What the Last Four Feature Films I Saw Taught Me About Money

Spoilers below.

Big Hero 6: In San Fransokyo, robot-making supplies are provided to each citizen for free. Technology schools are funded to the point that each student has enough raw materials to make dozens of failed robots while working towards a viable prototype. The barrier to making robots isn’t money; it’s time. Better that you have an aunt who is willing to handle all of your day-to-day needs even though you never once help her out in the family business. After all, you are a very important robot maker.

Also: as I’ve noted before: we desperately need healthcare robots for everybody. How much would that cost? Each robot would need to be equipped with a full-body scanner and, I guess, enough drugs to stock a pharmacy? Should be easy.

Annie: Having money makes life awesome. The entire movie is about how having access to money improves everything. Sure, there’s a bit of a subplot about “maybe if you have too much money, you might become a hardhearted jerk,” but most of the adults in this movie are hardhearted jerks, so that’s not necessarily correlated to wealth. Miss Hannigan is hardhearted because she has no money and is responsible for five kids, and Will Stacks is hardhearted because he’s under the stress of running a multinational mobile company.

Also, if you have a lot of money, you can buy a smart house that reads your brain. They don’t explain how this works, but I’m sure it works in much the same way as the healthcare robot, which is to say: magic.

Into The Woods: The only person trying to work within a system of exchanging money for goods and services is a preteen boy. Everyone else just steals what they want. The boy learns from the adults around him and starts stealing things too. When a woman finally retaliates against all the theft, the other characters murder her.

Unbroken: I’m not sure there was any money in this movie. They didn’t even have a POW camp economy where people swapped cigarettes and rations. It’s strange to see a movie where money (or lack thereof) isn’t part of the plot in at least some aspect.

What about you? What movies did you see over the holidays, and what did they teach you about money?

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.