Don't worry, this post is going to be very specific and focused, and not at all influence by vague teenage angst and a mild dissatisfaction with the way that the world functions. I'm not a teenager anyhow.
I was talking to a dear friend who asked why, when we routinely criticise "over-paid footballers", we leave over-paid film stars alone. The comparison is both legitimate and apt. Both earn a lot and can give terrible performances, both species contain their share of COMPLETE AND UTTER dickheads (in acting, Mel Gibson/Tom Cruise, mostly), both sometimes receive more than their employers can realistically and sustainably afford to pay them.
And so on, and so forth.
The point being that footballers aren't always "over-paid", because they earn what the market dictates (granted, they do sometimes receive far too much if a club is owned by an oil tycoon with obscene amounts of money and no business model). Similarly, actors aren't always over-paid, even at ($/£?)15m-odd a time, because films starring those big actors generally generate a lot more than they cost.
Now I'm a capitalist at heart, inasmuch as its completely atrocious, but its use of competition does aid us. However, rational arguments are for the weak, and instead of being a heartless old sod myself, I'm going to conclude this piece by criticising Mel Gibson.
He's misogynistic, anti-Semitic and unintelligently foul-mouthed. Also, he's aged badly. How amusing for a man who's traded so regularly off his looks.
Etc.
(Okay, so it lost some of its focus. Fuck off.)
