It's to show either that you don'
t care if
people are in the shit, or how they get out of it.
It can also be used to show that you don’
t understand much about
people’s shitty situation.
Both meanings can be used together, to mean that you don’
t understand much about their shitty situation, you don’
t care to understand it, and you don’
t care how they get out of it either.
Where this came from:
A French writer called Rousseau wrote that a great princess once said, more or less, that if you have no bread, there's always cake instead.
When she says "cake", don'
t think birthday cake. Think pastries and cakes that come in squares that you can slice, which a basically just sweet bread.
Think of a posh French princess in a carriage that's going through peasant land in order to get to the castle. They have to stop for a minute, so the peasants start to approach, carrying bread baskets. The princess asks what they want. She's told they need bread, because they don'
t have any. And this is where she says the line. But you can interpret it in several ways:
1. She's never seen poor
people before, and she's ditzy:
"Well, what I would do is just have cake instead, so why don'
t they just do that?"
2. She's never seen poor
people before, and she doesn'
t care (whilst applying makeup):
"Oh well. Can'
t they just have cake instead?"
3. She knows they are poor, and she's being a complete
bitch, almost making a joke (staring out the window):
"Oh well, there's always cake."