Lazy Sexy Money, Or Why the TV Rich Don't Work

From "Charles Dickens" by George Orwell :

"With the doubtful exception of David Copperfield... one cannot point to a single one of his central characters who is primarily interested in his job. His heroes work in order to make a living and to marry the heroine... In any case, in the typical Dickens novel, the deus ex machina enters with a bag of gold in the last chapter and the hero is absolved from further struggle..."

and (after citing various characters)

"That is the spirit in which most of Dickens' novels end - a sort of radiant idleness...if you are "good", and also self-supporting, there is no reason why you should not spend fifty years in simply drawing your dividends...The "genteel sufficiency", the "competence", the "gentleman of independent means"... the very phrases tell one all about the strange, empty dream of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century middle bourgeoisie. It was a dream of complete idleness."

and (after a paragraph from Dickens' contemporary Charles Reade)

"The ideal to be striven after, then, appears to be something like this: a hundred thousand pounds, a quaint old house with plenty of ivy on it, a sweetly womanly wifr, a horde of children, and no work."

As Gordon Wood showed in "The Radicalism of the American Revolution", America was the first society in which it was assumed that all shall work. The mark of the upper class in all other societies was lack of occupation. It is interesting that we seem to be returning to that ideal.

Having lived in a different country for many years has reinforced my impression that Americans , or at least the sort of Americans I've run into, are a lot more interested in work, or at least profess to be so, than people elsewhere (and I'm not talking about the aristocracy). Unless things have changed an awful lot lately, people are also, on average more consciencious about the work they do. The reasons for this may be quite complex, and include both positive and negative aspects. It also stands out that people talk a lot more about their work in social situations, particularly with relative strangers, and that the issue of what one does for a living is one of the first to come up if you're introduced to someone new. This is not necessarily so elsewhere.

Does this mean Americans are or not interested in how people make their fortunes? People everywhere are pretty interested in that, but the emphasis is different. There are some time periods, places, or social circles where it is mostly discussed with suspicioun, or to point out the lack of coherence between the not-so-philanthropical origins of a polished and seemingly socially upheld profile. My rather uninfomred impression is that in the US, it is more often discussed with a sort of "how to" perspective, and while I have no figures to support this, the sales of books about how fortunes are or were made might attest to it.

A relative lack of interest in how the tv rich made their money might have more to do with the reasons for watching a show, the time of day it is watched, and other such factors. The same person who buys and reads books about famous fortunes might be more interested in something else in a tv show.

And by the way, vague as my memory is on this, I do believe there were some oil rigs visited in some Dallas episode, and some vinyards or cellars in Falcon Crest; one hardly expects to see anyone stomping grapes these days. The show's very name is composed of three words calculated to elicit a reaction. I would bet "dirty" and "sexy" elicits an immediate response from more people than does the word "money", independently of how interested we are in it.

"Wanting to run things is a fantasy you're supposed to have. Wanting freedom from responsibility is a fantasy you're not."

This is a problem that many Americans face.

Many believe that only through hard work should a person be rewarded. Americans not only have a dislike for unemployed rich people, but also for unemployed welfare recipients. Even retirees are envied by those still in the workforce. People talk about the dream of retiring early, but many people retire and go back to work becuase they know no other means to fill their time.

Americans have the idea that anyone who is able to work should be working in order to contribute something to society. Peoples' identities are often based on what they do for a living. People who get laid off fall into a state of depression because losing their jobs is like taking away a part of who they are. It does not matter what the job was or what the pay was or how many hours worked. Americans need jobs to feel like real Americans.