Drink specials at Winners
Now,
I understand there are various reasons for the certain ways that TV
shows tend to be rather unrealistic. However, I was wondering whether
there has ever been a TV
show, either drama or comedy, that was (a) set in Manhattan and (b)
explicitly told the audience how much rent the characters have to pay
for their apartments, and how much the bill adds up to after the gang
has enjoyed a nice restaurant dinner.
Off the top of my head, the only show set in Manhattan to ever actually mention the price of anything was "Sex and the City", which fetishized the high prices of luxury shoes. But of course those prices were mentioned only for titillation purposes: the show never mentioned what the rent was or how much our fabulous heroines had to pay for their group lunch, so it doesn't really count for my question.
Of course, it is easy to see the reason for this small omission. If some show actually did mention how much the lifestyle depicted in the show would really cost, that show wouldn't translate very well to other cultures and audiences, since they would find it almost incomprehensible. This includes both the present-day flyover country and the future audiences during the syndication run. Plus the show would then have to somehow explain how those characters manage to afford those prices despite the fact that their employment is spotty at best, ruining the whole fantasy.
Off the top of my head, the only show set in Manhattan to ever actually mention the price of anything was "Sex and the City", which fetishized the high prices of luxury shoes. But of course those prices were mentioned only for titillation purposes: the show never mentioned what the rent was or how much our fabulous heroines had to pay for their group lunch, so it doesn't really count for my question.
Of course, it is easy to see the reason for this small omission. If some show actually did mention how much the lifestyle depicted in the show would really cost, that show wouldn't translate very well to other cultures and audiences, since they would find it almost incomprehensible. This includes both the present-day flyover country and the future audiences during the syndication run. Plus the show would then have to somehow explain how those characters manage to afford those prices despite the fact that their employment is spotty at best, ruining the whole fantasy.
Sex and the City was more realistic than some other NYC-set shows (think Seinfeld and Friends) when it came to the issue of how the characters could afford their rents and lifestyles. Samantha and Miranda earned high incomes, while Charlotte had family money and then married two successful men. Carrie was the only one of the four who didn't appear to have sufficient income to support her lifestyle. She might have been "subsidized" to some extent by the wealthy Mr. Big, though I'm not familiar enough with the show to know if that actually was in the script.
Come to think if it, one of the episodes I saw dealt with Carrie's spending habits. She needed a $40,000 downpayment to stay in her apartment but had spent too much on Manolos and other luxuries; the other three offered to help her out but IIRC Carrie moved elsewhere.
Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights
Posted by Anonymous | 12:51 PM
Well, didn`t Carrie wrote those columns? If a woman is a succesfull columnist in a place like new york, she must have some money.
Posted by Anonymous | 3:06 AM
Note that I used Sex and the City as an example of a show which did mention the high price of something.
At least in that show the characters did have jobs, and at least with Samantha and Miranda, it's easy to believe that their jobs would support their lifestyle. Charlotte came from a rich family, so only Carrie's lifestyle left something to be explained.
In this respect, far more egregious examples are not that hard to find. For starters there was Friends.
Posted by Ilkka | 10:59 AM