Line #25 Main/PayingTheirDues


1	A term used in show business to describe the minor roles and drudge work one usually needs to do before hitting it big. Also called "Gopher" (Go-for) jobs, as your main task is going and getting stuff for others who are busy with more important aspects of the project.
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3	The name comes from paying dues to a union one belongs to, but even big successes need to pay dues if they are part of a union.
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5	Naturally applies as much, if not more so, to RealLife as well as fiction.
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7	Compare MoneyDearBoy, because even big stars have to pay their bills. If this work is exceedingly terrible and the artist does make it big, these often become their OldShame, often with the excuse, "IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney." Fuel for the eventual RetroactiveRecognition reaction. See also WaitingForABreak and FallenOnHardTimesJob. Can also be necessary to achieve CareerResurrection if fame/high profile work was earned and then lost beforehand. Someone who is TooProudForLowlyWork will not do well here without some CharacterDevelopment.
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10	!!Examples:
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13	[[folder:Music]]
14	* Music/AlanJackson's "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow" is about a musician singing in bars, half the time barely breaking even due to overhead, in hopes of getting his songs on the radio. The original writer hadn't done anything with the song because it didn't represent his life; when he realized it ''did'' represent Jackson's, he offered him the song which they finished writing together.
15	* The rock group ''Music/{{Boston}}'' had a song about having paid their dues ("''We were just another band out of Boston. On the road and trying to make ends meet...''") which was in fact almost entirely fictional: while individual members of the group had indeed paid their dues in bar bands in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Boston as a unit was the brainchild of producer Tom Scholz, who wrote all the songs and recorded all the guitar, bass and keyboard parts in his private studio alongside Brad Delp as lead vocalist, then enlisted additional musicians to tour it.
16	* Taken together, Music/BillyJoel's songs "Piano Man" and "The Entertainer" are basically about a musician starting off playing bars and clubs, then gradually working his way up to "the idol of my age".
17	** The first being about the most depressing song in the repertoire. The tune is a pleasant little waltz, but the words are all about a bunch of pathetic losers hanging around a tawdry little bar getting hammered. They're so shocked by someone with talent or potential coming into their mix that one of the song lyrics is them asking the piano man "Man, what are you doing ''here''?"
18	* "Doin' This" by Music/LukeCombs explains that if he wasn't a big-time performer he'd still be paying his dues playing in bars trying to make it big-- and that he'd be all right with that, because the most important part for him has always been playing music with his friends and connecting with the crowd.
19	* Music/MarenMorris's song "Circles Around This Town" is about her experience trying to make it in Nashville, writing a couple hundred songs to get two hits and finding that even then it doesn't get easy.
20	* The song "Baby Girl" by Music/{{Sugarland}} is from the POV of a young woman who has left her home in FlyoverCountry in hopes of becoming a famous musician. She starts off playing gigs at bars and such and has to ask her parents for money (and it's heavily implied that she's been sexually exploited at least once). But by the end of the song, that's all behind her; she's staying at the Ritz and is able to send her parents money.
21	* Music/TaylorSwift's officially unreleased song "Who I've Always Been" is about this, contrasting her tough life on the road with that of a glitzy rival who's had it easy. Slightly undermined by the fact that she sounds like she was about 15 when she recorded it, so it's not exactly the grizzled road-warrior song that it's trying to be.
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24	[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
25	The ProfessionalWrestling industry had a hard-on for ensuring that wrestlers come up the pipeline naturally rather than through shortcuts. This term is used a '''lot''' in professional wrestling, partly as a need for experience, and partly as a need to understand locker room etiquette. There's a reason, after all, of why it's called [[{{Jobber}} "doing the job"]].
26	* Japanese promotions such as Wrestling/AllJapanProWrestling have a Young Boy to Young Lion to "respected wrestler" system where "young boys" are forced to do the [[YouGetMeCoffee laundry and dishes]] of the respected wrestlers while doing thousands of pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups or such for wrestler complaints and are forced to sleep on floor mats. Young Lions get to wrestle on television but can only use a [[PoorPredictableRock small selection of moves]] and are usually only allowed to beat other Young Lions. Once a Young Lion goes on a learning excursion, preferably to a foreign country where Japanese is not spoken (some like Wrestling/KentaKobayashi of Wrestling/ProWrestlingNOAH luck out and end up in Brazil or something), they will generally be treated like respected wrestlers.
27	** Wrestling/MitsuharuMisawa is AJPW's most famous case, as even after going through all that he was booked into an excessively long losing streak to see if he would "never say die". After making it through all of that though he was then booked as an InvincibleHero and TheAce of All Japan.
28	* It's practically accepted tradition that no matter how you got there, once you make it to the Wrestling/{{WWE}}, you're going to spend ''at least'' a year going through constant hazing, both in and out of the ring, until the veterans are satisfied you have the "mental fortitude" to make it in the business. Not as much a problem now as in the past, as WWE has moved away from hiring career jobbers and wrestlers off the street over the past twenty years. As they are the undisputed premier wrestling promotion, all other "competition" can serve as farm leagues to funnel the best talent to the top, so that even "rookies" can expect to have years of experience and polish.
