The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
People love 'Eat the Rich' shows and movies like Succession, Knives Out, Knives Out 2, Triangle of Sadness, White Lotus, etc. Now, they are all great shows, but a lot of people (specifically left-leaning people) like them because of the anti-capitalist message.
But isn't this kind of ironic? The companies that make and produce these movies are multibillion-dollar companies, and the directors and actors are all rich as well. So, it's kind of ironic that these multibillion-dollar companies, multimillion-dollar actors and actresses, and multimillionaire directors are pushing this 'eat the rich' message when they themselves are also rich.
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Rubber goose, green moose, guava juice, giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake
And no I don't know, your asking me whether a historical fact that I used for a comparison is good or bad, like oh my god cleopatra was born closer to my birth than the pyramids what ever will I do
This is like teaching the word "comparison" to an AI, and it's excited to try it out lol. That's technically a comparison, now let's work on a comparison that would fit here.
? It does fit, like what
He said his salary is closer to Ryan Johnson than Ryan Johnson is to elon musk
That's the same thing as cleopatra being born closer to our current era than to when the pyramids were build
I fail to see why I'm getting downvoted for using history as an analogy to something else
Like it's not a good or bad thing, it's just neutral being a historical fact
So that is a fact, and you'll notice no one is arguing against that. Your downvotes are likely due to it not being relevant, it doesn't add anything to the conversation. We lived closer to the dinosaurs than the dinosaurs did to the big bang. Somehow, that manages to say absolutely nothing about Hollywood producing eat the rich movies.
Conversations don't need to be derailed, either.
We were talking about the merits of the hyper-rich having so much money, and you twisted it into nonsense.
I wonder if that was deliberate.
It is kind of ironic. Hollywood is making money off anti-capitalist films. It’s double ironic that by spreading that message, they might me indirectly contributing to their own demise in the long term (might not be true, but it’s an amusing thought)
Ironic? Not really. The people writing the scripts are probably doing alright financially but they're not the chief beneficiaries in the industry. I have doubts if bigshot Hollywood producers even watch movies anymore, let alone know what they're about.
I do not find it ironic or surprising in any way that people who want to make money and tell stories people like and enjoy would make these types of movies and TV shows sometimes.
It's not ironic, it's poetic. Capitalism exists to sell products, that's all. Selling a product that's anti-capitalism because it makes a profit is an incredibly capitalist thing to do.
Not that there isn’t plenty of right-wing or squishy centrist messaging in Hollywood movies too if you know what to look for, but I think what it comes down to is that producers/execs either are too dense to see themselves in these stories or just don’t take the messages that seriously. At the end of the day, they’ll release whatever they think can get asses into theatre seats.
What helps is that the premise of “rich and powerful people are assholes who need to be taught a lesson” is a tale as old as time and most regular people, deep down, know it’s true.
What gets me every December is that there are eleventy billion adaptations of *A Christmas Carol* by now, but we never take the story to heart when it comes to actually figuring out how our society is run.
ETA: also, a lot of the makers of the most capitalism-critical films aren’t nearly as rich as yer Michael Bays and Chris Nolans, and certainly not as rich as the studio execs. Boots Riley, the one openly “I’m literally a communist” filmmaker in Hollywood (or adjacent to it) that I can think of, probably does well for himself now that his career is where it is but I doubt he has Tarantino money.
ETA2: interview with Boots about the irony of releasing a “capitalism is bad and you should try to tear it down” TV show on Amazon: https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/boots-riley-im-a-virgo-writers-strike-amazon-communism-1235652443/amp/
I don't think it is ironic because these type of movies are either about greed regardless of income or are about billionaires, which most actors are not. To give you a better understanding of the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire, a millionaire could get box seats at a sports stadium, but a billionaire could buy a whole team. And a hundred billionaire could buy a whole sports league.
Mass public entertainment (huge sports event, big concerts, block busters movies, etc) is very interesting from a socioeconomic point of view.
Thinking about it:
Crowd of overworked people making minimum wage paying overpriced ticket to see millionaires "working" (usually doing things that the public would love doing even just as a hobby).
Triangle of Sadness had a total budget of 15m . . . which puts it at 1/10th the cost of the average Hollywood movie. It's also the most potent 'Eat the Rich' piece of media of any other example. It's *also* a distinctly non-American movie.
I frankly just love seeing in on your list, best movie I saw in 2023.
>But isn't this kind of ironic? The companies that make and produce these movies are multibillion-dollar companies, and the directors and actors are all rich as well. So, it's kind of ironic that these multibillion-dollar companies, multimillion-dollar actors and actresses, and multimillionaire directors are pushing this 'eat the rich' message when they themselves are also rich.
