the problem with hollywood's broke man agenda 💔💸😬

The Problem with Hollywood's Broke Man Agenda Hollywood has told us time and time again that love conquers all and that money can't buy happiness, a hopelessly optimistic outlook on romance and life that ignores the fact that other than cancer and infidelity, money troubles are the leading cause of divorce. For the vast majority of human history, marriage wasn't about love, it was a business arrangement. If a woman was poor, she was a burden to her family and the best case scenario was to find anyone willing to look after her. Happiness be damned. Not all of us can afford to be romantic. I've no money and no prospects. I'm already a burden to my parents and I'm frightened. But if she was wealthy, she became a bargaining chip, with her marriage directly impacting not only her social standing and reputation, but that of her family's. Men on the other hand had significantly more freedom and it wasn't uncommon for wealthy men to marry beneath their station, taking into consideration a woman's beauty, youth, or domesticity over her financial circumstances. In other words, men had more of a choice when it came to who they loved, while women had to make do with what they got. And if I had my own money, which I don't, that money would belong to my husband the moment we got married. So don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition because it is. That's why in classic novels like Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Portrait of a Lady, or Vanity Fair, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the importance of marriage and its role in a woman's life. For female authors like Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, this harsh reality was something they experienced firsthand and they knew that marriage could be the difference between comfort and poverty, between respectability and ruin, and between happiness and sorrow. This impacted the direction of stories from the time period, and as a result, the ultimate romantic fantasy wasn't just one where you married well, but one where you could also be rich in love. Because women have historically been at such a disadvantage when it comes to marriage, modern media has glamorized the idea of a wealthy man falling in love with a poor woman. It's aspirational, like a fairy tale. Arthur, Pretty in Pink, Crazy Rich Asians, Mystic Pizza, Coming to America, It Takes Two, the list goes on. These films make it clear that the female characters aren't gold diggers, and they would be just as happy if their suitors were poor as they would if they were rich. Because of this selflessness, she's proven herself worthy of his love, and therefore, his money. She gets stability and he gets loyalty. Everyone wins. However, when a female character is torn between two men of differing means, Hollywood makes it obvious is the correct choice. Take, for instance, Indecent Proposal, which follows a down-on-their-luck couple who agree to a wealthy stranger's proposition for the wife to spend a night with him. Although both husband and wife are on board with the idea initially, it soon causes a rift in their marriage and they break up, driving her back into the arms of the scheming millionaire. But of course, it's Hollywood, and we need a happy ending with a decent moral message, so the couple manage to reconcile, even though their financial problems aren't even close to being resolved. Now, in the first draft, Diana actually doesn't sleep with Gage, and David's paranoia and resentment is all due to his own insecurities. But in the film, they have sex. Why the change? Because if she never sleeps with him, then her husband is the problem. But if she does, then his rage and disgust become justified. During production, Robert Redford actually insisted that his character not be as outright villainous as intended, making Gage quite the charmer, to the point that I'd argue that in spite of how he and Diana got together, he's still the best choice for her in the end, something the filmmakers seemed acutely aware of, as they make Gage literally lie to her in order to drive her away. The premise of the film tapped into a primal cultural fear, that women might pick money over love. But Hollywood made sure that audiences knew that no matter how attractive or wealthy someone is, true love can't be bought. This point was driven home in other films like The Wedding Singer, Reality Bites, Crossing Delancey, and Moulin Rouge!, which presented the wealthier suitor as a detestable scumbag. Take Titanic, for example. On paper, Cal is the perfect match for Rose. He's handsome, educated, wealthy, and powerful. But he's also arrogant, possessive, and dismissive of her intellect. Jack is the opposite, making up for what he lacks monetarily with earnestness and spontaneity. Sure, he might not be able to fulfill Rose's material needs, but at least emotionally, he has recovered. In this way, Hollywood tips the scales, no longer asking audiences to weigh love against ability, but kindness against cruelty. By making it clear that a life with this rich man would leave these women unhappy and unfulfilled, there's no sense of what if. And if the female character wants to remain someone to root for, then she has to choose the poorer option. With Now, there are a handful of instances where the rich guy isn't an outright villain, like Because I Said So, The Princess Diaries 2, The Notebook, Sweet Home Alabama, and The Vow. The wealthy suitor still represents safety and security as he had in the past, but for once, there isn't anything wrong with him. He simply isn't the one, which is reason enough for the female character to choose a precarious future over a stable one. Because he doesn't have any real faults, these films are framed less as rich vs poor, and more like predictability vs passion. This makes the romantic outcome a moral test, with her choice of the poorer man showing audiences that she isn't shallow or self-serving. What she cares about most is true love. Hollywood has spent decades rehabilitating financially, physically, and emotionally inadequate men with films like I Love You, Beth Cooper, Knocked Up, Ted, There's Something About Mary, Jeff Who Lives at Home, or the aptly named She's Out of My League. In each, the woman is hotter, smarter, and more successful than the male lead, but his numerous faults are positioned as part of his charm. He's not immature, he's fun. He isn't lazy, he's down on his luck. But after 5, 10, 20 years, is he still going through a rough patch, or is he just a loser? If she asks him to step up, to stop playing video games, and to eat healthier, then she's a controlling bitch. Because in Hollywood, true love means never asking the other person to change, but only if it's a man. Women are expected to compromise, to accept their lovers exactly as they are. Pick love even if it means sacrificing everything else, because if she's a real ride-or-die, then loving him for his potential should be enough. In this way, Hollywood has trained us to equate romantic authenticity with suffering. That's what made the breakup so cathartic to watch, as anyone with a pair of eyes could see that Gary simply wasn't putting the same amount of effort into the relationship as Brooke was, and