In "Pretty Woman:, Richard Gere offers Julia Roberts $3,000 to spend a week's worth of time with him. I was 12 when I saw the movie for the first time, so obviously the implications of this number escaped me. I'm a little older and wiser (and coincidentally, listening to "The King of Wishful Thinking"), so let's do some handy long division here.
$3,000 divided by 7 days is $428.50 per day. Now, since Julie Roberts is a hooker (with a heart of gold, I know, I know), and hookers don't work regular 8 hour workdays, it is safe to assume that Richard Gere hired her for a full 24 hours a day. $428.50 divided by 24 hours comes out to $17 per hour.
$17 per hour?!
If my recollection serves me right, the $3,000 figure was the result of a sassy, increasingly heated negotiation between both parties (him clothed, her naked and encased in bubbles, no power differential here). And what was Julie Robert's reaction to his final offer? She yelped with pleasure, then duck dived under the freakishly soapy bathwater, and popped up, grinning wide like an Alaskan seal on crack.
Now, I may be overlooking some key points here. $17 per hour isn't too shabby. In 1990, Clinton had just initiated a minimum wage "hike" from $3.80 to $4.15. So fine, our girl Julia's doing good. She's at least making more than the 16 year old Dominican kid at McDonald's. If she keeps blowing more slumming millionaires like Richard Gere, she might accumulate enough stash to make that important symbolic transition from storing your cash in the toilet water tank, to stuffing it in your mattress. And, let's not forget that she does get to kick it at the penthouse suite in the Wilshire Beverly Hills, swill champagne and strawberries, attend the opera in diamonds (borrowed, mind you), and go shopping on Rodeo Drive with his platinum credit card.
On the other hand, she also suffers the humiliation of getting kicked out of upscale fashion boutiques because they "don't serve people like her," the anxiety of having to learn how to eat a proper seven course meal with appropriate silverware, the identity obliterating designation of herself as Richard Gere's "niece," a near rape by George "shrimp store" Costanza, and the ensuing cognitive dissonance at the end of their 7 day fee agreement, when she has to pack up her things and turn tricks on Hollywood and Vine.
After her self-esteem is shattered and her future is deemed uncertain (cuz hey, an educated hooker is a sad hooker), Richard Gere saves the day by pulling up to her place, overcoming his acrophobia, and scooping her up. Presumably, they live happily after after in domestic bliss, and Julie Roberts continues to create controversy at derby races by whooping and making fart sounds like Arsenio Hall.
Well negotiated, Mr Gere. Not a bad deal for $17 an hour. And man, what an awesome soundtrack.
