This piece will talk about the idea of why people in Hollywood can’t see how the message is killing the film industry. Left wing social justice politics is very in right now with some people, these people think that everyone else is like them, and that if they are not that screaming at them and telling them they are a vile nazi will get them to change their mind, it won’t. Apply this to movie studios when you have actors and executives making statements to the press saying x film or tv show isn’t for a certain group of people, based usually around political beliefs and you can see the problem. It is an industry, and in an industry you want to make money so you have to keep everybody happy, so putting in divisive left wing themes and messages into a film to appeal to just people of one political persuasion becomes off putting for everyone else, the film will then do poorly, not always but most of the time
I am not arguing that film should be depoliticized some of the best films ever made are inherently political, but a studio deliberately doing something divisive and then insulting their fanbase is never the way to make a hit. Look at The Rings Of Power it spat on the books, and did many left wing changes to make the show appeal to a very small and vocal group of left wing activist and again what these creatives need to learn is that these are a small group, the majority don’t like this hence the poor viewership and completion rates.
Hollywood is famous for being a very left wing place, to them social justice issues are the be all and end all as they live in their mansions, and they see this small and vocal minority of people online and go see audiences agree with us lets make sure our films reflect our own personal beliefs, but this is echo chamber logic. The majority of people are aware of social justice issues but are busy trying to put food on the table or just get through the day, they don’t have the resources of the activists that don’t seem to need to work and have family money to keep going indefinitely. They go to the cinema because they want to be entertained not lectured to, or told how they are bad, this is why people are switching off. I have multiple streaming services worth of classic films to watch why would I go to the cinema and watch a modern release that screams about how anyone who eats meat is on a par with histories greatest baddies, I wouldn’t and I am not alone.
Yes streaming and rising ticket costs have brought pain to Hollywood’s door at the box office but it is the shoehorned diversity, that audiences can see is not done because they actually care about these groups or properly representing them but rather just to have them so they can show them off in an exploitative fashion, and the divisive social messages that take film from a place of entertainment into a lecture hall. I think this practice is sad because it is ruining the industry and it is stopping actual progress being made on things like making film more diverse as rather than do it for the right reasons it is just being done by an all-white board in order to appease a group of people online who aren’t numerous enough to make a film successful.
Personally I don’t think anything I have said here is particularly new nor do I think it is inherently one way or the other politically, I aim to be centrist I don’t aim to align with either side. I just think that something needs to be done about writers in Hollywood, I think that they need to stop preaching and start entertaining or they’ll be out of a job, I mean AI is only shortly around the corner anyway. Actors and executives can have their political views but they should know if they start saying to parts of the audience this film isn’t for you then they are limiting the reach of their film, and then they can’t be upset when it flops. They themselves can be very left wing if that’s who they are but it should stay out of their public image and they should remember they are actors not activists and trying to be the latter will hurt the former, look at Brie Larson she made a few probably well intended comments but her activism made her a hate figure and her career has struggled as a result. I think a return to the days of old is in order where stars were more greatly controlled by the studio whilst under contract and weren’t allowed to just say any old statement they like to the press which can then tank a 200 million dollar movie.
I think the winds of change are in the air I think people are realising audiences aren’t just people on X, that pushing social justice messages isn’t enough to make a film successful and that it may even be damaging. America and the world as a whole is a deeply divided place and if you view the split between what would be considered politically left and right down the middle you would probably find a fairly even split if more right wing people overall, so when Hollywood shoots its mouth off about who a project is and isn’t for they want to remember that ratio and remember it again when their project fails.
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