29	* Wrestling/{{WCW}} infamously started making [[Wrestling/TheBigShow The Giant]] start paying his dues ''after'' winning the world heavyweight championship (from Wrestling/HulkHogan, no less) in his debut match[[note]]Sort of. Hogan's manager Jimmy Hart secretly added a stipulation that if Hogan lost by disqualification he would lose the title, [[Main/FaceHeelTurn Hart then turned on Hogan]] by getting him DQ'd. WCW would strip Giant of the title a week later[[/note]]. The only place to go was down, but in a year's time, it was hard to remember the guy was, you know, the theoretical top wrestler of the company.
30	* Many wrestler guests on the reality show ''Wrestling/WWEToughEnough'' seemed to be there for no other reason than to vent at the contestants as to how far they were ahead of thousands of others looking for the same break and how much they resented having to deal with these debutantes.
31	* Subverted with Wrestling/StacyKeibler. Stacy was hired by Wrestling/{{WCW}} in 1999 after winning a contest to become the new Nitro Girl. Because of this and her general attitude of "I'm only here to launch my acting career" while in the business, [[Wrestling/TheDudleyBoyz Bubba Ray Dudley]] has called her "a classic example of what happens when you don't come up in this business the right way".
32	* Wrestling/GailKim describes her initial masked villain "Queen OF Cats" La Felina gimmick as a due paying experience she'd rather forget about.
33	* The entire Sensacional Carlitos gimmick in IWA Puerto Rico, a merciless parody of the Island's most popular WrestlingFamily, was this for the man who was given TheGimmick. This worked in more ways than one, as the fans actually liked him so much that the Colons themselves eventually booked Carlitos in their own WWC promotion and [[ParodyAssistance at one point]] even had him tag alongside Wrestling/CarlitoColon himself. Still, Carlitos had to go a little while before he could ditch his straw hat and start wrestling with shoes on.
34	* It's commonly reported that after seeing promise in Wrestling/{{Toryumon}} Mexico graduate Wrestling/KazuchikaOkada that Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling sent him in Wrestling/{{TNA}} fully aware that they would squander their soon to be IWGP Heavyweight Champion and heir apparent of CHAOS. This being so he would appreciate getting a push from a big company after being denied such. If true, this worked a bit too well, as NJPW ended up being disappointed by his "Okato" role as Wrestling/SamoaJoe's SideKick and Okada himself has little good to say about TNA, going so far as to start a parody angle of its feast or fired briefcases that had to be approved by New Japan bookers Gedo and Jado, despite the fact he made many friends among the wrestlers contracted to TNA.
35	* Wrestling/MontelVontaviousPorter's extended {{jobber}} run in WWE was this, to make sure he was "loyal" enough to be pushed by the company after Wrestling/BrockLesnar burned out and left to play football and then Wrestling/BobbyLashley also burned out in addition to a conflict with part of the creative staff, before leaving for the independent circuit and UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts. While MVP did eventually stop getting put on the losing end of {{squash match}}es and be allowed to win the United States Title belt, basically a mid-card title belt in WWE's structure, it became clear the company was years away from every letting him work at a high level so he left, paid his dues all over again in Wrestling/NewJapanProWrestling and became the first holder of the IWGP Intercontinental Championship belt(which can and has been main event material in NJPW's structure).
36	* Wrestling/JohnMorrison was one of WWE's odder cases, as he was made to pay his dues ''right'' when he was on the cusp of stardom in WWE, because [[Wrestling/{{Melina}} his girlfriend]] pissed a lot of people off, and he pissed more people off by trying to show his loyalty to her. WWE would eventually stop playing games and get rid of him, where he would pay his dues again in Wrestling/{{AAA}} and rise to the top of the company, in spite of more drama over management's disputes with a different girlfriend of his.
37	* In response [[RealWomenDontWearDresses to criticism]] Wrestling/WorldWonderRingSTARDOM received for hiring "gravure idol" Yuzuki Aikawa as a wrestler, company founder Nanae Takahashi promised the general public a chance to see what paying your dues in pro wrestling looked like, ensuring she would personally have Aikawa's handled by the end of her debut match. [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown It wasn't pretty]], but it worked, as Aikawa was the company's most popular wrestler by the end of the year.
38	* Wrestling/ShaynaBaszler willingly worked as a {{jobber}} on the independent circuit, notably putting over Wrestling/CheerleaderMelissa, Nicole Matthews and the Oedo~tai stable as then lead by Act Yasukawa. Wrestling/RingOfHonor put her over big simply for giving professional wrestling the time of day, going so far as to making her TheManBehindTheMan for TagTeam Champions Wrestling/{{reDRagon}}. Wrestling/{{SHIMMER}} booked her for a match and started counting down to it after she announced she was going to become a professional wrestler herself. Then Baszler started racking up losses in UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts, and chinks in the armor of MMA's other Four Horsewomen were found, so she decided to start her in-ring career the humble way. SHIMMER still put Baszler over by the time of her first match with them (though she was the clear number 3 behind Wrestling/MercedesMartinez and Nicole Savoy), and after that, she started racking up title belts across the independent circuit. These days, Baszler, now a Wrestling/{{WWE}} wrestler, after rampaging through the female ranks on ''[[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]]'', became a featured wrestler of both ''[[Wrestling/WWERaw Raw]]'' and ''[[Wrestling/WWESmackdown Smackdown]]''.
