The Poverty Plot

[dvandom]

I am feeling inspired to delinate and then complain about what I call the Poverty Plot. Just about every form of serial entertainment eventually gets around to dusting off this lame plot and trotting it out in some mistaken belief that people stuck in dead-end jobs want to see their heroes stuck in dead-end jobs, or something to that effect.

First, here's what the Poverty Plot is NOT.

1. It is not a story about people who start off poor, and for whom this is their usual lot. Regardless of whether the characters improve their situation.

2. It is not a story about being a little tight for funds and having to take an assignment that would ordinarily be turned down (bounty hunters going for a less valuable target, smugglers taking a dangerous cargo, mercs putting up with a lousy boss, etc). This can be annoying if it's used too often, but it's not The Poverty Plot.

3. It is not a story in which the characters suffer through reduced circumstances in order to become better people or learn something important about themselves or life. Nor is it a story about going undercover as a poor person.

Here's what the Poverty Plot IS.

1. Characters are, through some contrivance, stripped of their resources and rendered unaccustomedly poor and without support. For some reason, they are unable to recover their resources for the duration of the plot, and it's not voluntary (i.e. "voluntary" would be someone disguising themselves as a homeless person to troll for a killer).

2. Characters then, despite incredible talents, powers, vast wealth that should be somehow accessible even with the contrivance, etc...anyway, they then are reduced to menial labor to pay for food, lodging, repairs, etc. This usually means McJobs, but if the Poverty Plot goes into extra innings, there's usually some sort of contest (race, beauty pageant, tournament) in which the characters participate (usually humiliating one or more of them) in order to try to get a bunch of money and end the Poverty Plot. Sometimes it works, sometimes the prize is a pittance or gets destroyed, etc.

3. Eventually, the characters get their resources and support back, and there is absolutely no long term effect of the Poverty Plot, except for maybe occasional jokes made at the expense of someone who had a particularly demeaning job.

For superheroes, the most common form of the Poverty Plot is "The Fantastic Four Flip Burgers." The FF goes bankrupt (again) and they all end up taking low-paying jobs that don't really take advantage of their powers, except maybe the Thing works construction or the Human Torch cooks the burgers with his powers. In anime, it's endemic (heck, almost all of Tenchi In Tokyo and big chunks of Tenchi Universe are Poverty Plots). It also comes up in movies, like in The Addams Family Values.

Why does the Poverty Plot keep coming up? I can only imagine that the writers, who have likely been in McJobs themselves at some point, want to "write what you know", despite it being totally out of theme for what they're writing. So what if you're writing about government-backed super-spies? Stick 'em out of contact in enemy territory totally by accident, and make them get jobs to pay rent until they can re-establish contact. Superheroes with commercially useful powers? Gosh, public opinion has turned on them so hard that no one will hire them to use their powers, but they can still get a job at McDonalds. Etc.

Now, I can't speak for everyone, but when I'm engaging in escapism through media, someone working a McJob doesn't really count as escapism. Especially if I'm watching a show about someone who is supposed to be able to do much better. There are entire series devoted to characters who start out stuck there and stay there, if I want to see that sort of thing. If I'm watching a show about superheroes, secret agents, magical girls, wacky rich people, fantasy heroes or avatars of fundamental concepts, I want to see them being what they are. I don't want to sit through one or three or eight episodes in which the alien princess with tremendous magical powers puts up with customers while working the counter at McD's.

Plus, of course, the Poverty Plot comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. It's just an excuse for the writers to make the characters suffer the kind of McJobs the writers themselves have had to work at, and then it's back to status quo. Once in a blue moon a Poverty Plot will actually turn into something worthwhile, but it's usually just footage you could cut out without losing a damn thing.