LU, to address some of your points
1. What people are paid is a function of their ability, the number of people who can perform those skills and the revenue that it generates.
2. Making a movie is is actually hard work. It requires many weeks and months, often under less than ideal conditions. The salaries they receive is contingent on how many tickets are sold ( more sales increases salary for next movie)
3. Athletic skills at the professional level is rare. There are only roughly 750 major league baseball players and 350 major league basketball players and the leagues generate billions in revenue. The players, who help generate that revenue share in it via enormous contracts.
3 . whether or not they benefit society is the eye of the beholder.
4.the professions you mentioned are important UT are not in the same category. They don’t require specialized, hard to find skills. Generally, the compensation of athletes and actors will diminish as their skills and marketability do. However, teachers, because of unions, can teach forever, get annual raises, regardless of how inferior their skills are. While yeshivas do not have unions, my daughter had her share of poor teachers whose biggest attributes were a willingness to work cheap and go weeks without a check. Excellent rebbeim should be well compensated but many yeshivas don’t have the cash flow to do it
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