"Mmm...macroeconomics"

[Special thanks to Stokes for coming up with the concept for this D'OHverthinking It post. - Lee]

It’s often said that the Simpsons are intended to be an iconic representation of typical lower-middle class Americans. The father works a semi-skilled blue collar job, and they own a home and two cars, but they’re always a little short on money, and their financial problems have often been used as major and minor plot points in the series.

But “The Simpsons” is an episodic TV show–that is, plot elements typically don’t carry over into future episodes. Granted, there are some exceptions (the death of Maude Flanders being a notable one), but for the most part, problems that arise in one episode are resolved in that episode, and that’s that.

The same holds true for the Simpsons’ financial problems. Someone in the family (usually Homer, but often Marge) makes an unsound financial decision, pays the consequences of that decision for the duration of the episode, and is finally saved from that situation through implausible but humorous plot devices. Problem solved. Subsequent episodes may mention other specific or general financial difficulties, but never the lasting ramifications of past mistakes or hardships.

Sounds familiar? Like how for the last twenty years, consumers and individuals kept borrowing money to solve problems until the credit stopped flowing?

Ryan Sheely and Matthew Wrather return from hiatus to overthink Glee and Gossip Girl, with detours into the narratology of farce, middlebrow thinking, irrationality and behavorial economics, consequentialism, and intertextuality.

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Download TFT Episode 8 (MP3)

People go to the movies for a variety of reasons: escape, catharsis, inspiration, a date, an air-conditioned room on a muggy Sunday afternoon. Rarely do we go in order to learn something. And we’re okay with that. We sacrifice science and accuracy in the name of entertainment. Hollywood has a hard time getting physics right: do bullets spark when they hit a metal surface? Can a bus traveling at 55 MPH jump a forty-foot gap? And just how long does it take a kid to fall from Niagara Falls, anyway?

But Hollywood has an even harder time depicting genius.

By “genius” I don’t just mean exceptional technical ability or artistic talent. I mean that insane burst of creativity that breaks conventional boundaries. A genius is not just someone smarter than us, but someone so much smarter that we can’t even recognize what they’re doing. The word genius itself, in Latin, refers to a guardian spirit; someone who created a great work was said to be inspired by such an entity. “Talent hits a target no one else can hit,” wrote Schopenhauer. “Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

To put it concretely: every heist movie has its techie guy. Every Bohemian romance has its tortured artist. Every business drama has its self-made billionaire. These people are not geniuses. The fact that we can recognize the tropes they inhabit proves it. Richard Feynman was a genius. Leonardo DaVinci was a genius. Warren Buffett is a genius. And I submit that Hollywood could not produce a satisfactory depiction of them.

Why do I say that? Let’s look at a few examples.

Few can deny the myriad benefits that the new era of action hero has brought humanity. He generates nonstop kinetic energy, capable of powering our modern conveniences like Blu-ray players or Bit-torrents with loads of extra features. He boasts levels of emotional endurance capable of withstanding stresses unheard of when our heroes were merely carved out of wood or stone, His delivery of satisfaction, in pain or in pleasure, is instant and constant. The modern-day action hero is many times more productive than his forebears: he is in more scenes and set pieces, he completes them faster in many more, shorter cuts, he kills more bad guys in slow motion than his grandfathers did on 16mm – he crashes more cars, he has more sex – the Gross Action Product of our modern day heroes makes the founding fathers of the genre pale by comparison. And he has impeccably photoshopped abs.

But one must at some point wonder – does this transformation in the basic action hero come with a cost? Sure, injecting a man with a poison so that he constantly has to supply his body with adrenaline or he dies is a great way to increase efficiencies and improve the general welfare, but is there a hidden cost to the action heroes themselves?

Or to all of us?

The In-Crank-rial Revolution’s human toll, after the jump –

In the first article of this series, I set forth the hypothesis that Lost is a modern-day retelling of The Lord of the Flies.  That famous novel, you’ll remember, was an allegory with the moral of “Anarchy bad; British society good!”  (Also, “Anarchy bad; Jesus good,” but that’s another story for another day.)  I argued in that post that LotF espoused a Hobbesian view of humanity, and that Lost, through the character of Jack, did the same, sans all the Jesus-talk.

This week, I’d like to talk more about the differences between Lord of the Flies and Lost, particularly the differences between views of modernity in the 1950s, when the novel was written, and views of modernity now, in the era of Lost.  And anthropology!  Lots of anthropology.  But first, let me quickly summarize the episodes I watched this week.

Today, we present a guest post from ShadowBanker of the excellent blog Ecocomics. As I mentioned in last week’s open thread, we’re big fans here. Along the lines of a couple of our podcast episodes, it presents simple, rational tools for understanding the hordes of undead ravaging the post-apocalyptic world looking for delicious, delicious brains. Enjoy!

Suppose that in 2010 there is a major zombie apocalypse.  Inexplicably, corpses all over the world reanimate and hunt the human race in search of fresh brains.  Now, assume that after years of struggle, the human race prevails and the zombies have been contained on the island formerly known as New Zealand.  What now?  What happens after the great zombie wars?

