[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

You might have heard Mexicans complaining that they are under-represented in the media. They're bunch of whiners. The real victims of media under-representation are billionaires.

Because of a lack of affluent characters in media, we face a lack of empathy from a public that doesn't understand us.

Forbes Magazine has proved it with an estimation of the net worth of real characters:

Net worth estimates are based on an analysis of the real character’s source material, and where possible, valued against known real-world commodity and share price movements. In the case of privately held real concerns, we seek to identify comparable real public companies. All figures are as of market close, April 1, 2011.

(Note: they have an updated one, I'm using this one because it has the nice easy-to-post list).

Here are the richest people in fiction:

Originally Posted by Forbes Magazine

1. Scrooge McDuck $44.1 B — Mining and treasure hunting
2. Carlisle Cullen $36.2 B — Compound interest and investments
3. Artemis Fowl II $13.5 B — Theft, forgery and Facebook
4. Richie Rich $9.7 B — Inheritance and conglomerates
5. Jed Clampett $9.5 — Oil and gas
6. Tony Stark $9.4 B — Defense
7. Smaug $8.6 B — Marauding
8. Bruce Wayne $7.0 B — Inheritance and defense
9. Mr. Monopoly $2.6 B — Real estate
10. Arthur Bach $1.8 B — Inheritance
11. Jo Bennett $1.2 B — Electronics and inheritance
12. C. Montgomery Burns $1.1 B — Energy
13. Chuck Bass $1.1 B — Real estate
14. Gordon Gekko $1.1 B — Investments
15. Jeffrey Lebowski $1.0 B — Inheritance

Now take a look a similar list of real-life billionaires, and notice the huge difference.

1. Fictional rich people aren't as rich as real ones. The top 15 fictional billionaires have less money than the top 2 real-world billionaires. Only the top 8 fictional billionaires are rich enough to make the top-200 of real life billionaires. The 200th richest person has $6,600,000,000, almost 3 times as much as Mr. Monopoly.

2. There are 7 people with more money than the richest real character, Scooge Mcduck. He has barely more than half as much money of the REAL world's richest person.

There are 7 people richer than this in real life.

3. Being a real-life billionaire doesn't have the fringe-benefit of an exiting lifestyle - there are no "treasure hunters" on the real-life billionaire list, and all the marauding and theft we do is in the form of boring office work. Sure, we get to launder money for drug cartels and Al Queda every now and then, but it feels like normal office work.

Here's what a fictional billionaire's private jet looks like:


This is what ACTUAL billionaire's private jets look like:

[Levi Jones]

I am so sick and tired of the liberal Jew media portraying the underdog as the hero in film and TV. The guy down on his luck being oppressed by the system and the police. It is class warfare!

I would like to see more of rich and classy philanthropist billionaire job creators, who always have the best interests of their people in mind, as the heroes in film and movie.

It's not fair that they are so underrepresented.

[Dutch Girl]

Since everyone here always seems to prefer fiction (a.k.a. religion) over facts (a.k.a. science).

Scrooge McDuck has a lot more than $44.1 Billion:

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Originally Posted by Dutch Girl

Scrooge McDuck has a lot more than $44.1 Billion:

Quick, I'll trade you 100 trillion American for 100 Trillion Zimbabwaen:

And to think the vending machine will spit half of them out. He must really want that can of pepsi.

Forbes looked at the actual assets, the gold, jewels, industries and so on, rather than just taking some character's word for it:

"Net worth estimates are based on an analysis of the real character’s source material, and where possible, valued against known real-world commodity and share price movements. In the case of privately held real concerns, we seek to identify comparable real public companies." -Forbes

Hey, if you want to nitpick, it turns out the nerds are already all over this. Here they are going over the details of how wealthy Smaug (the dragon from "The Hobbit") is. They don't just believe what some number of some currency said by some character.

If this looks rich to you, you're billionaire-illiterate. This is only $8.6 billion, how much the 143rd richest person in the world has.

EDIT: Having read a bit of both our links, I can conclude that nerds are annoying and need to get beaten even more than they already do. Anyway, seeings as Forbes Magazine counts the assets of rich people for a living, while these commenter/nitpickers seem to be the type that only go outside once a week or so....Let's believe the experts.

[krunsch]

To all these billionaires on this thread: Stop whining, for god's sake. How did you get rich in the first place if you lack even the most rudimentary entrepreneurial spirit?

You have the money, you can hire the know how. Why don't you make your own movies about billionaires if you feel so dissatisfied with their representation??!!!

[Jeb Stuart Thurmond]

Originally Posted by krunsch

How did you get rich in the first place if you lack even the most rudimentary entrepreneurial spirit?

I was Chosen by the LORD, though of course the democrats tried to thwart God's will with their inheritance taxes.

You really have no idea what it's like to walk in our shoes, do you? You have no understanding of how the other half lives.

American billionaires are incredibly put-upon and unappreciated. If Americans knew anything about us that would not offer the the spare change of basic respect and admiration; but a kind of awe-struck, absolutely uncritical deference, no, an outright and even god-like veneration! If Americans knew the truth we would receive nothing but kow-tows from the little people for our Promethean role in job creation.

We are ATLAS! We hold the world in our hands! You owe everything, even your very lives, to us. We gave you life, and at a whim we can snuff it out!

[see_the_light]

Of course they are under-represented!

Let's consider that a proper representation should be on a per-capita value basis.

According with a recent article the 85 riches persons are worth more than the poorest half of mankind.

So every time a film or tv series shows a mexican alien or an indian or african we should also see bill gates or one of his palls.

Is that what happen? Hell no! They just fill the media with and overabundance of poor who, of course, present the worst of examples.

It's the opposite of queers, if one was to believe in the media we should be unable to go to a restroom and take a piss without having a dozen drooling fags coveting our dick. Is that what happens in real life? of course not, you can dangle your tally-waker safely enough.

PRAISE THE LORD!

[MitzaLizalor]

Originally Posted by Jeb Stuart Thurmond

(under-representation in the media)

I've heard there's a media policy of not reporting the ethnic status of participants in certain categories of news story. To what extent would the complaining parties (I gather there's quite a few of them) find the imbalance redressed if this policy were reversed?