Born rich - A documentary
Money can buy us happiness up to a certain point, but beyond that, it’s upto us what we make of it.
I come from a middle-class family in India, where income inequality is extremely high, when I walk down the streets or go anywhere I see the poor people, the homeless.
Most of them are poor because they were born into a poor family, just like I was lucky enough to be born into a well-to-do family.
So, if we, as middle-class people who are barely surviving ourselves, sometimes feel a bit sad about the state of things, do the generational wealthy feel guilty about not doing enough or having privileges they didn't even work for?
While there’s little information about what people with generational wealth think, the documentary Born Rich helps us take a peek into their lifestyle and opinions. The film is made by Jamie Johnson, who himself is the heir of Johnson & Johnson.
Jamie asked more than 50 people to be a part of this documentary but most refused, only 11 agreed to appear, including Ivanka Trump. The documentary begins on Jamie Johnson's 21st birthday party, where while getting ready for the party he says-
“I live in a country that everybody wants to believe is a meritocracy, we want to think that everyone earns what they have. I guess, if it makes you feel better, keep telling yourself that but it doesn't work for me anymore.”
Johnson & Johnson was founded by Jamie Johnson’s great-grandfather, Robert Wood Johnson. Jamie’s grandfather, father, and Jamie himself were born rich. Jamie’s father, James Loring Johnson, never worked in his life because his father did not want the family to interfere with the business.
Growing up, most of them weren’t aware of their privileged lives. As the Vanderbilt/Whitney heir said, "Growing up, everything seemed normal. You go to a museum and you’re like, 'Yeah, that’s me. That’s my family, you know?' Don’t you have your family at the museum?"
Another said, "Growing up in the country, I thought everybody had horses and carriages and stuff like that, you know?"
Most of them had a pretty alienating experience when they first became aware of their wealth. S.I. Newhouse IV, the heir of Condé Nast, said he was beaten up when some students found out he was extremely rich. That day, he also realized how little his dad paid attention to him because as he went home all screwed up, his dad didn’t even glance twice.
Ivanka Trump also talks about how everyone was nice to her just because her parents had money and that’s why the major quality she looks in her friends is sincerity.
In a way, all of them are pretty aware of their privilege. But they don’t necessarily see that privilege as we do. They’re like, "Yeah, I’m more privileged than others, but I have problems too."
There are countless different opinions on this, so I’d just like to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft, where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.”
“I think people who don’t work don’t really have interesting and meaningful lives. More than anything it hurts them. When you’re born rich people just associate you with what you’ve been given, but the truth is every individual feels better when you create something on your own. Everyone takes pride in the work they do. Everyone likes to be active and be creative. I think if you’re entirely idle you’re not going to have an interesting life. Then, you do have a huge sense of entitlement and you do just embrace all the power that’s been given to you that you haven’t earned. Then you become arrogant and you become elitist and I don’t think those are good qualities, necessarily.” — Jamie Johnson
This observation by Jamie Johnson seems to be true. The first person to appear in the documentary is Luke Weil, heir to Scientific Games, an extremely profitable company in the gaming industry.
He talks about doing a lot of drugs at his boarding school, not liking being picked up from school in a limousine and how prenup has been drilled into his brain since he was 5, and how if some ungrateful bitch says that a prenup is unromantic, then he doesn’t want to marry her anyway.
There were other rich kids like Cody Franchetti and Stephanie Ercklentz who seemed extremely out of touch with reality too, and I guess in a way, being out of touch from reality helped them be happy. They were arrogant, selfish, and elitist but happy nonetheless.
Vanderbilt and some others were a bit more empathetic to the world conditions. Vanderbilt seemed like one of the nicest people of them all. He didn’t know he was rich when he was growing up; his parents always told him that they were poor. It was on his 18th birthday that he realized he was a millionaire, and it was hard for him to know that while he was a multimillionaire without even doing anything, some of his friends have nothing.
So, in a way, these kids are just like you and me. Some are too ignorant and only care about their daddies' and mommies' money, while others want to do something meaningful and achieve something.
Most of them don’t feel guilty about their privilege, just like most of us who had parents with a stable income did not feel guilty about living a normal life.
Nonetheless, while we middle-class people have a lot of financial burden and limited opportunities, feeling bad or symphatizing with these rich kids is extremely hard.
Email me at- writes.divya@gmail.com
