From the article: It's easy to say "boo hoo" when you think of somebody rolling around in a Maserati making movies with stars left and right, but what about the boom operator who's trying to make ends meet with a family? What about the assistant editor who struggles by? What about the dialogue editor who hasn't had work in 8 months because the market is so thin? These are all real people who aren't exactly living the glamorous magical lifestyle that you imagine. Their plight is just as real as anyone struggling in Yuma, AZ or anywhere else.
Yes, and for every one of those people, there are 100+ below them who are struggling to make ends meet. A film is not made solely with a screenwriter, a director, and a few actors. Stay through a movie's full credits sometime and count the names you see. On a big Hollywood feature, you can probably easily count 500+ people that have the * privilege* of getting listed in the credits. "When two of my three immediate neighbors have been
foreclosed on, there are undoubtedly untold
screenwriters, actors, directors and others quietly,
invisibly struggling to keep their homes."
You make a great argument. Since I'm not in the industry, my perspective is vastly different than yours or Kleinbl00's. I took the article at face value, assuming that the struggling grips, best boys, extras, and the like do not own a home in Hollywood. I assumed that they live on the outskirts of LA in an apartment or something. If we are talking about these folks then this article doesn't apply to them, at-least in the context that I read it in. I appreciate the point-of-view that you share because it isn't necessarily one that I could have gleaned from the article. The bit about their plight being just as real as anyone in Yuma, is more or less why I disagreed with the article. People have no idea what's going on in Hollywood, because it is happening everywhere else too. I take umbrage with someone who complains about property values when they bought at the peak of the market - no matter where they live. It could have been San Francisco, Laguna Hills, or La Jolla, My reaction would have been the same. To me, the industry had nothing to do with it. If this article were about professional athletes, would we see things that differently than one another then?
I don't feel that anything I wrote was a personal attack on you kleinbl00. I rarely pay attention to who posted the articles until after I've read them, and this example is no different. I'm usually a "if you don't have anything nice, don't say it at all," in this type of public forum. I suppose I should have stuck to my guns, but I just didn't like this article. I'm sorry you were offended by my reaction. The facts remain: Hollywood is insulated. The average listing price in Hollywood was $698,000 as of this week. http://bit.ly/z678TX Compare that to the rest of the US: http://bit.ly/yE3AQ According to the US census, the average home price in the US is $272,900. If you could qualify for a home in Hollywood, you are not among the average - you just aren't.