These have been difficult days for me. As a die-hard Terminator fan, I went into a screening of Terminator: Salvation knowing that the movie was getting bad reviews, but still holding onto a sliver of hope that this latest installment to my beloved franchise would remain true to the “real” Terminator and right the many wrongs of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

As we all know now, the movie was a sloppy, shoddy disappointment (you can listen to me rant about its shortcomings in this podcast episode; I won’t retread that territory here). That disappointment was bad enough, but in the ensuing weeks after seeing Terminator: Salvation, an even worse thing happened: I came to the sad conclusion that a huge part of the Terminator ethos, the franchise’s mantra and guiding light, is one big fat lie:

“No fate but what we make.”

For years, I fooled myself into holding onto this phrase like some sort of holy writ, but now, at this nadir moment, I must recognize the truth: “no fate but what we make” is demonstrated poorly at best by the movies/TV shows–even in the greatness that is Terminator 2–and flat out contradicted by the meta-narrative of the franchise.

“No fate but what we make?” My ass.

There seems to be a consensus that the Oscars are becoming less and less populist. Back in the day, movies like Star Wars, Tootsie, Ghost, and E.T. were all nominated for Best Picture. This year, a lot of people haven’t seen a single one of the nominees. The Oscars have gone all snooty on us. But here’s my question: can “snooty” be quantified? Can we graph the Academy’s turn towards art house?

(NOTE: This post would not be possible without the badassery of sheely, whose day job involves all sorts of numerical kung fu.)

Slumdog Millionaire seems to be heading for a big Oscar night, so we thought we’d take a closer look at the prize at stake in the movie.

Without giving away too much, I can say that the protagonist is a contestant on the Indian version of the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” where the grand prize is a whopping 20 million rupees. That’s a lot of cash, right?

Right?

Well, let’s take a look, chai-wallah.

(Warning: Slumdog Millionaire “spoiler” to follow, as if the outcome of this movie were ever in doubt.)

I purposely cropped out the "TM" as a sign of disrespect.

I’m not a big fan of seeing movies on opening day. It’s always a zoo, and the movie will look exactly the same way two days later. But for certain films, waiting two days is not an option. Quantum of Solace qualified.

So I got a group together (which included fellow Overthinker Stokes), we bought tickets online, and we showed up at the AMC Loews Kips Bay an hour early. I was so busy debating the number of times Daniel Craig would appear shirtless, I didn’t really notice that they were keeping us in the line for a suspiciously long time. Finally, an annoyed murmur made its way through the crowd: technical difficulties in the previous show, broken projector or something.

Now, this happens. Totally understandable. But what happened next, I take issue with: they offered us all either a pass to another movie at the same theater, or a refund of the ticket price.

This was the only person we had to complain to.

I suppose in a manner of speaking, this is fair – they were unable to provide a service, they refunded our money. But everyone there wasted about two or three hours, between going to the theater, waiting in the line, and then drifting off to whatever the evening’s Plan B was. This was a big inconvenience and a big bummer. And while a refund might have met some minimal standard of fairness, it didn’t seem like AMC Loews was really trying to apologize.

That’s probably not by accident. AMC Loews is a big ol’ company, and I bet they’ve thought through their options here. They could have given us a consolation prize, like two free passes each, or a voucher for free popcorn. That would cost them money, but gained them goodwill.

But does anyone pick a movie theater based on your feelings towards the management? Of course not – you pick a movie theater based on location and showtimes. People don’t even really pay attention to the corporate identities of their movies theaters – you just ask Fandango what your choices are and go to the most convenient one.

Contrast this to the restaurant business. A restaurant lives and dies by word of mouth. People need to like the restaurant to recommend it. And while a lot of the restaurant experience is food, bad customer service can be the kiss of death. That’s why if you don’t like the wine, you can send it back, no harm no foul.

And now we’re getting back to Philosophy 101. A lot of the time, people act  ethically not because it’s the right thing to do, but out of an enlightened self-interest. Being a good person brings you good things. Similarly, “the customer is always right” sounds like an ethical position, but it’s really just good business. Here’s Adam Smith from The Wealth of Nations:

The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.

But if circumstances change so customers will continue to use your business even if they don’t like you, then why bother trying to get them to like you?

A good example is the airline industry. It used to be (pre-internet) that it was nearly impossible to compare prices between every available airline. You’d either just call your favorite one and book a flight, or let a travel agent do the comparison shopping for you. Either way, the airlines had a lot of incentive to make you like them. Of course, they didn’t always succeed, but at least they tried.

Now, thanks to the web, people can pin down the lowest priced flight, regardless of airline. Once you know that one flight is $30 cheaper, it’s hard to pass it up just because they were rude to you last time. And as a result, airlines start cutting amenities and generally treating people like crap. If all people are looking at is the price, than cutting customer service is actually one of the best ways to save money.

We like to think of good customer service as our inherent right. But customer service is another item on the ledger, and as a result, it’s subject to the principles of economics. We get exactly as much customer service as is consistent with maximum profits.