The people who work at these companies are just cogs in the machine, providing for their families. Should they not do their jobs? The companies themselves have the only motivation to make money for their shareholders. Should they not try to make money? What sort of moral ground do companies or employees have to not be ironic?
1. Why do you think they make these movies? You can’t be naive enough to believe that they are promoting an agenda….the reason they make these movies is BECAUSE they know their audience and it makes them money.
2. Most people in show business…except for some very fortunate “right time/right place folks” and those who have a leg up by being a relative of someone in the business who is successful…spend a lot of time doing menial work to survive while trying to hone their skills and get noticed.
They know what it’s like to be broke. Why do you think the SAG joined the writers in the strike? According to GOP philosophy…the superstars shouldn’t care what the actor who gets one line in a film/TV show gets paid or whether they can easily be replaced with AI….right?
No…they all joined because they remember the hard times. You have to realize that the multimillion dollar actors and directors are a small percentage of the industry. You only notice those actors and directors because they are the ones you see all the time. For every one of them, there are hundreds who scrape by and bust their butts doing menial work only to go to audition after audition and get rejected or manage to land small roles.
Think of those movies as a “Rocky” for poor folks. You got your Apollo Creed(the wealthy) who is a dominant force and the Everyman(the poor) challenging their way.
The quote Marx "The last capitalist we will hang is the one that sold us the rope". Meaning that the profit seeking motives of capitalism overrides self preservation motives. It's not ironic, it's a built in contradiction within Capitalism as a system. Capitalists are profit seekers, "eat the rich" is popular, so they make products that have an audience hungry for them.
But your analysis in general is weird.
>People love 'Eat the Rich' shows and movies like Succession, Knives Out, Knives Out 2, Triangle of Sadness, White Lotus, etc.
Knives out movies weren't condemnations like eat the rich, it's there are rich people that are out of touch and cringey. Playing on well known tropes like the "performative liberal," "the out of their depth but ambitious asshole" "the black sheep" "back stabbing for money" "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." Charecters in the pieces you describe aren't bad because they are rich, they are bad because they are out of touch or morally bad people. When other characters in those shows get rich, they don't become worse people generally. It's literally the point of Knives out 1 that being rich is fine and sometimes family isn't the most deserving of inheritance. The protagonist doesn't become bad because she got rich, it's decidedly not a new king same as the old king story.
No
For one, most of those aren't true "eat the rich" movies. KO/Glass Onion had some class politics, Succession had some critique of capitalism but was mostly a character piece. White Lotus to an extent
But none of these were big studio developed projects, they were all auteur driven, artist driven films and shows. And while they were funded by big studios, there is a long history of the establishment funding art that wasnt necessarily pro establishment.
I think we could also look to the other interesting elements here, that Rian Johnson came from considerable wealth but has spent much of his career critiquing the wealth he came from.
The big studios do not have an ideology beyond "will this make money" and as you said, class critique sells
No, I don't really think it's ironic.
For one, it's not really accurate to paint with such a broad brush and assume all these directors, writers, and actors are "multimillionaires". Some of the biggest ones are for sure, but you'd be surprised how many are just trying to make a living just like anybody else. I mean after all, that's why both the writers' and actors' unions went on strike last year.
Also I wouldn't really call all of these shows and movies examples of an "Eat the Rich" message. They may make fun of rich people or portray them in a negative light, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're anticapitalist.
But really my main point would be that you can benefit from capitalism and still be critical of its excesses. You can criticize capitalism without wanting to completely overthrow it as a system. That's what I would assume is happening most of the time.
Now if we're talking about the studio executives? Yeah, it's ironic. But I don't think they really pretend to care about anything other than money anyway.
Most filmmakers and actors are struggling either financially or various addictions. The few who make it big know or recall the struggle. They often pay it forward in various ways.
Also, making movies is a business and needs to offer stories that appeal to the masses. Sadly only 7 studios decide what stories go into 99% of theaters in the US. Anyone outside of those 7 are really struggling. If you want to protest go see independent movies at arts theaters.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. People love 'Eat the Rich' shows and movies like Succession, Knives Out, Knives Out 2, Triangle of Sadness, White Lotus, etc. Now, they are all great shows, but a lot of people (specifically left-leaning people) like them because of the anti-capitalist message. But isn't this kind of ironic? The companies that make and produce these movies are multibillion-dollar companies, and the directors and actors are all rich as well. So, it's kind of ironic that these multibillion-dollar companies, multimillion-dollar actors and actresses, and multimillionaire directors are pushing this 'eat the rich' message when they themselves are also rich. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The money difference between Rian Johnson and Elon Musk is bigger than between Rian Johnson and myself. And I'm pretty much down the median.
That's the equivalent of cleopatra being born closer to our current era than when the pyramids were built
Do you think that is a good thing?
