MovieChat Forums > Cobra Kai (2018) Discussion > Does anyone feel like this show is sayin...

Does anyone feel like this show is saying that the rich are spoiled and we should always root for the middle class?


I feel like they're trying to make the Larrusos come off as bad people just because they're rich. It's not like Daniel was born into luxury. He earned his own dealership. He worked hard for it. And I'm tired of fans acting like we should already label Sam as spoiled just because she has money and we should love Tory because she doesn't. Tory is a psycho! I don't care about her whole philosophy on fighting for what is yours. She could have killed Sam with that bracelet of hers! I feel like Miguel was feeling that way about dating Sam acting like because he doesn't have money that she would think above him. Sure in the beginning, she came off as spoiled in the fact that she was hanging out with the popular kids instead of nice girls like Aisha, but later in the series, she stops with those people and is her own person. I feel like that whole hate the rich philosophy worked for the 80s since that was a common trope. But now, it seems outdated for a modern show like this.

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"I'm tired of fans acting like we should already label Sam as spoiled just because she has money"

"Sure in the beginning, she came off as spoiled in the fact that she was hanging out with the popular kids instead of nice girls like Aisha"

much confusion in your own fan statement.


"I feel like that whole hate the rich philosophy worked for the 80s"

"it seems outdated for a modern show like this"

i thought that premise can work any time period - money/power and corruption all go hand in hand.

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No. I didn't get that from the show. It appeared to me that the running theme of the show seems to be that life isn't always black-and-white and there are usually 2 sides to every story. I didn't get the impression that Sam is meant to be disliked as a character. She's portrayed as somewhat spoiled and at times a bit selfish & oblivious to other people's concerns but certainly not any more than any teenage girl in her position would be in real life. For the most part she's depicted as mostly decent but makes mistakes. That being said she was still at least 50/50 to blame for the Tory rivalry.

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I mostly agree with you here.....except that Sam is half to blame for the issues with Tory. Tory manipulated Miguel to work her way in. Tory is the problem here.

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What do you mean she manipulated Miguel to "work her way in"? Sam had already dumped Miguel for Robby before Tory came into the picture. Also Sam was the one who first initiated hostility between by aggressively & falsely accusing Tory of stealing her mom's wallet & lying about it. It was definitely 50/50. Tory's over the top reaction to Sam kissing Miguel,(despite being justifiably angry) & essenially causing the school brawl certainly didn't help her image however.

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Sam did not dump Miguel for Robby.....Miguel made a fool of himself at the beach when he was drunk and Sam was late. He was sorry and trying to win her back when Tory came in and manipulated him into just moving on. Remember the scene at the restaurant and the video Miguel was making?

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Sure. That's how it might look at face value but Sam had already been giving Miguel the cold shoulder (the reason he was drunk and upset) even before she got her phone taken away & was subtly flirting up Robby by that point which is why they were soon dating shortly after. Even drunk Miguel could see through the b.s.

I don't consider it "manipulating" for Tory to give Miguel some in fact pretty good advice in fact about how acting like a desperate simp is unattractive to women. Never mind that Sam was well on her way to cozying up with Robby by this point.

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Ding ding ding! Well said. The moral is that nobody's perfect. Good people do bad things, and "bad" people aren't truly evil, just misguided and/or raised poorly. They are just as capable of caring for others as so-called "good" people, while good people (usually just a perception perpetuated by success, power and privilege) are just as capable of doing bad things.

Like you said, nothing is black and white. This is why I really like this show.

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The show has very few purely good or bad people, which is the point. The Larussos are never shown as bad people and what flaws they have are not due to being wealthy.

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Larusso used his money and power to get the rent hiked up for Johnny in first season, so Cobra Kai dojo would get closed down.

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Right which is where we get people who are neither good or bad.

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You said - The LaRussos are never shown as bad people and what flaws they have are not due to being wealthy.

but Larusso has as iv'e stated used his wealth to show his flaw.

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Being bad and doing something bad are two different things. Also, Daniel didn’t drive up the rent because he had the money to do it. He did it to screw over Johnny.

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I never said he was bad, you said the flaws they have are not due to being wealthy.

But being wealthy is what got Larusso a meet with Armand and then he used that opportunity to get the rent put up, that didn't just affect Johnny but the other owners in the mallstrip.

If he didn't have the wealth he couldn't have invited Armand back into the country club in the first place, so rents would have stayed the same, that was a flaw due to his wealth was it not?

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I’d say his pettiness was his flaw. His wealth was just a means to an end.