39	* Arguably, no wrestler in the ''WWE'' got hit hard with this other than PromotedFanboy Wrestling/TheMiz. Coming from [[Series/TheRealWorld a reality TV show]], having to endure large amounts of fan resistance due to his origins and [[Wrestling/WWEDivaSearch disastrous debut]], being bullied backstage by [[Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield JBL]] and kicked out from the locker room by Wrestling/ChrisBenoit for ''more than 6 months'' just for accidentally dripping chicken crumbs that Miz ate on his bag (following Benoit's UnPerson, this was changed to a referee's bag on WWE's request)[[note]]In fact, Miz doesn't return to the locker room until Wrestling/TheUndertaker, a noted PapaWolf and AFatherToHisMen for the WWE crew, saw him changing clothes in the hallway and rescinded Miz's locker room ban after finding out ''who'' is the person who kicked Miz out of the locker room. [[KangarooCourt The Wrestler's Court]] rules at the time says that only those who punish the person can rescind the punishment. Since Benoit's dead, Taker decides that he should be one who rescinds the ban. It helps that he's the leader of the Court, and whatever he says is the final word at the Court[[/note]], he was also ribbed on live television, on commentary, and by Wrestling/TripleH and Wrestling/ShawnMichaels. This is noteworthy because this ended up becoming [[RealLifeWritesThePlot fundamental to the story of his title run.]] In hindsight, this is quite surreal considering Miz has spent quite a lot of years on the main roster and is considered one of the veterans.
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43	* Creator/HighVoltageSoftware spent years making licensed games but did get a reputation for getting work done on time and under budget. Then they used the skills and experience they got on making ''VideoGame/TheConduit'', their breakthrough game.
44	* Referred to in one of the vaudeville ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}}'' strips. Garfield gives this as the reason why he's doing an act that universally gets shoes thrown at him.
45	* ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}'''s character Jimmy Thudpucker (Trudeau's go-to character for lampooning the music industry) once refused to do a "paid my dues" song as being pointlessly whiny, pointing out he was an overnight success at age nineteen. His agent retorts "It's in your contract." A TakeThat against rock music groups with such songs.
46	* In the commentary on one of the ''Series/RedDwarf'' [=DVDs=], the actors talk about Creator/DavidRoss, the original actor for Kryten. He asked if they were "legit", meaning if they had gone to a proper acting school and paid their dues in small parts on stage before being on TV. The answer for all of them was No[[labelnote:±]] Creator/ChrisBarrie was an actor, but not classically trained, and was better known as an impressionist, so hadn't paid his dues; Creator/CraigCharles was a poet; Creator/DannyJohnJules was a dancer; Creator/NormanLovett was a stand-up comedian[[/labelnote]], which resulted in the actor treating them with mild disdain.
47	* The late, great Creator/PaulNewman's first screen appearance was a minor role in an episode of the now-forgotten sci-fi anthology ''TalesOfTomorrow''.
48	* Creator/WayForwardTechnologies (named after the company in ''Literature/DirkGentlysHolisticDetectiveAgency'') was a small-time game developer spending years making Licensed Games, except most were pretty enjoyable. Eventually, they started to work on a project which would come to be known as ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}''...
49	* StandUpComedy is all about paying your dues as a performer. Aspiring comics will scrabble for open-mic slots or do menial jobs at comedy clubs (such as working the door or handing out fliers) in the hope that they can work the back room and eventually get a shot at the main stage. From there, they must work up from MC (compere in British comedy) to opener to main to headliner all while sticking to brutal touring schedules . While it's OK for bigger-name comics to make introductions and help friends get slots, it's unacceptable for people to scheme and politic their way through the business to try and find a shortcut up the ladder.
50	* ''Anime/ShounenHollywood'' is all about this trope. The group is just small-time and localized to one theater venue, so in order to spread the word, they have to do meet and greets, advertise themselves on small-time television, pass out fliers, and other similar activities. The same was true of the group's predecessors before a few of them hit the big time.
51	* Long before ''Franchise/StarWars'', Creator/GeorgeLucas's first job in Hollywood was to make a behind the scenes documentary for the long-forgotten cowboy movie ''Film/MackennasGold''. [[WriterRevolt He turned in an abstract film that was half shots of the desert and half shots of the crew]]
52	* When Music/PaulMcCartney left Music/TheBeatles and started his band Music/{{Wings\|Band}}, he insisted that the new band's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_University_Tour first tour]] should be low-profile, barely promoted gigs at university campuses and the like. This was to give the band a chance to develop their chops performing together as a group without the pressures and privileges of [=McCartney's=] star power.
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Context Main / PayingTheirDues