Posted on 03/08/2018 4:59:58 AM PST by Kaslin
Well, the Oscars sure did suck, didn’t they? I used to watch them because I love movies, now I watched them for work purposes. And it felt like work. Judging by the ratings, the way I felt watching them was not unique, and a lot of people did not show up for work that day.
The 2018 Oscars were the lowest rated in history due, in part, to the movies the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated (they really embraced movies the public has shown no interest in), but mostly due to the show itself. They can try to blame “cord cutters” all they want, but just because more people have dropped their cable providers doesn’t mean they blew up their television sets. Besides, the Oscars weren’t on cable, they were on broadcast TV.
No, people actively chose not to watch.
The Oscars (and pretty much every entertainment awards show) have become the annual version of the Democratic National Convention with significantly more attractive speakers. But no one wants to watch the real thing, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a prettier version would see record low viewership.
Hollywood is killing itself. Not many people will care, they’re that annoying, but it does matter.
Entertainment, no matter where it occurs, is important in a civil society. “Hollywood” is the catch-all term for everything in that industry, and it serves an important purpose – an escape.
Whether you want to admit it or not, you have favorite movies, TV shows, bands, whatever. Without them, without that escape, life would be miserable. You can deny it all you like, but you know it’s true.
That escape serves as an important release, a break from work, family, bills, responsibilities, and all the stresses of life, if only for a short while. We laugh, we cry, we talk about it with friends and make new friends through our mutual enjoyment of them.
But that’s changing because Hollywood is changing, or vice-versa. How it started is irrelevant, that it’s accelerating is what matters.
I understand the lack of desire to watch a movie about miserable people being miserable or watching a TV show about how awful people who hold your reverence for the founding principles of this country are. I share it.
But that used to be the exception in the entertainment world, now it’s becoming more of the norm.
The preachy “this person is a victim” movie that gives the impression this country is “-ist” or “-phobic” land filled with toothless monsters looking to destroy anyone different from them has been a popular theme in Hollywood, but used to be relegated to the art houses. Now they’re released widely, hyped on “news” programs, and discussed as if they document what America is like rather than the stain of the syrup left on a plate from an apple pie they are eating.
The “message movie” is overtaking the popcorn flick. But people aren’t going to see them, no matter how many awards they’re given.
Despite what liberal critics and TV pundits say, no movie is “important.” They’re movies. No TV show will “change the way you view” this or that, they’re time-passers that hopefully make you laugh or care about the characters.
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” is absolutely hilarious, but the world keeps spinning even when Larry David decides to take years off from making new episodes. Entertainment doesn’t define us, it distracts us. When something connects with an audience it matters to them. But it also ends, life doesn’t. The last thing the public wants is a constant reminder of the worst and rarest parts of society, especially when they’re presented as larger than they are or when deeply held beliefs are mocked with stereotypes so smug liberals can feel better about themselves.
Yet that’s where Hollywood is now. They’re the preacher I remember outside concerts I’d attend growing up in Detroit yelling at everyone that they’re going to Hell. I tried, on several occasions, to have a discussion with him, to find out why he thought literally yelling that at people would convince anyone to his cause. He didn’t have an answer, and there’s no way he thought it would work considering the fact that the only response he got from those who acknowledged his existence was telling him where he could go and what he could do on his way there. Still, he persisted because it made him feel good, made him feel like he was doing something he felt was important.
That’s Hollywood – the crazy man holding signs, yelling at everyone that they must conform to his will or they are evil.
It might be different if, every once in a while, there was some traffic heading the other direction down that street – if there were some acknowledgement of the flaws and hypocrisies of the left in entertainment.
Imagine a Saturday Night Live skit about the Oscars where Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey keep trying to sneak down the red carpet and everyone tries to pretend they don’t exist, or celebrities covered in ribbons and pins for and/or against every cause imaginable to show they care. But liberals would hate that, moreover they’d be embarrassed by it, so it won’t happen. Instead, there will be a skit about Sam Nunberg’s public meltdown while Donald Trump and a porn star watch it from a bathtub, or something similarly “cutting edge” that has been repeated all week on the late-night talk shows.
Hollywood is killing itself, slowly, and while the prospect of that is appealing, the implications are not. Without what the entertainment industry is capable of providing, the rift between Americans will only grow. As it stands now, they’re aiding in building that gulf. The world needs distraction, the world needs characters and drama, and most importantly the world needs to laugh. Right now too much of that laughter is not out of humor, but contempt from one half of the country for the other. Where that ultimately leads is only bad, because once you go over a cliff there is no going back.
Have they stopped making movies about sex and guns yet?
“Hollywood”,”Show Biz”, and all the “Award Shows” are nothing but a sleazy CIRCLE JERK.
No thanks. The sooner it dies the better.
I am doing everything I can to speed it up.
