Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
The Two Park Avenues: Promotion of Documentary About Income Inequality Perpetuates Inequality
We received a press release yesterday heralding the release of a new film. It read: “740 Park, the bestseller by Michael Gross, becomes Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream.”
This struck us as odd because we had, in fact, heard about this documentary before, but described in a very different way: the famed building would be used as a foil for Park Avenue in the South Bronx, as a means of discussing income inequality in America. This had seemed to us like a very good idea. Not that we wouldn’t also like to see Michael Gross’s engaging social history become a movie (or an inspired-by Dallas-style TV show that would blow 666 Park and its many real estate inaccuracies out of the water), but that would be a very different movie indeed.
This was, of course, the same movie we had heard about, a movie that is described more accurately and evenhandedly, we discovered through some extensive googling, on the Independent Television Service website. But back to that first release and how its spin got under our skin. Read More
