Movies & TV's Most Unrealistic Job Salaries: Writers, Teachers, Lawyers, & more

I want to see a medical show with porters, social workers, music therapists, dietitians, pharmacists and radiology techs. Every medical show makes it seem like the doctors are the ones who start IVs, do every blood draw and run the MRI and CT machines. It's not true and our allied health staff deserve their flowers

To be fair the Princess Diaries explained that Mia's dad was a prince and also paid her school tuition. It would also stand to reason that he paid for their house as well as paying some form of child support. After all he cant have his child living in poverty while hes in a castle

Yup, I hate the trope of working because 'you're in it because you love it". That just feeds into the toxic belief that jobs like; teaching, nursing, being a chef, while underpaid, are still worth it, because it's done by good, loving virtuous people. If the work is so valuable, then pay the workers what they are worth.

Speaking as a ghostwriter, I write 3 70,000 word books/ month for clients. When I see Carrie working for 1 publication for almost nothing while living in Manhattan in the 90s...it's infuriating.

In Better Call Saul first season, Jimmy is working & living out of storage room in a nail salon, meeting potential clients in coffeeshops and answering his work phone with different voices , pretending to be a receptionist/secretary to try convince people that he has a staff and that his office is being painted. He does this while driving a beat up car while arguing about his pay as a public defender. When Jimmy & Kim decide to go in together on an office setup, they remodel the office themselves and have 1 receptionist/secretary between them. Kim is so overworked handling her 1 client, a major bank which is expanding all over the southwest, that she falls asleep while driving and is nearly killed in a car accident

New Girl is probably the most realistic part of a teacher's lifestyle she moved in with three other people sometimes four. I'm pretty sure four people could probably afford that place if they all put it together.

Well Feeny was an older teacher and he got the house in a period where it was a lot cheaper so I don’t consider that a flaw. Lawyers is the career is easy to show people having money to do things but it’s hard to show the free time. It’s why I am not nitpicky about career shows. Abbot Elementary is the show that has the most realistic view of my profession but even that has sitcom hijinks which I enjoy. It would be boring if we just saw people in the office filling paper work lol

I wonder if these unrealistic tropes helped fuel this unrealistic and delusional"nO oNE WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe" mindset.

Also, very few shows and films that feature schools do not show a support staff like teacher's assistants, bus aids and SECAs. Which I get since that means a bigger cast to keep track of. But still.

To be honest I'm so over the unrealistic life standard most TV and film characters have I don't even notice it, but one thing still irritates me immensely - how do people get a call from someone during working hours and just bolt out the door to go on a wild adventure for hours and even days?!

I think one show that gets real life work conditions and salaries extremely right is superstore. We get so many examples of life struggles such as when Amy is denied maternity leave, Sandra having to take multiple buses to reach work, Marcus being homeless, Mateo being taken by ICE and their numerous attempts to actually make a livable wage.

"They serve the idea that our work is our worth, and often completely ignore the reality that most people are overworked and underpaid, and that our jobs shouldn't be the focus of our lives." . 100% accurate, thank you. It's depressing to hear, but at least we do get to hear someone acknowledging the truth (and it being about how others ignore said truth, which is a bonus acknowledgement-ception).

The portrayal of lower middle class living in “The Middle” is one of the most accurate things I’ve ever seen. My entire childhood: half broken appliances, clutter everywhere, economizing constantly. 10/10

Don’t forget about rent control/stabilization. Also NYC of the 90s was nowhere near as expensive as NYC today or even 15 years ago.

You showed a clip from The Princess Diary of Mia sliding down a fireman pole, her mother & her live in a conveted fire station. In the books, her mom is a successful artist and her dad, who is alive, pays generous child support.

I minored in education during undergraduate, and we viewed a lot of films depicting teachers- some fictional, some based on real life. Looking back, I think The Freedom Writer’s Diary - one of the ones based on a true story - was pretty good at depicting the reality of the profession; the protagonist had to get multiple jobs to buy supplies, didn’t receive a lot of help from other teachers or administrators, and had to deal with underlying racial issues among the students.

As a former TA it’s crazy how much teachers pay for almost everything in their classroom

Carrie really gave us cognitive dissonance but we should’ve seen it coming. Apart from her, there’s also Andrea Sachs.

Actually those creatives you see on TV that live in those big metro cities would end up living in either a SRO, with their parents or a shit one bedroom apartment. On TV nobody talks about budgets, inflation, going to the Goodwill for some basic stuff and the problems with transportation. On TV everything is unrealistic hunky dory and the only thing that matters is a sex life, parties and hanging out with friends at bars.

As a teen I was always super jealous that Rory Gilmore was a grade A student despite always being outside the house and that the characters of Gossip Girl never did any homework at all.