I have to confess. One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1984 cult classic with Emilio Estevez “The Repo Man.” Set in LA the comedic story uses the repossession industry as a backdrop for a bizarre story about aliens in the trunk of a car being chased all over by Federal agents and repo men alike. I know it’s a silly and inaccurate depiction of the repossession industry but, the Harry Dean Stanton character of “Bud” the stereotypical repo man of years gone by is a truly memorable one and has always stuck with me. In my years in the repo business, quotes from this movie always rang through my head. Odd enough, most of my coworkers had never seen it.
The first of these,"The Bill Collector Movie", which was released in premiers in May 2010, is actually a low budget independent film about a bill collector who goes beyond collecting and takes it all the way to murder and stalking the debtor’s widow. The character is a little over the top but hey, this is a movie inspired by the writers experience with receiving calls from a collection agency for his son and from what I've seen, it looks like a good acting job by Jason Bortz. Alright, being called by a collections agency is annoying, we get it. But murder? Come on.
The other of the two “The Bill Collector - Your Money or Your Life” looks a little lighter. This movie has not been released yet but, in this one, one of my favorite film character actors Tough guy Danny Trejo, from “Spy Kids” and “The Mariachi” stars in another serving of negative collector cinema in a film about a debt collector who finds himself in debt to the mob and the tables are turned, as he scrambles to come up with money owed from a poker game. This one looks like a story of redemption and may very well be forgivable. It's not objective of me to judge either movie without having seen them.
Coupled with the schlocky Jerry Springer Like “Operation Repo” it appears as though the economy has opened up a large enough audience for the collections industry to become the subject of celluloid as well as campy entertainment masquerading as reality. Unfortunately, in the absence of firsthand knowledge and experience, these images resonate with the public and create their impressions of all of us in the collections industry. Tabloid journalists have been taking their swipes at the industry by finding the lowest of collectors and illustrating them as the industry norm. Such images, dramatizations and stereotypes sway public opinion against the vast majority of us and encourage an atmosphere of negative attention from the courts and public offices.
It is of no surprise that throughout history, collectors and the collections industry have always had a public image problem. We are part of the collective set of antagonist characters developed through the centuries. Going back as far as the 1940 on the tail end of The Great Depression, John Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” gave us the insensitive black hat image.
In the early 90’s, when I was a film student, I’d written a screenplay named “The Goodwill Proposition” that I shopped around Tinsel Town that portrayed a repossessor as the protagonist as he chased down a fraud ring throughout LA. As hard as it is to even get a screenplay read in that town, it was a tough sell that came to no fruition. Trying to sell a story of a well intentioned and professional repossessor just wasn’t a "from the box" character that they could identify with. No one was ready to break the mold, or maybe my screenplay stunk. I’m willing to accept either explanation.
There are some character types that defy revision. In this time of high unemployment and a public that has been more exposed to the collections industry and information than in any other time in history, it is unlikely the general public will ever truly accept the important function that the collections industry serves and the simple fact that we are not mean people. We are not demons. We are their neighbors, brothers, sisters and friends that fulfill a necessary function of the financial industry.
Historically, collections seem to be an easy target for Hollywood when the economy is poor. Just as in the “The Great Depression”, we sit in the midst of this apparently never ending “Great Recession” and Hollywood has dusted off its contemporary character stereotypes to put a negative face on the reality of our economic conditions. I suppose it may be somewhat therapeutic to the general public to be able to despise and ridicule those of us whose professions it is to carry out the necessary functions of assuring financial stability for the majority of Americans. It’s an easier pill to swallow than the truth.
While they proceed to crank out these stereotypes and demonizations, we will just have to sit back, watch and hopefully find some humor in their inaccuracies. I have just one message for Hollywood. If you’re going to insist on showing our industry on the screen, lighten up a little. Give us a laugh, it’s been a long recession and we all need it.
