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.
Hollywood in the 1930s kissed Hitler’s ass because they didn’t want to lose access to the German market.
Hollywood has never been loyal to this country.
Saved Link to my GoodReads stack
Those people don’t care. They have F you money.
Historically, we agree. The story of America is unique in most of history, mostly because of our young age. The "Roman Empire" existed for a very long time, having bouts and fits along the way. And it's governance style and approach changed with it's leaders. But it largely imploded as well as it prospered.
Reagan made that statement about America being the last bastion of freedom on the planet. It was true then and is truer now. There will be no new nations any time soon where a people might be inclined to be governed benevolently. As life becomes easier for the human population, we tend to become less individualistic and more dependent on the collective. This is sad. America once stood as the example. And many nations in the world sought to emulate what America was doing (Europe).
I am not sure what world chaos lies at the twilight of American greatness, but I hope that time is several generations away. We have gone through ups and downs. If we only have another 100 years or so. America will someday be a historical "flash in the pan". It will be studies as the reason Freedom doesn't work. THAT is scary.
Just like my performance in Beyond Blunderdome
Or D'oldfinger
I do have favorite movies, the overwhelming majority of them were made prior to about 1980. They serve to remind me just how bad most contemporary movies are by comparison.
It seems like nearly every movie made today is either an inane comic superhero movie, an uninspired remake of a much better earlier film, or a glorified propaganda film that beats viewers over the head with politically correct messages about "diversity."
I was never a Star Wars fan, I thought the storyline was a bit on the immature side. But young kids were the target demographic, not a 20-year-old (when the movie came out). Doesn’t make it a bad movie, you just have to understand who the audience is intended to be. The question really is; was it a good movie for the target audience? The answer is yes, very much so. The photography and special effects were outstanding for the time.
Annie Hall sucked, still sucks, and was never a good movie because the storyline was bad. Dreary in fact. I was not the target audience, and cannot relate to it.
I agree with you.
Would the US be as tolerant of homosexuals and their agenda as it is now, without every show portraying them in a positive light?
It is also now filled with people of mediocre (or less) talent, looks and personality; nothing of any great interest to the public. For example, why does this year’s best actress winner seem to go out of her way to make herself look unattractive and unglamorous? She also predictably gave everyone a boring lecture when she won.
And Star Wars is the best thing to happen to Family Guy. ;^)
‘...believable characters and plot;’
you found the Sidney Greenstreet/Peter Lorre pair believable...?
‘Did you mean to write “pubic school students?”’
yeah, you know, guys who like to ‘beat about the bush...’
‘For example, why does this year’s best actress winner seem to go out of her way to make herself look unattractive and unglamorous?’
frankly, she doesn’t really have to go much out of her way...
The problem is that libs and Hollywood celebs want to be the one who sets the rules, who decides on right and wrong and demands everyone tosses their bibles for the new world order. Or else.
Celebs will have sex with anything and they will film it while doing it.
“I’ve said many times Hollywood was dying, and it should. It isn’t even a ghost of what it once was over eighty years ago. It has become a slop of hedonism, debauchery, left-leaning crap that mocks America, Christian values and just plan talentless gits no one wants to watch. Besides, the internet, XBox and so many other forms of electronic entertainment have been competing with it and most families just couldn’t be bothered trooping out to some theater and paying almost a weeks wages to see garbage. Let Hollywood die. It deserves to.”
Needs repeating.
And unfortunately the hate filled entertainers are very predictable - the above prediction is 100% accurate.
You are spot on! Star Wars( the most popular movie in the WORLD in 1977) ignored for weirdo Woody ALlen’s ‘Annie Hall’ perfectly demonstrated that the PUBLIC didn’t matter. What the audience wanted and loved didn’t matter and it hasn’t since! You have to be maliciously vindictive to ignore a movie phenomenon in favor of quirky, sleazy Annie Hall.Star Wars in 77 didn’t just deserve Movie of the Year-it deserved Movie of the Century!
Gary Cooper:
[on Hollywood] This is a terrible place to spend your life in. Nobody in Hollywood is normal. Absolutely nobody. And they have such a vicious attitude toward one another . . . They say much worse things about each other than outsiders say about them, and nobody has any real friends.
[October 1947] I feel very strongly that actors haven’t any business at all to shoot their faces off about things I know we know very little about.
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