« Friday Estimates by Klady | Main | Larry King Takes Over The Blog »
April 23, 2006
A Compelling Question
From a John Cassidy piece in The New Yorker entitled, "RELATIVELY DEPRIVED - How poor is poor?," this notion:
In 2001, ninety-one per cent of poor families owned color televisions; seventy-four per cent owned microwave ovens; fifty-five per cent owned VCRs; and forty-seven per cent owned dishwashers. Are these families poverty-stricken?
and
Consider a hypothetical single mother with two teen-age sons living in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, a neighborhood with poor schools, high rates of crime and unemployment, and few opportunities for social advancement. The mother works four days a week in a local supermarket, where she makes eight dollars an hour. Her sons do odd jobs, earning a few hundred dollars a month, which they have used to buy stereo equipment, a DVD player, and a Nintendo. The family lives in public housing, and it qualifies for food stamps and Medicaid. Under the Earned Income Tax Credit program, the mother would receive roughly four thousand dollars from the federal government each year. Compared with the destitute in Africa and Asia, this family is unimaginably rich. Compared with a poor American family of thirty years ago, it may be slightly better off. Compared with a typical two-income family in the suburbs, it is poor.
and
Poor health may be the most dramatic consequence of relative deprivation, but there are more subtle effects as well. Although many poor families own appliances once associated with rich households, such as color televisions and dishwashers, they live in a society in which many families also possess DVD players, cell phones, desktop computers, broadband Internet connections, powerful game consoles, S.U.V.s, health-club memberships, and vacation homes. Without access to these goods, children from poor families may lack skills—such as how to surf the Web for help-wanted ads—that could enhance their prospects in the job market. In other words, relative deprivation may limit a person’s capacity for social achievement.
Of course, I also project this into the self-image of the movie business. Relative poverty in this industry is at an insanely high level. And how does this skew our perception of the rest of the world, aka The Relatively Poor Suckers Who Pay For The Houses In Malibu?
Posted by poland at April 23, 2006 06:05 PM
Comments
Kellie Pickler says: y'all ain't seen no poor 'til y'all done seen mah trailer park.
Posted by: waterbucket ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 23, 2006 08:18 PM
"We're not white trash!"
"Well, look what it's done for Britney Spears..."
Posted by: Goulet at April 23, 2006 09:22 PM
...so...
What are people's predictions of United 93's opening weekend?
;)
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at April 24, 2006 12:55 AM
It's not good to be poor, but I'd rather be poor in 2006 than in 1906...heck, I'd still take it over being "poor" in 1986. The book to read is the Progress Paradox...it'll put anyone who believes we're not well off or declining in their place...even movie moguls!
As for United 93...I'll say at least $20M. I don't think people will line up to see it...but I think people who are scared away or repulsed by it are going to be the exception. As EW pointed out, 9/11 docs have been big numbers for TV.
Posted by: Eric N at April 24, 2006 09:24 AM
$8/hr for working in a pre-Katrina, Ninth Ward supermarket? Don't think so. As an ex-30-year New Orleans resident, I can say that the sad fact is she probably would have been earning not much more than minimum wage.
Posted by: Scott at April 24, 2006 01:31 PM
Obviously there are two different kinds of wealth or "capital": monetary/material capital and social capital. They work profoundly differently. To just discuss material possessions is missing the point, because every homeless person in the country could be given an iPod, but that wouldn't make them any less poor or homeless. I'm watching "Rize" and it's weird how the dancers in the film don't think they can make it in Hollywood just because the people there seem snobby. That kind of internal sense of poverty is much more complex than just the external one.
Posted by: palmtree at April 24, 2006 02:07 PM
What's the argument here? That things aren't so bad for poor people because they have color TVs? So that therefore taxes could be higher to pay for more social programs? And I think I missed how this connects to Hollywood beyond the obvious fact that New Yorker liberals and Hollywood liberals are probably equally as misguided and ignorant about the poor.
Posted by: jeffmcm at April 24, 2006 02:24 PM
I just found out who Kellie Pickler is. I guess it's a sign that you're getting old, when what formerly would have been ironic pop-culture gold is just another boring, stupid kid.
Posted by: jeffmcm at April 24, 2006 09:41 PM
The writer ignores his own evidence to make his case for deprivation. Maybe Moms should be getting some money from the boys, ya think? No broadband? Don't buy the stereo gear. Lack of access to SUV's and cellphones will limit their "social achievement"? What the @$%#! does that mean? They won't learn how to barrel down the highway slurping gas and scaring all the Mini Cooper drivers? They won't learn how to be even less polite by yakking on a cell phone, dropping F-bombs while they wait in line at Radio Shack to buy some more gadgets? And what happened to the "DVD player" and the "Nintendo" the guys bought in the second cited paragraph? By paragraph three, they are examples of things they are deprived of. This is some shoddy thinking here, and tendentious in the extreme. One obviously doesn't need to be living in the best part of town to be a spoiled punk teen anymore, of any color, creed, or sneaker brand. If these teen-age sons are enterprising enough, they can make off with some of the billions of dollars of aid that is now flowing to arguably one of the most corrupt cities in one of the most corrupt states in the country. Did you see that FEMA is already suing to get millions of dollars back from scammers and frauds? It's the tip of a dirty iceberg, but never fear, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will provide cover for the thieves by imputing racism to anyone calling for honesty and common sense in this matter. Back to Moms, poor Moms; her own sons don't even help her out, so just who is depriving precisely whom of exactly what?
Posted by: Erik Jay at April 24, 2006 11:15 PM
Now that was a rant!
Too bad it was too angry to be convincing of anything.
Posted by: jeffmcm at April 24, 2006 11:29 PM
I came back to see what might have been added here ... and here's this "jeffmcm" fellow calling ME angry, after he called someone a "boring, stupid kid." But I suppose he meant it ... what? ... nicely? What a laugh! I don't know what this guy read between the lines, but I am rarely angry; discouraged and irked by shoddy thinking, yes, but I don't let anything stop me from smiling most of the time and singing silly ditties to my dogs. But I will certainly admit that I don't suffer fools and excuse-makers well. I stand by everything I said above, and now I am even laughing about it — and at the silly response this guy posted, especially considering his longer post (above) with which I agree 100% ... and since he is certainly smart enough to know that we are in agreement, perhaps I just said a few things he wished he'd said himself. Anyway, read his long post and mine; same points.
Posted by: erikjay at June 3, 2006 11:27 AM
I did not write a longer post above. I don't know what Erikjay is talking about, and we are not in agreement. His words go overboard, in my opinion.
Posted by: jeffmcm at June 3, 2006 01:56 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)