The folks behind the new movie “Arthur” had to defend their protagonist’s checking account recently.
Suffice to say it’s got plenty of zeroes, and The New York Post wondered if economically strapped audiences might be turned off by watching a gazillionaire.
Nonsense.
The original “Arthur” came out in 1981, right on the heels of the economically disastrous Carter administration. Audiences gobbled up the main character’s rich eccentricities. Some of that may have had to do with star Dudley Moore’s performance. He didn’t rub our noses in his wealth. In fact, all those dollar bills retarded his emotional growth.
It remains to be seen if Brand can pull off that same stunt. But audiences don’t seem to mind cheering on other super-duper millionaires.
Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, has more money than Donald Trump but we love him in or out of his iron suit. The same holds true for Bruce Wayne, AKA that Dark Knight.
Ultimately, the American people deserve more credit than this. We don’t instantly dismiss someone on screen because they’re rich. Nor do we castigate an impoverished character based on where he or she lives. It’s all about the person’s heart and actions.
In the original “Arthur,” our hero eschewed his fortune for the love of a tough as nails woman (Liza Minnelli).
If Brand’s Arthur does the same with similar conviction audiences won’t give a fig if he’s rich or poor by the end credits.
(Photo: Russell Brand plays Arthur, the spoiled millionaire, and Nick Nolte is Arthur’s possible father in law in “Arthur,” the remake of the 1981 comedy classic. A Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo by Barry Wetcher)
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, uh, did any of these geniuses notice how many movies about rich people were made during the Great Depression? I think a big part of it is, actually, that people like to see luxurious things, especially when they can’t actually afford them. You can say it shows they’re optimistic, or that their greed outweighs their envy, but either way, it appears to be the case.
I mean, have you seen the food prices in Tokyo? But watch an anime some time: the food in those things is incredible (they actually bring in people who paint food for billboards and restaurant ads, to show the animators how to make the food look its most appetizing). Indeed, one American teaching English over there characterized Japanese television as “famous people eating”, and yet a lot of those shows’ audiences are probably students getting by on three Cup Noodle a day.
Funny critters, humans.
Ridiculous. The 80s were filled with movies focused on millionaires, “Brewster’s Millions,” “Trading Places,” “Toys,” “Ruthless People,” “Troup Beverly Hills,” “Wall Street,” etc. We were coming off of terrible times then, yet people seemed to love those movies as they provided hope and an escape. I can’t believe they are hand-wringing over something so silly.
It’s a meme some of the sources in the NYPost story instantly debunk, so why write about it in the first place?
And every time you see a rom-com the girl and guy live in mostly opulent settings even when their jobs don’t seem to pay much!
It’s a cop out. A movie bombs and right away somebody wants to say, well it’s because of this or that, never minding the fact that the movie just plain sucks.
Because if they did, they might have to re-evaluate the whole process of making films.
If you re-make a movie, and don’t keep the details of the film which made it good in the first place, you will fail. I challenge anyone to prove that wrong. And I don’t mean remake the film but give it new characters setting plot etc, but a true remake. Find me a remake that changed what made the original good, and how it worked better in the remake.
Typical Hollywood, pass the blame on a Liberal ideal that the population hates the rich.
RE: Remakes that’re better, I may be alone in this but I think Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes was better, and it changed a lot from the first film (and has the ending from the book). Then again the only reason to watch those movies is to see the cool ape costumes, and his had better ones, so…
There are people who prefer the remakes of Last Man on Earth (Omega Man and I Am Legend); I think they’re wrong—Will Smith is good but he’s no Vincent Price—but they have a case. Batman Begins is better than Tim Burton’s Batman (the first one of which is considered good, at least).
One could perhaps make the case that, given the recession and all the celebrity meltdowns lately, the public is losing patience with rich self-indulgent idiots, but that has a “social conservative” tinge that detracts from the pure orthodoxy of the class war rhetoric.