Hollywood has basically become comic book movies and art house message movies nobody wants to watch. Actually, with the advent of the great cable tv and streaming service cinema the two hour Hollywood movie is becoming pretty irrelevant.
Instead of pushing the liberal agenda, they should make more unique entertainment movies like: Beetlejuice, Young Frankenstein, Short Circuit, as well as the old spaghetti westerns (Clint, Eli, Terrence Hill), etc. Those types of movies were/are entertaining. There are dozens of more of that type, of course.
Who wants to spend money and a couple of hours to watch a film that was made to try to indoctrinate the viewers into believing some delusional liberal, perverted viewpoint?
What is seen in society now is a catastrophic failure of primary Virtues, Gratitude, Humility, Prudence, Fortitude, Courage, Justice, Temperance, Chastity, Charity, Patience, Kindness... Replaced by the false gods of “Values”Hollywood is repulsive because its filled with repulsive people. We have people without values lecturing to us about values. Enough of the hypocrisy. —goldstategop
The point of Haidt’s thesis inis the left is unbalanced, while conservatives value all the moral foundations. Well, his whole point is more like, “I am am atheist who wants to explain the world via evolution. And although I am a liberal, I perceive that liberalism leaves too much off the moral landscape. It is too simple, and I find that conservatism has far more explanatory power than I was taught to believe.” I recently read The Righteous Mind, and in it Haidt lists the moral foundations of conservatism (and their opposites) as
- The Righteous Mind:
- Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Care Liberty Fairness Loyalty Authority Sanctityharm oppression cheating betrayal subversion degradationHaidt suggests that Liberalism has two strains - now called “liberalism” and “libertarianism” - which split about a century ago. The commonality between them, he says, is that both liberals and libertarians drop “Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity” pretty much off the list. The difference between them being, in Haidt’s telling, that while Liberals emphasize care first and do not emphasize fairness, Libertarians emphasize Liberty uber alles, fairness second, and caring is no more on their radar screen than Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity are.My opinion is that Haidt’s characterization of the difference between conservatives and liberals is (never mind his reasons) is spot on. A liberal is a conservative minus loyalty, authority, and sanctity. IOW,
Any conservative has to consider any liberal a cynic.
Mostly I wait till today’s films come to DVD and the library gets a copy I can take out for free. That way I watch without guilt. I enjoy it more since it’s free.
Maybe. But no way I’m having sex with a fish!
No way.
I'd rather watch an awards show for lawyers.
You are correct. The very founding of our nation DEPENDS on the "civil society." That is what is eroding. And that will be our eventual undoing.
The civil society requires a shared set of values and morals. This is the basis of culture.
Did you mean to write “pubic school students?”
” Now, pubic school students are, too. “
Are you really naive enough to think that private schools are teaching conservative values?
They are as conservative as the private universities.
.
Even before that it was starting to go political. The "best picture" of 1967 was In the Heat of the Night. While it is a good movie, I don't think it quite rises to the level of "best picture". The awards that year (1968) were postponed for several days following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. I've always thought it seemed the fix was in when Hollywood postpones the show because of the King assassination, and then a good, but not great (IMO) movie about black/white relations in the south wins 5 Oscars. I think a last minute "re-vote" occurred that year.
There is a life span to nations as there is with people.
How long that life span is depends on many things, and the end is usually just a slow slide into oblivion.
This is the goal of our enemies within and without our borders.
The only bright side is knowing they will not enjoy their “victory” for long as the world also slides into chaos without the counter balance of the US to defend them.
The US provides much to the world. We will be missed.
Black Panther may be a really good movie. But I am reminded of the way Blacks, as a unit, vote for any Black running. I wonder if ‘Hollywood’ made this movie, assuming that all Blacks would go see it because it featured a Black hero. I hate to go there, but in elections, it is obvious that most Blacks vote their race before ideology. My one conservative Black friend confided in me that many of her Evangelical friends who are Black, still voted for Obama in 2012. So, for too many Blacks, race trumps ideology.
The MEDIA (in all it's various forms) IS the DEEP STATE.
Since its establishment, Hollywood “talent” has always trended left.
The studio moguls kept them in line as long as they ran things. But with the collapse of the studio system in the late 60’s, the leftward tendencies were allowed to slowly infest the entire creative system. Now it’s almost completely infected.
And the public is starting to avoid them like the plague.
The “Entertainment Industry” in general does not get it. They should provide a diversion from our day to day lives. When they start to constantly agitate, they become grating to us and we begin to turn them off.
Worse for them is the advancement of storage technology that enables me to enjoy so much of the best entertainment of the past that I do not need the current producers of entertainment. I already possess access to more great movies, plays, concerts, TV shows, video games, comic books, radio shows, music, novels and other books than i could possibly ever consume.
Hollywierd beware.
But I could make the case that all the good movies, and music has already been made. I don't need new stuff when the old stuff does just fine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.