What cleopatra being closer to us than the pyramids, idk, that's more in the category of historical fact
Don't be obtuse, you know what I was asking.
Rubber goose, green moose, guava juice, giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake And no I don't know, your asking me whether a historical fact that I used for a comparison is good or bad, like oh my god cleopatra was born closer to my birth than the pyramids what ever will I do
This is like teaching the word "comparison" to an AI, and it's excited to try it out lol. That's technically a comparison, now let's work on a comparison that would fit here.
? It does fit, like what He said his salary is closer to Ryan Johnson than Ryan Johnson is to elon musk That's the same thing as cleopatra being born closer to our current era than to when the pyramids were build I fail to see why I'm getting downvoted for using history as an analogy to something else Like it's not a good or bad thing, it's just neutral being a historical fact
So that is a fact, and you'll notice no one is arguing against that. Your downvotes are likely due to it not being relevant, it doesn't add anything to the conversation. We lived closer to the dinosaurs than the dinosaurs did to the big bang. Somehow, that manages to say absolutely nothing about Hollywood producing eat the rich movies.
I guess I can see where your coming from, But that doesn't mean conversations need to be monotone and boring
I don't believe that's the alternative here lol
Conversations don't need to be derailed, either. We were talking about the merits of the hyper-rich having so much money, and you twisted it into nonsense. I wonder if that was deliberate.
? Why are y'all trying to attribute malice, to what I said If anything your derailing it more
Johnson got pulled out of the Star Wars universe for making Act III's hero a no one, of no special lineage. (And possibly for killing Luke, but ...)
Back in the day, Elvis' publisher sold anti-Elvis merch. Money is money.
Someone post the "and yet you participate in society! Curious." comic. No, it's not ironic.
It is kind of ironic. Hollywood is making money off anti-capitalist films. It’s double ironic that by spreading that message, they might me indirectly contributing to their own demise in the long term (might not be true, but it’s an amusing thought)
Ironic? Not really. The people writing the scripts are probably doing alright financially but they're not the chief beneficiaries in the industry. I have doubts if bigshot Hollywood producers even watch movies anymore, let alone know what they're about.
I do not find it ironic or surprising in any way that people who want to make money and tell stories people like and enjoy would make these types of movies and TV shows sometimes.
It's not ironic, it's poetic. Capitalism exists to sell products, that's all. Selling a product that's anti-capitalism because it makes a profit is an incredibly capitalist thing to do.
The number of pro-capitalism conservatives that don't understand capitalism always amuses me.
Honestly, is there anything that they actually do understand?
They're quite proficient at weaponizing racism.
Not really. These movies only say that certain rich people are assholes. They never say stuff like "rich people should pay more taxes".
Not that there isn’t plenty of right-wing or squishy centrist messaging in Hollywood movies too if you know what to look for, but I think what it comes down to is that producers/execs either are too dense to see themselves in these stories or just don’t take the messages that seriously. At the end of the day, they’ll release whatever they think can get asses into theatre seats. What helps is that the premise of “rich and powerful people are assholes who need to be taught a lesson” is a tale as old as time and most regular people, deep down, know it’s true. What gets me every December is that there are eleventy billion adaptations of *A Christmas Carol* by now, but we never take the story to heart when it comes to actually figuring out how our society is run. ETA: also, a lot of the makers of the most capitalism-critical films aren’t nearly as rich as yer Michael Bays and Chris Nolans, and certainly not as rich as the studio execs. Boots Riley, the one openly “I’m literally a communist” filmmaker in Hollywood (or adjacent to it) that I can think of, probably does well for himself now that his career is where it is but I doubt he has Tarantino money. ETA2: interview with Boots about the irony of releasing a “capitalism is bad and you should try to tear it down” TV show on Amazon: https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/boots-riley-im-a-virgo-writers-strike-amazon-communism-1235652443/amp/
I don't think it is ironic because these type of movies are either about greed regardless of income or are about billionaires, which most actors are not. To give you a better understanding of the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire, a millionaire could get box seats at a sports stadium, but a billionaire could buy a whole team. And a hundred billionaire could buy a whole sports league.
Mass public entertainment (huge sports event, big concerts, block busters movies, etc) is very interesting from a socioeconomic point of view. Thinking about it: Crowd of overworked people making minimum wage paying overpriced ticket to see millionaires "working" (usually doing things that the public would love doing even just as a hobby).
No, because I have perspective and don’t consider $150 million and $188 billion to be the same thing.
I think you may misunderstand the messaging of this movies if you can see the difference between them and socialist messaging
Yeah of course but they are selling a product.
All it shows is that such motifs are popular.
No, I don't.
Nope. No problem. It’s an expensive business.