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exactly, so wealth helped him, it might have been the extra to his pettiness, because if he was still dirt poor, then it would have been the end of him attempting to throw johnny out of the mallstrip dojo.

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No one said Daniel didn't use his wealth, but the topic of this thread concerns whether or not it depicts rich people as bad. The LaRussos were not bad and what flaws they had were not money-related.

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So he was spoiled by his wealth, which led him into thinking he can use it to get one over his enemy, because if he was poor then he would never have thought of using it to scam the owner.

So he used his wealth as power.

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I don't think you understand what this topic is about.

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I'm talking about your points not the topic.

Larusso is a rich man who used his wealth to do a bad thing - that was a single flaw to get his pettiness back at johnny - same when he used his hate against Johnny to not let Cobra Kai back into the all Valley tournament in the meeting - but that time it didn't work.

I know overall Larusso or his family aren't shown as using spoiled by wealth, they are shown as normal people with wealth.

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Daniel had no intention on raising the rent for the other plaza stores. His intention was to buy the plaza and use that to force Johnny to close the Dojo outright. He mentioned the rent being too low as justification for buying that plaza which works out poorly. I’d bet Daniel would have kept the rent the same or maybe even lowered it for the other owners.

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Actually no it wasn't, Larusso wanted Armand to raise the rent in the first place.

He used the i want to buy it scheme as a way to manipulate Armand thinking why he wanted it, which then put doubt in his mind as to why he wanted it and then raising the issue of rent just made Armand furious to raise the rents - so Larusso planned on the rent raise and never intended to buy the place that was just a ruse.
So Larusso didn't give a shit about the other renters until he wife actually mentions it, because he was all out to get Johnny anyway he could.

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It's "Larusso", not "Larruso".

Why would you want wealthy people depicted as something unrealistic? Are they really good, altruistic people that help everyone in the world as much as possible? Or are they more likely to be money-grubbing, egotistical 'I am better than you because I own a Ferrari' type of scumbags?

Look at rich people in actual world, do they give most of their money away to improve the life of the poor people, and struggle very hard to change the system so that homeless people are given homes, are they inviting starving kids from poor countries to live in their mansions?

Why do they even HAVE mansions, if they're so good and admirable?

If anything, this show depicts rich people as UNREALISTICALLY good and noble, compared to what they are more likely to be in real life.

Why can only poor people be depicted as evil? Isn't it enough they're poor, do they have to be bad guys of movies and TV shows, too??

Why would anyone even defend rich people, don't they have enough resources to defend themselves? Look, just because someone has a lot of possessions and wealth, doesn't make them a good human being. In fact, the fact that they cling to those possessions and hoard more, proves them to be selfish, egotistical, materialistic and vain.

How often do you see rich people that are NOT those things?

You're talking about these douchebags as if they're just some random people that can randomly be good or bad, but they aren't. Money and power corrupt. When you have lots of money, that becomes the core and focus of your life, and it inhibits your soul's growth, because you can't focus on your inner richness without distractions if your external life is full of wealth and possessions.

This is why the 'struggling underdog' is always more honest and real, and deserves our sympathy. Rich people already have money, do they have to also get our sympathy, too?

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There's a reason why it has been written that "..it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of Heavens".

(I am paraphrasing, but you get the idea, I hope)

Technically, someone materially rich and wealthy CAN be a 'good human being', but the likelihood that someone that lives in a luxurious mansion house with a partner and is 'trying to raise a family' would be completely good and not corrupted at all, is practically nil. Sure, it probably happens, but the corruptive power of money and wealth can really not be ignored.

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I never got that vibe.

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No.

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I don't get that vibe at all.
Daniel is rich and oblivious, but he's a nice guy with a good heart, who tries to treat his customers fairly.
He's living in the past a bit, and unable to see that Johnny is trying to be a better person.
And they don't make the rich kids out to be the villains.

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To be fair, in the opening episode after 30 years, with their relationship in Karate Kid having ending on a relatively positive note, Johnny is depicted as being irrationally bitter & resentful towards Daniel, even as Daniel tries to be friendly & accommodating with him. This at least partially plays into why he decides to revive Cobra Kai in the first place.

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Hating the rich is a more common trope than ever. Just look at the latest Best Picture winner.

And it is a reflection of where society is as seen with Occupy Wallstreet and BLM.

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I don't feel like the show is saying that, but we live in an upside down world where the masses certainly act that way. You said it perfectly, Sam is misguided and obsessed with being popular at first, but clearly not a bad person. TORY is a bad person. But we live in a world where people had the good guys more than the bad guys, so Sam's the villain.

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