Dissolving the Audience

So, I’ve been following, in a desultory fashion, the kerfuffle over various movie projects suddenly discovering that filming in a state where the local voters and their legislature prefer putting limits on the availability of abortion is … OMG! The Handmaids’ Tale is upon us! Flee, Flee for your lives, those TV series and movies choosing to shoot in lower-cost states than California (where about every scenic local has been seen in the background many a time. It was, once a upon a time, my private amusement, in spotting familiar locations in and around Los Angeles appearing in popular TV series.) Geeze, it’s almost as if among the Hollywood glitterati the need for abortion services occurs at least once a month and twice on Sundays. Given the various reports of disgusting rapey-sexual conduct among producers and directors (mostly male) perpetuated upon (mostly but not exclusively) female performers, perhaps on-command abortion services might be required at that. Funny old thing that – these are the same producers and organizations who have no problem filming in foreign countries with even stricter limits on abortion.

The primary insight that I take away from this current matter is just that it is one more of those reoccurring things – something that various observers have noted, time after time, after time, after time, over the last how-many-decades. The mainstream entertainment establishment no longer really wants to provide mainstream entertainment to at least half or more of the country. No gentle comedy, especially no gentle rural comedy. Nothing that exhibits a shred of respect towards religious belief, unless it is that of Muslims; certainly, there is little critical notice taken of Islam’s murderous conduct towards gays, Jews, and disobedient/nonconforming women. Little in the mainstream entertainment media gives a nod towards classical patriotism, very little which portrays a traditional happy, well-adjusted family as a norm to be emulated. Nothing favorable towards anyone running a business, unless it is to make them the villain of the piece. Michael Medved ventilated all this years ago; so this is not really new news.

The element which is new news is the raw, unadulterated contempt and hatred with which the mainstream entertainment media in general and a number of personalities in particular seem to have no inhibitions about displaying towards at least half (or maybe more) of the audience over the last two years or so. Hatred of Trump, hatred of people who are presumed to have voted for him; no accusation is too ick-making, too vile to blurt out there, on Twitter, in interviews, on what used to be the late-night TV shows. On one level, I feel a bit sorry for people whose corrosive hatred for half the country must be eating them up from inside. They’re dissolving in acid and bile, and one has the feeling they do not care about dissolving half their audience in it as well. Which is not a good practice for someone in the entertainment business over the long run.
So, what – if anything – can or should we do with regard to an entertainment media who gives just about every indication of wanting to dissolve the better part of the audience. Selectively boycott the worst offenders, like Cher, Robert de Niro, Michael Moore? Only watch old movies, foreign movies, movies rented or borrowed from the library or from friends? What kind of options do we have in response to this more-than-naked contempt? Discuss, as you wish.

18 thoughts on “Dissolving the Audience”

  1. Americans have been “selectively boycotting” Hollywood for decades, but there’s still so much money spent on entertainment in America that the studios are doing well enough. There isn’t really an answer, except that someone needs to start a movie studio that doesn’t tolerate this garbage from their “talent”. Actually, a group of someones needs to start a second Hollywood, the existing one is run by the most vile and depraved people imaginable.

  2. it’s striking how the Weinstein settlement went down as close to a memory hole as possible, different strokes for him and cosby apparently, who didn’t manage to have the whole thing wired down with the Philadelphia da, as Weinstein had with cyrus vance jr, in broad strokes it resembles how the strauss kahn matter was handled, intelligence contractors were enlisted to identify the subject, including a burnt Buenos aires station chief that went on to be the patron of the drone program, the wrinkle was that the nypd’s domestic violence division, tried to protect the most viable accuser,

  3. “Nothing favorable towards anyone running a business, unless it is to make them the villain of the piece.”

    That’s not quite fair. Tony Stark (“Iron Man”) is a billionaire industrialist. I’d call that a fairly prominent counter-example.

    And about half of the rom-coms and “cute” mysteries on the Hallmark Channel feature a small business owner.

  4. I was watching some preview for a late night show and the host does nothing but bash Trump and tariffs….and I miss Johnny Carson.

    @Brian – I think distribution is the key – unless you have a streaming service with millions of subscribers, Hollywood for the time beinkg has a lock on it.

    But it is changing.

  5. “Nothing favorable towards anyone running a business, unless it is to make them the villain of the piece.”

    That’s not quite fair. Tony Stark (“Iron Man”) is a billionaire industrialist. I’d call that a fairly prominent counter-example.

    Mrrrr. He was portrayed as an arms dealer with no concern for who his arms were sold to. It was only after his defacto near-death experience that he “reformed” and became a good guy.

