this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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In the UK I got quite close to the Theatre World for a while and for Actors in the UK at least the problem seems to be that way more people go into Acting over there than the need for Actors with the result that most earn less than minimum wage in average from Action (which is possible under UK work laws because actors are freelancers and most spend long periods without any income from it between jobs).
Judging by other areas such as Tech Startups and Game Making and from what I know indirectly from the Fashion World, which all seem to be quite exploitative and pay below average for most people working in it, I think all professions that have an image of Glamour (in a broad sense) end up with most of people working there making comparativelly peanuts even if there are a handful of superstars and high level managerial types making tons of money.
Also, by the way, Architects make good money. Graphics Designers, on the other hand, not so much.
I've heard this line more than once. But the problem I see isn't a lack of demand for talented actors nearly so much as a staggering pay gradiant between D-List and A-List talent.
Attempting to become an actor is enormously expensive, so even talented people can wash out quickly if they don't have rich family. Meanwhile, hacks with connections languish for entire careers.
That has been my experience (tangentially). It's the original Hustle Culture. Doing tons of work for "exposure" and waiting your life to make it big, while other people in better networked positions make money grinding talent through a low pay system.
Well, attempting to become an actor the old fashioned way (no degree) could be far less expensive if it wasn't for the massive house price bubble in the city were most of the work (and netwoking opportunities) are - London.
Also since my contact with the Acting World was via a few years of Acting Lessons (in my case purelly because I enjoyed it rather than having any ideas of going into it) which seems to be quite a common side-gig for such people, I did meet a significant number of actors and actresses who weren't from rich families and just kept limping along for years after having taken an Acting Degree, doing maybe one play a year (and hoping it would run for longer than one month) whilst doing other work in between (such as working at a pub or giving Acting lessons to amateurs like me) to make ends meet.
This was a decade ago and expenses for living in London, namelly housing, have gone up a lot since.
There's a bio from Michael Caine and reading it knowing present day Britain makes it pretty obvious that the conditions that allowed so many working class lads to get were he got back in the 70s (and which, by the way, also applied to that generation in the music world) aren't there anymore - nowadays if mommy and daddy aren't at least upper middle class or wealthier, it's pretty much impossible to make it in the career even with a scholarship to a good Drama School because of how stupidly expensive London is. Personally I think this reflects negativelly in the quality of British Actors and even up to a point in how much and how well certain kinds of life experience get played (i.e. based on stereotypes and shallow rather than realistic).
And all this is without going the whole "connections are crucial" part of it which means the scions of the right people get all kinds of chances giften to them whilst the others are fighting for crumbs.
In the uk: arts investment on average returns twice what is put in to it. The problem is this is often non profit funding that is returned back to communities and organizations and not realized as profit and thus people think it's bad. No, it doubled the money, but then used the money on good shit and didn't just leave it sitting in a bank to accrue interest. That's a good thing.
I wasn't criticizing the value of Art, just pointing out the horrible economics of it from the point of view of the vast majority of its practicioners and having a go at explaining it.
And yeah, a lot of people in present day ultra-materialist Consumer Society don't see the value of Art even all the while they consume its products (such as Music and Films).
Yes I was agreeing and adding to your point if that wasn't clear!