Class WarfareThis seems as appropriate a point of discussion as any to start with:
slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/12/it-never-stops.html Many landlords are scared to push their rents right now. ... Articles are abundant, talking about the inability of office and commercial landlords to maintain current re...
Class WarfareThis seems as appropriate a point of discussion as any to start with:
slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/12/it-never-stops.html Many landlords are scared to push their rents right now. ... Articles are abundant, talking about the inability of office and commercial landlords to maintain current rent levels if they want to attract or retain tenants.
Well, it’s a different story in mobile home park land. And it highlights some of the key reasons that mobile home parks are the best niche in real estate investing. ...
So how can you raise mobile home park rents when every other landlord is stopped dead in their tracks? ... Basically, you can continue to raise rents because the cost for the tenant to move is far higher than the resulting rent increase.
... If you want to find a class of investments that allows you to increase the rents a significant amount each year, whether it's feast or famine in the general economy, then mobile home parks are worthy of further examination.
I'd do a better opening post talking about how past generations had no problem discussing differences between classes, but as the middle class shrinks away from the upper, ruling class, to make one aware of this is to be labeled an outsider when it comes to reasonable thought. TR had no problem mentioning it when he busted trusts and FDR had no trouble mentioning it when he supported the growing unions, but today it's considered virtually libelous. Then I'd mention something along the lines of the oligarchical WASPs in power maintaining the status quo of the hegemony by marginalizing every other group, but the Nyquil's kicking in. Discuss.
Post edited 1/01/11 1:19AM 
I love that it's not the first time this particular executive's compensation has come under investigation, yet people are still making deals like this with him.
Senate Dems somehow manage to vote down Republican proposal to extend all of Bush tax cuts and then pass bill to extend cuts for those making under $250k.
I can only imagine Republicans didn't filibuster this because they know the House will kill it, but if the House does do that they will be the ones who kill off all of the Bush tax cuts once and for all.
Well played, Harry Reid...well played.
Edit for Obama statement:yerp
Post edited 7/25/12 5:28PM
Wow, Obama finally put on a sack about this? And used the GOP's own tactics against them? ...are we sure he's not from Kenya?
I would suppose it's probably because they just aren't as successful as the regular style of blockbuster films. A lot of people want movies to be a sort of escape for them and seeing something that is essentially a portrayal of their life or something similar wouldn't offer that. If those sorts of movies made more money, we'd probably see plenty more. I'm kind of disappointed in the direction the US film industry has moved. That's essentially why if we want a good indie sort of film, we end up looking towards foreign films.
I think there's a fair amount of portrayals of the working class in America, it's just it gets lost in the volume of films that come out.
When I think about Contagion, I think about the social implications of a pandemic among the working class. Warrior also involved the working class, although more along a "Rocky" type story line. The films are there, the main thing is that they generally don't get the exposure of superhero films, mainly because people tend to like movies for special effects - and I don't know about you, but I generally don't dodge explosions in a high-speed chase on my way to work, engaging in extreme urban combat during lunchtime. @Izzi is mostly right -- people like films for an escape.
I'm disappointed that it seems like the only thing Hollywood is capable of making these days are sequels, remakes, and movie versions of other properties. The Fast and the Furious franchise is set up for something like 8 movies so far, and the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie was total garbage but there are two more coming anyway. The problem is that they keep making those movies look appealing in the trailers, and they are generally technically sound, so people go to see them. People need to start voting with their wallets.
I think the difference between British and American working class movies is the British ones tend to be a study in daily life, portraying the everyday struggles of the working class, while American working class pictures are almost exclusively Horatio Alger-style stories of middle class characters becoming heroes or millionaires. Nobody in an American film stays middle class at the end of the final act, there's always a a championship or a grand victory of some kind because the American cultural mythology demands it. Down endings, or even worse, unresolved endings, don't play well with most American audiences except in very rare cases, while a more resigned, fatalistic people are fine with stories ending like they do in real life.
I think they're not quite as rare, though I partially agree in the sense that they're not as glorified. If you ask most people what their favorite movie is, it tends to be some "good guy wins" type film.
Movies like The Hurt Locker, Fight Club, Choke, Harsh Times, other sort of anti-hero films, tend to leave endings sort of open. I think most American "cop films" have a tendency to leave things slightly optimistic at best, but less than the hero/millionaire. But they don't get nearly the exposure that crap like Avatar gets.
Case in point: The Grey. I've never actually been to a movie where people booed the ending before. I thought the movie was great, although it was pretty high on the suicide fuel scale. People in America can't deal with the world outlook of "sometimes bad shit happens and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it". It's always about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and if you just want it bad enough it will happen. When people don't see that, they boo apparently.
Post edited 8/08/12 1:11PM
Thing is the most obvious working class film I can think of doesn't really fit any of the main clichés.
Juno. A working class family dealing with very working class issues. A happy ending that didn't mean pulling the working class family into riches and arguably left the only middle/upper class family in a worse situation than they started in, class/wealth wise.
Did exceptionally well with critics and in the box office.
OK, so it's Canadian and so kinda outside the main thrust of the discussion, but it should also be proof that it's possible to write and film a successful working class movie that isn't restricted to the indi film festival crowd.
It's also interesting that the original post directly criticised the US independent scene for ignoring the working class as much as the major studios. I can't really speak to this - I don't get much US indi cinema around here - but a good portion of the UK indi scene does tend to be pretty working class focused, even more than mainstream British cinema. Anyone see enough US indi-film to speak to this?
In the end I think this is interesting because, assuming the observation is valid, there are a few different areas to the discussion just off the top of my head.
1) American appetites don't leave room for depictions of the working class. See Juno.
2) American cinema doesn't have enough access for working class writers/directors to tell their own stories. I find this hard to believe.
