etruscans couldn't reach out to wealthy American philanthropists for financial aid every time their crops failed. The primitive Romans have access to a huge catalog of cheaply-printed and cheaply-shipped books on topics ranging from tried-and-true subsistence farming methods to basic principles of hygiene to fundamentals of a democratic system of government. They had to figure it all out for themselves.

Sure, it took them thousands of years, and it cost them a lot in human life and human suffering, but that's totally understandable--they had to make it up as they went along.

The contemporary African nations have access to copious amounts of information, and even the weakest dribblings of aid programs consist of far greater wealth than anything these other primitives had to work with. What's their excuse?

That Hollywood celebrities aren't spending enough? Give me a break.

That the U.S. won't trade fairly with them? The U.S. didn't trade fairly with the Anglo-Saxons, either, and they managed to come up with a strong economy, a stable and relatively just political system, a sound set of agricultural policies, and the Magna Carta. Just for starters. What prevents the ruler (or the people) of Kafiristan from saying, so what if the U.S. doesn't care about us? We know enough to implement subsistence farming and rule of law all on our own. Let's stop bitching and get on with it.

Nobody is entitled to what we have. We're lucky to have it. We got it through hard work and good fortune. Others may end up with less, but it'd have to be a whole hell of a lot less, before I'm convinced they got shortchanged by life in this uncertain and imperfect universe.

Mind you, I don't begrudge the wealth that flows from the wealthy to the downtrodden. But the arguments in this thread about how pathetic the aid levels are, or how much the downtrodden deserve this support, strike me as pretty weak.
on May 19, 2004
Hrm. Formatting error. Oh, well. Clearly, I'm not all that.
on May 20, 2004
Hey Super Baby - If I have a unique talent for masturbation (i'm sure that can't be replaced by a machine) does that mean i can get to the top? Does the system work?

There are many different types of talent out there and all come with a different dollar figure. Because these figures read one thing today, it doesn't mean we should stop questioning what they should read tommorrow.

Just ask yourself next time you've paid $13.50 for Celebrity fueled film and you've been disappointed once again because everything but their smile sucked - was it worth it?

In Australia we're starting to get a lot more films from countries other than the US, and we're starting to like them. No stars, people watch them AND they make money.

Remember - a profitable film is only profitable as a ratio. No use making a billion on a film that cost a billion to make.

Lord of the Rings was the exeption. Wow, a successful triology that started off as being successful without the pulling power of the celebrity A-list. In fact nearly all of them were unknown, theatre types, competent B actors and CG characters. Why was it so successful - poeple were drawn by the story.

Marco XX
on May 20, 2004
"Hey Super Baby - If I have a unique talent for masturbation (i'm sure that can't be replaced by a machine) does that mean i can get to the top? Does the system work?"

If it's a talent that someone is willing to pay to see, then yes. You deserve to make whatever money you generate for providing your service. That's what's so great about the system Sure, it sounds silly, but there's an entire webcam industry where people with that exact talent are making fat wads of cash.

It's not that someone is sitting around deciding what work deserves what pay (like you seem to be wanting to do). It's that some people are able to generate more money. You might feel betrayed by spending $13.50 to see a crap movie, but if enough people liked it then there's no reason the studio (and the big-name actors) shouldn't enjoy those profits, or come up with plans to make future movies using the same money making strategies..
on May 20, 2004
I think a point i was making further up in the thread is that big name movies are no longer all that profitable for studios.

They spend too much on one aspect of the production and spend too much time just trying to break even. A lot of studios are in a lot of financial strife because of production cost blow outs that have more than a little to do with stars asking for big figures and not being able to guaruntee a profitable return (e.g. Gigli)

Also, the criteria of the market is not the only criteria we should use when dealing with aspects of culture such as art, music, cinema and sport. Each have their own standards which judge the relative success and effectiveness of their modes of production.

And people masturbating in front of webcams aren't going to be driving around in Lamborghinis anytime soon.

Marco
on May 20, 2004
Ah, ok. My bad. I thought the point you were trying to make is that you find it offensive that celebrities are wealthy, while people with other talents (or no talent) are not.

If your point is that movie studios that can't make money are doomed to fail, then I concede the argument.

As for webcammers not driving around Lamborghinis, I didn't realize that was the end goal for anyone with sellable talent. Or were you saying that people with sellable talent, that you don't believe is a worthy talent, shouldn't be driving Lamborghinis? Or are you saying the Lamborghini gap should be based on something else besides a person's ability to bring in money?
on May 20, 2004
I think a point i was making further up in the thread is that big name movies are no longer all that profitable for studios.

Which is a totally valid point. If it's a true point, we will start to see more and more movies with low-budget stars, as the studios move towards more profitable models. Or, the studios will miss out, and die off.

