Greetings Treat-A-Weekers,
It’s been busy in mi casa getting back into the routine of school and work and saying farewell to another beloved summer, but I’m back! Lately, I have no idea why, but I have been viewing and reading a lot of material that all address the same basic subject — lifestyles of the incredibly wealthy. Before I delve into a discussion of a show and a movie that I recently really enjoyed in this genre, I must say that I am aware (and you may be too) that increased exposure to materialism in our media consumption is causing a whole host of problems for us as a society; as with forms of social media, in general, this regular exposure to people living the glamorous life is making us unhappier. A recent study by Dr Rodolfo Leyva of the London School of Economics Department of Media and Communications showed that “Results suggest that momentary exposure to and regular consumption of materialistic media messages (MMMs) induces stronger materialism and anti-welfare attitudes…The Apprentice, Keeping Up With The Kardashians and X-Factor are replete with MMMs that are engineered to absorb audiences into the glamorous world of wealth and celebrities and thus have a strong potential to function as cultivators of materialistic values and attitudes…Humans are inherently materialistic but also very social and communal. The way this is expressed depends on our culture. If there is more emphasis on materialism as a way to be happy, this makes us more inclined to be selfish and anti-social, and therefore unsympathetic to people less fortunate…This study can contribute to explanations for why the UK public’s support for welfare to aid the impoverished and unemployed has been decreasing during a time of rapidly growing wealth disparities, living costs, and rates of precarious and underemployment.”
That all being said, my treat picks for today allow us a kind of juicy voyeuristic viewing pleasure of lives of luxury while at the same time making very clear that those lives are replete with pitfalls and aren’t all that they are cracked up to be, thereby allowing us to appreciate our own lives more. Make sense? Let’s take, for instance, the movie Crazy Rich Asians, which closely followed the book by Kevin Kwan. I saw the movie a few weeks back and like the majority of the world, loved it. Why? Well, besides thoroughly enjoying getting to see the background setting of Singapore which I’ve never been to, having read the book, I thought the characters were well cast and adored how zany many of them were, and how fun and colorful the scenes in the movie were — especially the Singapore street food scene and the protagonist Rachel’s dress-trying on montage. I also thought the movie did a good job of depicting the unnatural-ness of excessive wealth, it’s intentional and unintentional constraints on relationships, the lack of trust that burdens those who have it, and the age-old truth that money cannot buy love/happiness. If you are one of the few who haven’t seen the movie, you should. It is guaranteed to be a bright spot in your week.
My second, viewing recommendation is a show on HBO called Succession. Only 1 season of 10 episodes has been released (though a second season has been ordered) and the show is dark, gross and funny all at once. Succession is the story of self-made, irascible, elderly media mogul Logan Roy (played beautifully by Brian Cox) and his four adult children who are all vying for control of the family business while concurrently seeking to maintain some sort of healthy familial bond but failing. When we first started watching it, we thought we were watching a strictly serious drama, but we found ourselves cracking up at random parts of the first episode and then throughout the series. One day when the credits were rolling we saw that Will Ferrell was involved in the creation of the show and then it made sense. We were surprised that a show with a dark premise, power and money first, love and family second, could have laugh-out-loud moments. But Succession has lots of humorous bits, mostly because of how shocked and appalled one becomes over the unchecked greed of these overprivileged, unprepared, conceited but not particularly intelligent or competent adult siblings/children. This is a show that stuck with us this summer — great acting, very memorable opening music, humor, and at the end of it all, a twist that makes one realize that all the money in the world isn’t worth having without the freedom of a clean conscience.
So, friends, that’s it from me for this week. Until next week, I remain, very truly yours,
M
