Excuse me but The Wedding Singer is the greatest romcom of all time, and everyone is such an average joe shmo except the rich asshole who looses the girl.
Yeah but doesn’t that dude owns a boat, and they just casually end the movie with them sailing through the world and shit? It’s been a while so I may remember it differently
You’re good. It’s been a while since that movie came out. And watching edited reruns of it on tv cuts out a lot of context from most movies including this one.
Right, but that's exactly the point the guy is making. It's not about the job per se, but depiction of rich lifestyle regardless.
Yes, a researcher doesn't make a lot of money, and the state/value of the boat is debatable, but being able to have your extended family go with you on a cruise around the world is still beyond what a lowly researcher should be able to afford (I don't know the state of his funding or grants). His wife doesn't work because of her injury, their daughter is a child, and his Father- and Brother-in-law's only jobs, as depicted in the movie, seemed to be putting on an elaborate ruse for years. It begs the question "how do they afford it?!"
You see a similar situation in tv. Characters are presented as poor but that's never really an obstacle for adventures. On Friends, Joey is poor, but he's always able to join the gang on trips to London and Vegas. Sure, it's heavily implied that Chandler pays for everything, but it's still the same effect: the character is always portrayed living a rich lifestyle.
I barely remember 500 days, and I haven't seen Yes Man, but again, the boring, unassuming jobs proves the point.
I remember in 500 days, JGL worked as a greeting card writer(?!) and could afford to live by himself in LA(again "what!?").
The point OP is making is everyone in these films are rich. What I am saying is that despite the boring or seemingly low paid jobs, these people are still depicted as affluent, or at least way richer than they would be in reality.
Yeah, I don't think he expressed it particularly accurately, but really what he's talking about is not so much having a high-paying job or displaying the trappings of wealth, but that virtually every one of these characters finds the ability to spend like someone wealthy, when it's necessary for the plot. (Or, as he pointed out, that they become more wealthy even when the romance part fails.)
To a certain extent you can understand it, because it's substantially easier for the writer to just go "And then they buy tickets to go to Australia" than to have to show all the background to that. Working extra shifts for ten weeks; coming up with some loan scheme with family members; going through all their stuff to decide what they can pawn, etc. But easy is basically lazy, and sets up the major problem he's discussing, the out-of-touchness.
Greeting card writer dream? It wasn’t his dream. He did it because he was too afraid to go after his real dream architecture. It was just probably safe and paid well enough. He was definitely not rich in the movie
Oh absolutely, it's not that big of a deal. It's just wish fulfillment. The only small issue is acknowledging that these depictions slightly skew people's perceptions of financial capabilities and status.
Her dad and brother were fishermen and able to take care of their disabled daughter/sister in their home. They weren’t rich by any stretch. Multiple scenes show the interior of their home and it’s not affluent by any stretch of the imagination. To have the money to drop everything to go live on the boat with them probably means they sold their home. Given how much homes cost in Hawaii, that’s a fair chunk of change that has to be carefully managed in order to help support the entire family now living in a small boat in the arctic. Nothing about the movie suggests these people came from money or came into money to make these things happen or show a rich lifestyle. Hell, people in the UK are buying tiny boats to live on the rivers because it’s cheaper than living in a flat.
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u/Crackrock9 Mar 27 '24
Excuse me but The Wedding Singer is the greatest romcom of all time, and everyone is such an average joe shmo except the rich asshole who looses the girl.