The American Bourgeoisie

I am an avid fan of the VH1 and MTV shows like "fabulous Life of..." and "Cribs." It's one of those guilty pleaures I have. I'm maybe should be a little ashamed by it, but I'm not. There is something that fascinates us about those who are wealthy and famous, and to get a little glimpse into what they are spending their money on is pretty interesting. The only downside is that you see the people who control the majority of the wealth in this country.

I realize that those represented in these shows are not the only people with that kind of money, but the fact that we are giving people like Britney Spears, Shaq, and Flavor Flav the kind of money they have is sad for us as a society. These people are barely able to take care of themselves and yet we give them huge amounts of wealth to control. Let's look at some more specific examples of why these people are going to lead to the downfall of our economic system.

We've all seen the pictures of Britney walking in and out of gas station restrooms in her bare feet. Who does that? This is a girl who owns Ferraris and has enough money to buy thousands of shoes, and yet she is walking around in tattered cutoffs and no shoes in a place where your average vagrant wouldn't even want to go to the bathroom. Should we really be looking to let this type of person have this kind of economic control? We don't even need to get into her marriage and her husband. Just go read some of his rap lyrics and you'll again question why this girl should be wielding the kind of financial firepower that she is.

Let's next look at Flavor Flav. For anyone who watched even five minutes of his latest reality show "Flavor of Love" you will question whether he is mentally capable of dressing, feeding, and otherwise taking care of himself--let alone managing a large amount of finances. He seems like a large baby who stumbles around letting his entourage take care of him while he is just trying to get from A to B (whatever that is). I mean, he makes Dustin Hoffman's character from Rainman look like Stephen R. Covey. Yet again, this is someone who we are paying a huge amount of money to. What sort of commentary is this for Western Culture when we are throwing as much money at him as we can just so we can watch him act like any frat boy up the road?

I realize that these two are not part of the majority of those who economic power in this world, but it is very disheartening to watch these shows and realize that those who seem to control the majority of wealth are probably near the bottom of the barrel when it comes to common sense (Charlie Sheen), intelligence (Jessica Simpson), and ingenuity (Paris Hilton). If there ever comes a time when we are redistributing wealth (I'm not a Marxist, honest), I don't really need any but I sure hope we take a bunch away from these people.