Why Do We Like to Watch Rich People on TV and in the Movies? (EXTRA CREDIT BLOG)

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/why-do-we-like-to-watch-rich-people-on-tv-and-in-the-movies/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=U.S.&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body&_r=0

There is a huge coincidence. Today I watched the Wolf of Wall Street, had A LOT to say about the film. First and foremost, the movie was really good, BUT it is just ridiculous how much money, greed, drugs, and sex can just change a person. To answer the question above, "Why Do We Like to Watch Rich People on TV and in the Movies?" is very simple to answer. The reason we do this is because for years America has made living "fancy" a sort of trend we---the people who wish could live like the rich---have seen as model figures we wish we could be like someday. Since the mid 1900s, when have you seen a film where women weren't poised gracefully with a maid or butler in the house, a husband who is the supplier of income, and lets not forget the children who never do anything wrong and are just heavenly angels. On top of all that, the "perfect" family lives in a big home. It is something Americans always looked to when they needed an escape from their own lives, so that they could find entertainment in the lives of fictional characters who are living ten times better than the viewer himself.

I agree with Farnoosh Torabi in the sense that she says, "...Soaps offered an entertaining escape to where budgeting constraints and bad hair days didn’t exist, where we could see how the “rich” lived, and experience — even if just for an hour a day — a part of their fictional lives that seemed vastly more exciting than our own." This not only refers to soap operas but for anything we watch on TV/Movies in general. I agree with Bruce Levine because he makes an effective point that today greed is seen as both normal and acceptable by the mass media and mainstream politicians. Greed is something that is common in people everywhere it is one of the seven deadly sins but it shines brighter when we obtain a deep desire. With desire sometimes comes greed. Just like in the Wolf Of Wall Street, which is based on a true story, when Jordan Belfort got a good amount of money coming into his hands, all he could think was obtaining more and how fast he could get it no matter what the cost. I think all people can become like that, but it doesn't mean everyone necessarily will.

On that note, we watch people with money on television and on movies become the reason we stay home on a 9'o clock PM time slot because we would rather sit and watch how other people are living the rich life because it is good entertainment from our own lives, just like everything else we watch on television non filthy-rich and greedy related.