Can wealthy people be independent?

Throughout my life, I have always seen wealthy people as hardworking, independent people who have worked for what they have. All my previous beliefs were turned upside down; however, after watching the pilot episode of “Friends” entitled “The one where Monica gets a roommate.” In this episode, the one wealth character, Rachel, is shown to be intensely dependent on other people. Watching this episode of “Friends,” viewers may get the impression that wealthy people are unable to be on their own and depend on others around them to get things done.
At the beginning of the episode, a group of friends is sitting around enjoying coffee when a girl wearing a long wedding dress rushes in, looking discombobulated and confused. She then sees a girl, Monica, for whom she is looking. The girl who we learn is Rachel, and she is ecstatic to see Monica exclaiming, “Oh God Monica, Hi thank God.” She is distressed, and finding Monica seems to have solved all of her problems. The scene goes on to explain that Rachel has run away from her wedding, and she did not know where to go, so she turned to her friend from many years ago for help. Rachel is shown to be very wealthy by her extravagant wedding dress and by the way she talks Here we are taught that wealthy people cannot do anything for themselves. She runs away from her wedding, and instead of trying to figure out what to do on her own, she enlists the help of a long lost friend because she was the “Only one from the city that wasn’t invited to the wedding.” This cultural transmission sends a very negative message to viewers that wealthy people depend on others to help them through hard times in their lives.
Rachel, throughout this episode, is shown as entirely unable to be on her own. After she ran away from the wedding, she calls her father, and the audience does not hear what the father says, but it enlists the response, “well maybe I’ll just stay here with Monica.” The audience is led to believe that her father has just kicked her out of his house. So Rachel being the spoiled girl she is, travels to the next person that is able to help her. This episode again reinforces the cultural transmission that wealthy people are unable to be alone and need others to help them to succeed in life.
Rachel also shown to be completely dependent on her father. She makes multiple comments about how she does not have a job. Rachel questions, “You all have jobs?” when she was chatting with the rest of the group. She does not have a job and depends on her parents’ money for things she needs. Normally at her age the kids have moved out of their parents’ house and are on their own in the real world. However Rachel is shown to still be living with her parents and depending on them for money. This is shown when she was purchasing things later in the episode with her daddy’s credit card. She has nothing on her own and must depend on those around her for support. The wealthy class is shown here as entirely dependent and unmotivated. When they are just given everything in there life, they feel as if they do not need to work hard.
This episode of Friends is a poor piece of media for the sole reason of how they portray wealthy individuals. This episode shows affluent teens that it is okay to slack off and depend on their parents for money and their friends for everything else. Because of this episode, they are going to get the impression that they are being held to a lower standard than other people with less money. This Friends episode is also a bad piece of media because, for people who are not typically exposed to wealthy people, it paints them in a bad light. It can bring about negative stereotypes towards the wealthy class. It confines the wealthy class into a bubble of lazy, unmotivated and spoiled people. This brings us into the cave because it shows flat characters in roles and does not develop them to show what the wealthy class in its pure form.