  6. I suggest getting Amazon Prime. The annual fee pays for itself pretty quickly in free shipping if you buy very much from Amazon. Then buy the Firebox or Firestick for about 50 bucks. You can then stream tons of movies and TV shows for free in perpetuity. There are many apps you can download with lots more free content, including YouTube and streaming Amazon Prime music.

    The best by far is the TCM app, which rotates a fresh selection of older films in and out every day. Everything from Oscar-winning classics to silent films to 1930s and ’40s B-movies, comedies and film noir. It’s more movies than anyone will ever have time to watch, free and commercial-free, with none of today’s leftist propaganda or mindless “blowed up real good,” CGI-created mind rot. Just interesting stories of real people, told with skill, suspense, style and wit. And the cherry on top: you aren’t contributing one penny to today’s loudmouthed Hollywood jerks who hate you and everything you hold dear.

  7. @Pat –

    Amazon is a very big part of the problem. I certainly wouldn’t call paying them a yearly fee to grovel for cast-off entertainment a solution.

    One of the best remedies I know? Campaign for candidates who will work to end Hollywood tax subsidies. There is no earthly reason why a tax base hated by these people should have to pay for the abuse. And without those subsidies, a good portion of these studios would be in serious trouble unless they changed their content to pull an audience. The foreign box office wouldn’t save them.

  8. Almost never go to a theater. Wait ’til it’s out on DVD and borrow it from the library. None of my money deserves to be wasted on these hate-filled narcissists’ efforts. If they happen to turn out something I would enjoy watching, I’ll find a way to do so without it involving financial gain for them.

  9. Tony Stark (“Iron Man”) is a billionaire industrialist. I’d call that a fairly prominent counter-example.

    It is true that Stark is a hero, while Obidiah Stane is the villain. But Tony is only redeemed in the second movie when he takes Stark Industries public under a female head. In Batman Begins, Wayne Enterprises is also taken public.

    Is this a theme? Seems a little dry for popcorn flicks.

  10. Only way to stop this is for conservatives to refuse to buy tickets. Also, conservatives should refuse to do business with any left leaning business entity or individuals whenever possible. They take our money and use against us. Communists have said for decades that capitalists will sell them the rope they use to hang us. Same principal applies to American left vs right.

  11. It’s no coincidence this is happening as the focus of marketing and moneymaking has started to shift to overseas markets, China being a major one. (The foolishness of relying on a notorious haven for IP piracy for the bulk of your income on creative work is mind-boggling.)

  12. People have been walking away from Hollywood for decades. It certainly hasn’t made the product better. And Chinese influence is fairly recent, so that’s not to blame. Personally, I think the 1990s, starting around the time of the Clinton election, saw the complete takeover of politics and culture (including academia) by the boomer left, and that’s really where things went profoundly off the rails.
    Walking away isn’t the answer. Someone needs to step forward and provide alternatives. Real, mainstream alternatives, that can’t be marginalized as low-quality or niche product, and then they have to be supported. It will be a long, difficult, probably hopeless task. But you could probably still get massively rich doing it, all the same.

  13. I think that you may be on to something, Brian, in tagging the 1990s as when the current slump began. It was about that time – maybe more towards the end of that decade when I began to lose interest in going very often. Going in to that decade – oh, yeah! I had subscriptions to Premiere magazine, and Entertainment Weekly. If it wasn’t the theater, then renting something that had come and gone while we were overseas and pretty much cut off. And then, it just seemed like nothing really sounded interesting any more. Collected up DVDs of old movies, or TV miniseries, took to watching Australian or Canadian series, or old English series on streaming video. My daughter has taken to watching some Turkish and Israeli series with subtitles.
    The only movie I was interested in this year was Peter Jacksons’ WWI documentary. Other than that… meh.

  14. “What kind of options do we have in response to this more-than-naked contempt?”

    Netflix. ~:D Don’t rent it, don’t see it at the theater. Deny them income, and mock them at every opportunity.

    This plan is already killing them. The only movies making truly big money are the comic book heroes. Everything else is barely breaking even, if that. Plenty of movies are being released, dying at the box office and going straight to streaming.

    Oh, and cut your cable subscription, cancel the newspaper and stop listening to the radio. They hate that.

  15. @brian – I’m in the biz & that’s exactly what I’m doing. I keep my POV under the wire – have to – but I’ve got a slew of terrific & original projects that I’m sure everyone on this thread would appreciate. Btw – I’ll tell you why the Left owns Hollywood: cons don’t invest in projects. One thing about the Left – they support their own. The Right does not.

    I’m out there in the trenches fighting. Who’s with me?

  16. In the New York theatre scene, nearly every new play portrays every Christian character as bad. Even unknown, aspiring playwrights hew to the politically correct narrative, no matter how predictable or trite the result.

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