Remember the 1936 movie My Man Godfrey? Carole Lombard is a charming but spoiled rich girl who on a treasure hunt to find a "Forgotten Man" meets down-and-out William Powell, who's living on an ash heap alongside the East River in upper Manhattan, just blocks from classy Sutton Place. On a whim, she decides that he will be her "protege" and she hires him as their new butler -- her eccentric family has a history of wearing down their domestic help with their bizarre exploits. Being a Hollywood film, she falls in love with him and in the end they get married, but not before Lombard and her even more spoiled sister have learned some lessons about treating people decently, no matter what their station in life. (And being a Hollywood film, it has to be that Powell is actually a blue blood from Boston who's down on his heels -- it wouldn't do for there to be marriages across economic strata lines. Such marriages in Hollywood movies always come to a bad end.)
During the Depression, movies like Godfrey which displayed the excessive lifestyle of the rich and powerful were very popular, especially if they were comic and the rich folks in it were vaguely ridiculous. Like the over-the-top extravagances of the Busby Berkeley musicals, people enjoyed both the vicarious thrill of experiencing the lavish lifestyle of the upper crust, and the subtle put-down of them: clearly most of them didn't deserve what they had. (Most of the worst offenders had inherited or married their wealth -- in Godfrey, for instance, although it's never explicitly stated, the father is a businessman who seems to have earned his money and then married into wealth. By the code of these films, that should make him an OK guy, and indeed the film is much more sympathetic to him then it is to the rest of his family.)
Anyway, these thoughts came to mind when I read this story, from Deadspin:
So, less than a month after you've won the Super Bowl, you've got a bevy of entertainment options and endorsement opportunities. Or, you can just ignore both and sleep on a beach somewhere, maybe make out with balding country music stars your wife, just take it easy.
Or: You can accept $200,000 to show up at a Sweet Sixteen party.
According to one of the (anonymous) party attendees, Manning spent the past weekend as the main attraction at a girl's Sweet Sixteen party; he was rumored to have been paid $200 grand for a two-hour appearance. (Cedric the Entertainer was also there, which must have been confusing, since "The Entertainer" is also Peyton's nickname.)
According to an attendee:
"The first hour was the actual birthday ceremony which included Manning hiding behind a cake with a baker's hat on, then Manning took off the hat and surprised the birthday girl and the rest of the crowd. The second hour was Peyton standing next to a background and a professional photographer, where the entire party lined up to take pictures with him one by one. The pictures were printed and framed and given to the guests as they left."
If Daddy's Little Girl just has to have Peyton Manning at her Sweet Sixteen party, then Daddy's Little Girl will get Peyton Manning. No self-respecting father would let a couple of hundred thousand dollars get in the way of their daughter's happiness.
My prediction: we're not in anything even remotely similar to the Great Depression, but the increasing divide between the Haves and the Have Nots, and the deterioration of the state of the middle class, augers well for the return of movies and TV shows which feature the bizarre and ridiculous (or callous and arrogant) behavior of the rich and famous and powerful. Superficially, they may look as if they envy their subjects, but they'll also be undermining them at the same time.
(As for Manning -- does he really need the money that badly, that he would put his dignity up for sale like that? Is he not paid enough? One would hope that perhaps he did it for a friend, in which case, why charge a fee -- if the report is correct.)
absolutist
aggresive
anti-Constitutional
anti-intellectual
arrogant
authoritarian
blame-placers
blameworthy
blinkered
buckpassers
calculating
class warriors
clueless
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con artists
conniving
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craven
criminal
crooked
culpable
damaging
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dogmatic
doomed
fanatical
fantasists
felonious
hateful
heinous
hostile to science
hypocritical
ideologues
ignorant
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isolated
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Trent Lott
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"Catch-22"
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Fela
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"Singin' in the Rain"
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Talking Heads/David Byrne
Tangerine Dream
Hunter S. Thompson
J.R.R. Tolkien
"2001: A Space Odyssey"
Kurt Vonnegut
Yes
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the story so far
unfutz: toiling in almost complete obscurity for almost 1500 days
If you read unfutz at least once a week, without fail, your teeth will be whiter and your love life more satisfying.
If you read it daily, I will come to your house, kiss you on the forehead, bathe your feet, and cook pancakes for you, with yummy syrup and everything.
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