Regarding the popularity of foreign movies in Australia, two thoughts occurred to me:

First, that there's more than one way to sell a movie. There's more than one thing that people value in art and entertainment. American Pie satisfies my desire for more Allyson Hannigan, while God of Cookery satisfies my desire for exotic hijinks spawned by a culture I don't understand at all. Perhaps the success of foreign films in Australia speaks more to an unmet Australian desire for exotic stories, than it speaks for an Australian disinterest in star-fronted stories. The two markets are different, and can quite conceivably coexist.

Second, the star of God of Cookery, Stephen Chow, is a no-name actor to me, and the movie is obviously low-budget by Hollywood standards. But by all accounts, Stephen Chow is a HUGE star in Hong Kong, where his infectious smile and aptitude for wacky hijinks apparently sell movies to great effect due to his star power. Likewise, though Hollywood types might sneer at God of Cookery's FX budget, it was pretty spectacluar by HK moviemaking standards. What appears to be a no-name actor in Australia may in fact be one of your hated big-name asshats in India. And what you dismiss as a low-budget film may represent a massive capital investment to the moviemakers. Hopefully, that investment was justified. If it was, the justification probably came in the form of advertising the big-name stars to draw large crowds and generate huge ticket sales.

A lot of studios are in a lot of financial strife because of production cost blow outs that have more than a little to do with stars asking for big figures and not being able to guaruntee a profitable return (e.g. Gigli)

And those studios will either spank the big name stars until they settle down, start using cheaper talent, or die off (and the studio that made Gigli probably deserves to die off, or at least consider dying off).

But it sounds like your argument here is that big-name actors should stop being so greedy, or they'll force the studios out of business. But that's exactly what is supposed to happen. The big-name actors get as greedy as they can, and the studios try to find that sweet spot between getting the biggest selling name they can, and still turn a profit. There's a lot of guesswork invovled, and often the studios guess wrong. Sometimes, the actors guess wrong (e.g., David Caruso).

The fact is, everybody is trying to be greedy. The actor is trying to maximize his paycheck. The producers are trying to maximize their profit margin. You and I are trying to maximize the price:performance ratio of our movie-ticket budget. Have you considered the possibility that you owe it to all the hardworking carpenters, foley artists, film editors, casting directors, and best boys to keep on buying tickets to crappy movies, just to keep the industry alive? After all, these guys depend on your moviegoing dollars. How greedy would you be, to refuse to support them just because you're not gettting what you selfishly consider to be your money's worth of movie?

Also, the criteria of the market is not the only criteria we should use when dealing with aspects of culture such as art, music, cinema and sport. Each have their own standards which judge the relative success and effectiveness of their modes of production.

Art costs money. Artists and entertainers need to eat, too. How else should we judge art and entertainment, other than to find out how much people care about it? Art is understood to be subjective. Its "value" is entirely in the mind of each individual who encounters it. What other possible way do we have, as a community, to judge art, except to take the aggregate values of each individual who has a voice in the debate, and use that as a guide? If the artist can't convince even one person to pay for the cost of materials and labor to create the art, what possible argument could she use instead, to convince us that her work has value to anyone but her?

The government funds a lot of art, true, but that art still costs money. And that money comes from us, as taxes. So when my government decides to subsidize art, what's really happening is that I have granted my elected representatives the authority to make decisions about the value of art, and spend some portion of my wealth to support art. Which is fine. But it should be noted that it's still the same system: we use the marketplace to determine the value of art, just as we use the marketplace to determine the value of anything else. I don't see how it could be any other way, without descending promptly into tyranny and madness.

And people masturbating in front of webcams aren't going to be driving around in Lamborghinis anytime soon.

Right. That's because the system works, not because it doesn't work. People would rather see Gwyneth Paltrow put spooge in her hair than watch you put spooge in your hair. Thus, Something About Mary (and Gwyneth) get paid more money than your average camboy. Sounds about right to me. Where's the injustice?
on May 20, 2004
The fault isn't the movie stars, the fault is ourselves for paying the movie stars. We are them, they are us.

Sorry, but I'm just not seeing the "fault" here.

I'm also not seeing the logic. Gwyneth has done nothing wrong by choosing an acting career, and working hard to be successful in that career, but I'm doing something wrong by supporting her career by paying her to do things I like?

Your generosity in absolving movie stars of all their sins is balanced only by your cruelty in holding the rest of us wholly responsible for those sins.

Personally, I don't find the "actor" career Gwyneth has chosen any more sinful than the "sysadmin" career that pays my own bills. That's what I mean when I think "we are them and they are us". What do you mean?
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