MovieChat Forums > Can't Buy Me Love (1987) Discussion > Is she rich or poor? The premise makes n...

Is she rich or poor? The premise makes no sense

posted 2 years ago by avortac4 (3744)
14 replies | jump to latest

She can't pay to clean or buy another rag for her mom (or buy a similar rag for herself, so she doesn't have to borrow her mom's rag), but she can buy Ronald all kinds of stuff, including expensive sunglasses, because she is shown to have..

.. _THREE_ CREDIT CARDS _!!..

I mean, this movies tries to have it both ways, and it doesn't work. She CAN'T be poor enough to need poor Ronald's savings, while at the same time afford to maintain a car, live in a nice house, have a rich mom and her credit cards simultaneously.

A thousand (or so) bucks is NOTHING to rich kids like her! What is her allowance, how much can she shop and just get a slight 'nag' (which is a slap on the wrist to a teenager suffering from shopping fever)?

Why is she so afraid of her mom anyway, she doesn't seem to be strict at all, there doesn't seem to be any discipline, and she seems to be a bad parent in so many ways anyway, so what is she afraid of? Really, WHAT is she afraid would happen, if all she EVER really gets is 'slight nagging' from her mom as a punishment?

Why is someone who clearly dominates her mom suddenly SO PANICKY about her reaction to some piece of clothing being 'ruined'? It's like, so what, that ANIMAL'S WHOLE LIFE was ruined when they made a jacket out of him/her, shouldn't that be a much bigger concern?

Also, isn't her mom SO RICH she could very easily replace that jacket anyway? I mean, the girl and her mom are both shown to be pretty gosh darned well off, there's NO WAY a thousand bucks would feel like anything in their finances, it'd be like maybe 10 cents or five bucks would be to more 'regular' people.

None of this makes any sense, but I guess they couldn't figure out any plausible way to make a rich teen beauty need a nerd so desperately she'll do 'anything' (within reason) if the nerd saves her.

Also, young pretties like she is (although I don't like her face, I can admit she probably looks good to most men's eyes) can SO easily get money from men, boys, teenagers, sugar daddies and so on, it boggles the mind why she would EVER need Ronald's savings.

Just think about all the onlyfans accounts and such... nowadays it's even easier, but from how easily women get money (often just by ASKING for it, without even giving a vague promise of ANYTHING in return! This is how depraved of sex and intimacy men are in this world, but it's somehow not an 'equality problem' because women are not the victims, but the exploiters), everyone should be able to realize it would be EXTREMELY easy for her to raise multiple thousands of dollars in a day without even having to do anything sexual for it.

(I mean, she could flash her boobies or something if the situation requires it to get even more money, she has SO many options and possibilities...)

Great movie in many ways, and surprisingly realistic in others (although the sappy ending kind of deletes the realism by implying you can CHANGE female ape-instincts just by giving them a 'speech' - this will never happen in real life), but the premise absolutely makes no sense, when it's based on BOTH her being rich AND poor simultaneously.

[–] Golfaddict666 (523) 2 years ago

None of wrote makes any sense at all. You’re trying to hard to be relevant here. She was a teenager plain and simple. She still had rules to live by and still answered to her mother. She didn’t need to be rich or poor to have these issues.

[–] Dill (14) 2 years ago

Right. It's one thing to borrow your mom's credit cards for back-to-school shopping. Totally different to disobey a direct order and then ruin your mom's 1000.00 outfit. Even if your mother is not all that strict it's not unreasonable to believe that Cindy was terrified of what she had done and didn't just have a thousand bucks laying around to fix it.

[–] strntz (12259) 3 months ago

You’re trying to hard to be relevant here.

He's trying to make the whole "makes no sense" posts his calling card. The problem is most of his posts make no sense - the irony apparently escaping him.

[–] LadyBug (133) 2 years ago

Cindy didn't have money. She got it all from her mother. The credit cards belonged to her mother. And her mother would probably notice that charge on one of her cards, for that suit.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) 2 years ago

That's a ridiculous argument. NO kid, unless they're a child actor, or some rare entrepreneur, or they're Bruce Wayne and their parents died and left them an inheritance when they were a kid, has their own money, but clearly anyone from a rich family, with a rich mommy and daddy, HAS MONEY, in comparison to someone born poor.

I agree with the OP. It makes no sense, but reading up on this film, it sounds like pap, and it's sad how Amanda Petersen's real life turned out. It seems she came from a nice family, but she was abused by people in the industry as a kid, and that sent her into a spiral of drugs and an early death. Fuck Hollywood.

[–] LadyBug (133) 2 years ago

How is that "ridiculous?"

Cindy was not able to go and buy a new suit on her own. She would have to use one of her mother's credit cards to do so. Remember, she was offering to work for a replacement suit because she did not have any money of her own?

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) 2 years ago

"Cindy didn't have money. She got it all from her mother."

Where do you think other spoiled rich kids get their money from? They ain't making it themselves.

[–] LadyBug (133) 2 years ago

Which is the whole point. She had no money of her own, or she would have been able to buy a replacement suit on her own.

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) 2 years ago

Okay, we're splitting over hairs. My point is, she doesn't appear to have been poor, even if her mom refused to buy her all the stuff she desired.

[–] BOandBarbecue (2264) 2 years ago

her mom would ground daughter for real long time and take away all privlege if mom find out that daughter borrow dress from her (which mom forbid her to take at start of movie) and then ruin it.

the daughter lie, steal and destroy moms favorite dress. she cannot charge 1000 dollar to credit card for replacements as she get in trouble as it is mom credit card and she find out she charge 1000 dollar and ask why.

this was whole premise of film im surprise peoples cannot figure this out

[–] HarveyManFredSin (4877) 2 years ago

I must admit, I've never seen the film...

But I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying that she must have come from a fairly well-to-do home.

[–] BOandBarbecue (2264) 2 years ago

i recommence you watch the film harvey as it is surprising good 80s comedy. i thought it would be shit but i enjoy film very much.

[–] PaladinNJ (21510) 2 years ago

It’s not that Cindy couldn’t afford to replace/repair the dress. It’s that she didn’t want to get caught. She wasn’t supposed to be wearing the dress. Her parents would have seen the charge on her card.

[–] mikethemartian (6721) 2 years ago

Her family was affluent but I don’t remember them being super rich.