3) People prefer to play it safe by showing things that have been shown before. The UK has a long tradition of working class stories on both film and TV, with many of the most successful of each being explicitly about working class life. Playing it safe in the UK certainly includes writing about working class people. Maybe even encourages it. That's less true of US media.
Most of Kevin Smith's movies are about the working class. The first Clerks was about people working at a convenience store, and in the alternate ending the one who wasn't even supposed to be there that day gets shot and killed in a robbery . Mallrats was about kids at the age where they're about to enter the workforce doing the things kids that age do. Chasing Amy was about comic book authors being comic book authors, and in the end the guy doesn't get the girl. Dogma and J&SBSB are exceptions. Clerks 2 is about people working at a fast food joint, and at the end they own the place they used to work in the first movie, but it's still a convenience store. Jersey Girl is about a working class guy who's a single dad dealing with working class issues, having fallen from a higher-end employment and, being unable to get back to it, ultimately abandoning it (and his dad lives with him). Zack and Miri Make a Porno is about people who work at a coffee shop and have no money trying to find any other means by which to make a living. I haven't seen Red State, but by all accounts it's awful, so I'm probably better off.
The problem is, for every Kevin Smith there's a dozen Michael Bays.
I thought the method Kevin Smith accomplished that was sort of mocking the whole idea. It's been several years since I've seen the movie but the dialogue gist of the dialogue at that point was something like
They're all in jail and "The Sexy Stud" says they'll give him some bullshit cruelty to animals charge, he'll pay a fine and let him go. Dante tells Randall that he's ruined his life...again, and says he's moving to Florida. Randall calls Dante a drone and says he wants to live his life acccording to other people's rules. Randal says "Well, we could buy the quick-stop and re-open it!" Dante says "we'd need like $300,000 for that."
Then Jay says "uh, we have that kind of money, "oh yeah, totally, we had it has royalties from the last movie" then say they could give them a loan, but they have to promise to let Jay and Silent Bob loiter outside the store.
It's $30,000, but basically, yeah. Its source goes unexplained in the theatrical release, but in the extended scene he says it's from when they made the Bluntman and Chronic movie that was the topic of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, because the characters were based on them. But regardless of having all that money, they were still making a living off selling drugs, i.e. still working-class (kind of).
Sidenote: the funniest line in the movie got cut. It's after the pickle fucker story, in this scene. After Jay says "thanks pickle fucker" Randall asks "How did you know we call this guy pickle fucker?" and Jay says "You do?" As if it's just something he calls people. Then the scene continues as per the original version.
I think those movies (and Juno) stand out exactly because of how exceptional they are set against the backdrop of the rest of modern American cinema. Kevin smith is a standout here too, but only among movie geeks. Part of it is indie cred, part of it is that he writes really entertaining dialogue, and a big part is the way he will mime-suck the dick of any fan he meets, but it's not because he sells a lot of tickets this films. He has a career because his movies always make money, but largely that's due to the fact they cost nothing to make in comparison to most movies. Also, he's practically Canadian (as is Scott Mosier), so he barely counts as an American film maker.
In reply to pal_sch, #1274:
I think you hit it on the head with point 3), in that Hollywood is in the business of making movies, and they produce what sells to their customers. If there's a dearth of working class movies in American cinema, it's as much because Americans generally won't pay to go see those movies as it is that Hollywood stopped making them in the early 80's.
Then cover them in your rocket sauce.
Officer 117? He's hugging Master Chief!
If we raised taxes on top earners, CEOs need to have their compensation raised equivalently so they could continue to live their current lifestyles. The CEOs would DEMAND it and so companies would lay off employees because they would still want to have good profit margins, but also be able to pay CEOs more.
Because as we all know, CEOs somehow get to decide what they're going to be paid and then pay themselves that and change how an entire business runs just to get paid what they want.
And she was laughing at me saying I don't understand how businesses run...
Here's what she's probably thinking of.
It's a common piece of advice to small business owners. "Pay yourself first."
It's not exactly deciding what you get paid then changing how the entire business runs just to do that, but it's not that different either.
It applies only to owners of businesses that also run their businesses. Say you own a restaurant and run that restaurant as a full time job. It's very easy for a lot of business owners to decide, well, I'll just take the profits from the business, that's my salary."
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If you run the business "for free," you are not only probably paying more tax revenue on the business than you otherwise would be, but you're showing the business as unnecessarily profitable. If the business can't make a profit without paying its manager a salary, its not doing as well as it looks.
Except we were talking in the sense of large businesses and it was very clear in the context. She works at an Outback and kept referencing the owner of Outback. I wasn't aware the owner of Outback could decide to shut down someone's franchise location, that they own, for no other reason than he wants to make an extra buck. If that location was hemorrhaging money, that's different, but just to pay fewer employees? I don't own a franchise, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.
If outback is truly a franchise I virtually guarantee you that Outback couldn't do that. I'm quite certain Outback corporate would have various "outs" in the contract, but I'd sure as hell never sign a franchise to operate a restaurant if the contract said "we can revoke your permission to operate the franchise at any time for any reason."
My understand of franchise-licensing agreements is that it is a "terminate at will" contract, meaning that the franchise owner agrees to abide by all regulations and standards that the corporation determines, and if the individual franchise is determined not to uphold the standards or image, the can revoke the franchise license. That's not saying they have to shut down completely, but for example, they'd have to be an independent restaurant, and no longer carry the name and menu (nor get support from corporate), which essentially would shut down most restaurants.
Happened to my wife's hotel -- it had its franchise license revoked.
But you said that's if the franchise was determined not to uphold the standards or image. It couldn't just be revoked for a rule-abiding location because it would somehow reduce corporate overhead or something and make them a profit, right?