by choosing herself instead of continuing to put up with a man who refuses to meet her halfway, she's setting herself up for a better and brighter future. Materialists is the most recent film to spark discourse regarding relationships of convenience, and has fully renewed the public's interest in Hollywood's broke man agenda. In the film, Lucy and John are both struggling actors, but their poor finances drive a wedge between them, and they eventually break up. Years pass, and Lucy starts working for a matchmaking service, and begins dating Harry, a charming multi-millionaire. Around the same time, she reconnects with John, who despite being 37 years old, is still trying to become an actor. Following problems at work, Lucy re-evaluates her relationship with money, and decides to give John another chance, with the two even deciding to get married. I give it a year. To talk about him as, in such cruel terms, as broke boy or broke man, I think that there is something about that, the classism of that, the kind of like hatred of poverty, hatred of poor people, whose again, it's not their fault that they're poor. I think that that is a very troubling result of the way that the wealthy people have, you know, gotten into our hearts about how it's your fault if you're poor, and you're a bad person if you're poor. Director Celine Song wasn't too happy about the criticisms directed towards the film and John's character, and while I agree with some of her points, I don't think materialists wound up being as successful of a critique on classism as she wanted it to be. We're supposed to see Lucy's materialism as a fatal flaw, but simultaneously, there's nothing wrong with At the end of the day, John's problem isn't poverty, it's passivity. Even after he and Lucy break up, he doesn't try to better himself. So when she bumps back into him five years later, he's right where she left him, working as a cater waiter. The fact that he confesses his love for Lucy by admitting his financial insecurities, while simultaneously saying that he isn't sure if he can unbroke-ify himself, is just crazy to me. Sure, you can give him points for his honesty and practicality, but my god, dream bigger, man. Or at the very least, maybe it's time to consider a career change? If this were a film truly concerned about critiquing capitalism, we'd see him grinding, only to fall short again and again and again. Even if he's still technically a failure, it would at least show Lucy and the audience that he's been trying his best, instead of just coasting. Now, I'm not saying that John has to give up on his dreams. After all, several actors didn't get their big breaks until they were in their 40s, like Alan Rickman, Bryan Cranston, Kathy Bates, Viola Davis, hell, even Pedro Pascal himself. But unlike these actors, John is doing the bare minimum. Like, he's waiting tables and living with two other grown men, but he still thinks he's too good to audition for a commercial? Come on. It honestly just feels like he likes being able to call himself a struggling actor, that way no one can expect more from him. Even with Lucy realizing she doesn't want to be as materialistic as she's been in the past, it doesn't change the fact that she and John have very different goals and worldviews. By putting them back together, they're not growing, they're regressing. And I feel like she could have learned all of these lessons and not run back to the guy she dumped half a decade earlier. John was her past, and he needed to stay there. That's one thing I really enjoyed about La La Land. Even if it wasn't the happily ever after we were all waiting for, it was an important acknowledgement of the reality that even when two people love each other, they're not always meant to be together. In order for Sebastian and Mia to achieve their dreams, they had to let each other go, and through this sacrifice, they're able to find fulfillment in other ways. Sure, there will always be the what if, but that doesn't negate what they've accomplished in their time apart from each other. Now regardless of my issues with John's character and materialists, I'm not saying that Lucy needed to marry Harry, but I wouldn't have complained either. While it's true that both were focused on what the other could provide in a relationship, they still had potential. The film just refused to acknowledge it, to an almost unbelievable degree. Instead of opening up to Harry, Lucy continues to rely on John, making it abundantly clear that they were the ones who were going to get together in the end. But who's to say that Harry wouldn't have been able to provide for her emotionally if she'd given him a chance? At the very least, they wouldn't be fighting about paying the rent every month. It's just weird because in every other way, materialist was a pretty accurate look at modern dating, but the ending completely ignores the realities of the 21st century. Like all aspects of pop culture, the film industry is heavily influenced by the world around us, and in the 2020s, we've seen a rise in conservative values that have insisted that women's roles are in the home. A trad wife doesn't work, her husband brings home the bacon, a high value woman gives up her dreams to help her man live out his fantasy. This system may have worked back in the old days, but in the 2020s, a single income household simply isn't sustainable. Wages haven't kept pace with inflation, housing is unaffordable, and the job market is an absolute mess. While it's true that the average person isn't going to start dating a multi-millionaire, I'm not sure why Hollywood is positioning a life of struggle as the dream. Part of me wonders if this direction is a response to the career woman movies of the 2010s, which saw a rise in female characters who didn't have time for romance, like No Strings Attached, The Other Woman, The Ugly Truth, or Morning Glory. Now in each of these films, they still fell in love anyway, but typically to a man who was her professional equal. Because she didn't need to sacrifice her job or independence to find the man of her dreams, there was a sort of, you can have it all message, which couldn't be further from broke man propaganda, which says, you'll never have it all, and you shouldn't expect to. I think Harvey's very good looking. A lot of good that'll do you, he's penniless. So what? Haven't you any romance in your soul? Funny makes me romantic. Don't you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You might not marry a girl just because she's pretty, but my goodness, doesn't it help? Obviously I'm not saying that only the rich are deserving of love, but why is Hollywood still telling women to accept mediocrity? Is it just because it's easier to shame them for wanting stability than actually hold men accountable for their failures? These types of movies are meant to be a form of escapism, a fantasy. So why is it in these fantasies that we're still choosing the harder life? We're told that the right guy is the one who has less, does less, and offers less. But if he loves you, then I guess that's enough. Don't worry about the bills. What are your thoughts on broke man propaganda? I hope you enjoyed this video. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and I'll see you soon. Bye!