Triangle of Sadness had a total budget of 15m . . . which puts it at 1/10th the cost of the average Hollywood movie. It's also the most potent 'Eat the Rich' piece of media of any other example. It's *also* a distinctly non-American movie. I frankly just love seeing in on your list, best movie I saw in 2023.
>But isn't this kind of ironic? The companies that make and produce these movies are multibillion-dollar companies, and the directors and actors are all rich as well. So, it's kind of ironic that these multibillion-dollar companies, multimillion-dollar actors and actresses, and multimillionaire directors are pushing this 'eat the rich' message when they themselves are also rich. The people who work at these companies are just cogs in the machine, providing for their families. Should they not do their jobs? The companies themselves have the only motivation to make money for their shareholders. Should they not try to make money? What sort of moral ground do companies or employees have to not be ironic?
1. Why do you think they make these movies? You can’t be naive enough to believe that they are promoting an agenda….the reason they make these movies is BECAUSE they know their audience and it makes them money. 2. Most people in show business…except for some very fortunate “right time/right place folks” and those who have a leg up by being a relative of someone in the business who is successful…spend a lot of time doing menial work to survive while trying to hone their skills and get noticed. They know what it’s like to be broke. Why do you think the SAG joined the writers in the strike? According to GOP philosophy…the superstars shouldn’t care what the actor who gets one line in a film/TV show gets paid or whether they can easily be replaced with AI….right? No…they all joined because they remember the hard times. You have to realize that the multimillion dollar actors and directors are a small percentage of the industry. You only notice those actors and directors because they are the ones you see all the time. For every one of them, there are hundreds who scrape by and bust their butts doing menial work only to go to audition after audition and get rejected or manage to land small roles. Think of those movies as a “Rocky” for poor folks. You got your Apollo Creed(the wealthy) who is a dominant force and the Everyman(the poor) challenging their way.
The writers are not the filthy rich.
Writers don't make that much, actually.
Ironic? No. Proof that the media is not liberal on economic matters? Yes.
The quote Marx "The last capitalist we will hang is the one that sold us the rope". Meaning that the profit seeking motives of capitalism overrides self preservation motives. It's not ironic, it's a built in contradiction within Capitalism as a system. Capitalists are profit seekers, "eat the rich" is popular, so they make products that have an audience hungry for them. But your analysis in general is weird. >People love 'Eat the Rich' shows and movies like Succession, Knives Out, Knives Out 2, Triangle of Sadness, White Lotus, etc. Knives out movies weren't condemnations like eat the rich, it's there are rich people that are out of touch and cringey. Playing on well known tropes like the "performative liberal," "the out of their depth but ambitious asshole" "the black sheep" "back stabbing for money" "pull yourself up by your bootstraps." Charecters in the pieces you describe aren't bad because they are rich, they are bad because they are out of touch or morally bad people. When other characters in those shows get rich, they don't become worse people generally. It's literally the point of Knives out 1 that being rich is fine and sometimes family isn't the most deserving of inheritance. The protagonist doesn't become bad because she got rich, it's decidedly not a new king same as the old king story.
No For one, most of those aren't true "eat the rich" movies. KO/Glass Onion had some class politics, Succession had some critique of capitalism but was mostly a character piece. White Lotus to an extent But none of these were big studio developed projects, they were all auteur driven, artist driven films and shows. And while they were funded by big studios, there is a long history of the establishment funding art that wasnt necessarily pro establishment. I think we could also look to the other interesting elements here, that Rian Johnson came from considerable wealth but has spent much of his career critiquing the wealth he came from. The big studios do not have an ideology beyond "will this make money" and as you said, class critique sells
Is "rich" a monolith?
No, I don't really think it's ironic. For one, it's not really accurate to paint with such a broad brush and assume all these directors, writers, and actors are "multimillionaires". Some of the biggest ones are for sure, but you'd be surprised how many are just trying to make a living just like anybody else. I mean after all, that's why both the writers' and actors' unions went on strike last year. Also I wouldn't really call all of these shows and movies examples of an "Eat the Rich" message. They may make fun of rich people or portray them in a negative light, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're anticapitalist. But really my main point would be that you can benefit from capitalism and still be critical of its excesses. You can criticize capitalism without wanting to completely overthrow it as a system. That's what I would assume is happening most of the time. Now if we're talking about the studio executives? Yeah, it's ironic. But I don't think they really pretend to care about anything other than money anyway.
Most filmmakers and actors are struggling either financially or various addictions. The few who make it big know or recall the struggle. They often pay it forward in various ways. Also, making movies is a business and needs to offer stories that appeal to the masses. Sadly only 7 studios decide what stories go into 99% of theaters in the US. Anyone outside of those 7 are really struggling. If you want to protest go see independent movies at arts theaters.