On Demand
The Brian Lehrer Show / November 17, 2005 / Keeping Up With The Joneses, or the Power of the Theater
Keeping Up With The Joneses, or the Power of the Theater
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Mike Leigh, filmmaker, playwright, and author of Abigail's Party, now running at The New Group Theater
- explains theater's curious power to tell us about ourselves
» Abigail's Party at The New Group
» Mike Leigh (IMDB)
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Every country has their policy for the goodness of the community and for prosperity. There are a lot of people out there who end up needing credit repair help because of two things that are very powerful forces, even if they aren’t actually empirically real. (Empirical meaning that which is measurable, and can also be completely reproduced over and over, i.e. scientifically proven.) The first force is that most diabolical of couples, the Joneses, who we have to keep matching pace with, and the second force is the pressure to live up to the American Dream of multiple cars, a big house with a white picket fence, and to have bigger and better stuff than the Joneses. It has been ingrained so deeply into the American consciousness that if you don’t have these things, that you have to go deep into debt to acquire them, or somehow you aren’t a good person. It breaks people down mentally and financially. Security is all well and good – nay, it is vital – but it is not written anywhere that you have to go into hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to keep up with a mythical couple. Many people’s credit score has dipped so low because of the pursuit of that “American Dream” and keeping up with the Joneses, and many are in need of credit repair help.
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