Says the top-rated comment on "Are the Movies Liberal? Everyone knows Hollywood is progressive. But look at the films it churns out. They tell another story" by A.O. Scott in the NYT.
I only skimmed the article. It's a ridiculous straw man. "Everyone knows"... but what "everyone knows" is actually not true, as the film critic explains citing examples of various recent films that I have no interest in seeing. I didn't "know" it, didn't think it, and would prefer to read an article about the things the film critics "know" that just are not true.
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Compare the profits from movies that push a progressive line to those from movies that don't. If the proggy flicks consistently underperform, then the movie execs are making their shareholders subsidize "Hollywood's" political views.
Think about this as a principal-agent problem. The ultimate owners are capitalists, but the managers are (or pose as) progressives for their own benefit.
Prepare for John Wick 5.
After receiving the customary surgical mutilation, Jennine Wick trades the Staffordshire terrier for a chihuahua and the black suit for a sequinned off-the-shoulder model designed for RuPaul.
It's a business. Of course they're out for money. The bigger picture is that today's progressivism is just that thin layer of virtue signaling. Of course there are real leftists out there, but there are also millions of suburbanites and yuppies who spout progressive clichés and advocate overturning everything but don't feel that anything is actually going to change in their own lives. The idea that the New York Times or the New Yorker are any more sincere than Hollywood is an illusion.
capitalism: retained earnings, democratic investing, market assessed pricing
progressive: [unqualified] monotonic ideology
virtue signalling: a nominally "secular" ethical religion with "benefits"
everybody Knows; that Hollywood is By The Chinese, Of the Chinese, and FOR the Chinese
Here's a Fun Educational thing, it's JUNE! That's LGBTQINC pride month!!;
Let's check to see if any woke companies have changed their logos to rainbows in the Middle East!
what do you suppose the answer is? What do you KNOW the answer is?? EVERYBODY KNOWS!!
I don't know if anyone can get a grip on "Hollywood" in terms of its typical themes or effects on say the attitudes of childen as they grow up. I think Disney flattered boomer children in one way: your moral superiority makes you wise. Bugs Bunny anticipated the Simpsons: a smart-aleck who deplores violence, but is prepared to defend himself, can probably handle all the old-fashioned macho people--partly, of course, by dressing up in drag and making men act goofy. Pre-code movies confirmed the ideas of intellectuals that various kinds of puritan morality had to be attacked--especially on behalf of women. In the whole history of Hollywood I think there is an impressive preponderance of "women undressing" and "men resorting to violence, either by guns or by something slower and more sadistic."
"would prefer to read an article about the things the film critics "know" that just are not true."
Is that not what you got? Or are you missing a negative in this sentence fragment? Such as "prefer not to read"?
As for the concept, it fits perfectly within Scott Adams "One Screen, Two Movies".
"Everyone knows" the country is on the wrong track.
Therefore, we're going to hear it's because the Progressive Agenda just couldn't be implemented.
Conservatism was just too strong...
See also, "the free market" has failed us.
If Hollywood isn't progressive, I guess that would mean that "Hollywood" votes, gives its money and performs political activism to conservatives & conservative causes in about the same proportion as it does to "progressive" ones.
Oh, wait....
Liberal? That would be OK if they were also good. (Says the guy who hasn't been to a theater since about 2012, or watched anything at home in months.)
The trailers rarely entice.
You can still make a blockbuster by being politically incorrect.
Scott wasn't talking about Hollywood, he was talking about movies.
Compare the movies released in 1987 with the movies released this year. Tell me Hollywood isn’t a Marxist nightmare wrapped in a pedophile’s robe.
I’ve lived near San Francisco for more than thirty-five years and “unrestrained capitalism topped with a thin layer of virtue signaling” is a perfect description of the culture. There is a constant influx of educated people seeking to make tech fortunes, and a constant influx of immigrant populations seeking to support them. Both groups are tremendously dedicated to the success of their own families; neither has any concern whatsoever for the tens of thousands of homeless they have displaced. It’s Gold Rush capitalism: Get while the getting is good.
Somebody's butthurt by the new Top Gun movie, apparently. All that non-progressive patriotism and so forth. Like a cross to a vampire.
Of course a NYT commenter thinks Hollywood isn't liberal. Anyone who isn't to the left of Bernie is a republican by default to most of those people.
Hollywood managed to screw up two golden gooses (Star Wars and MCU) because they went woke.
Everybody Knows is just a pretty good song.
And strangely appropriate for this topic.
After receiving the customary surgical mutilation, Jennine Wick trades
Trans/gender conversion therapy (e.g. Mengele order) or trans/social liberal? A progressive failure of the nominally "secular" social order of the left includes: "friends with benefits" culture, dysfunctional identity crises, diversity [dogma], and the wicked solution to relieve "burdens" and provide an evolutionary edge to chauvinists of both sexes and the ultracapitalists with a single/central/monopolistic orientation, was to conflate sex and gender, and then proceed to normalize the notion of women identify as men in order to compete in families, private, and public enterprises.
Hollywood makes blockbuster movies so they can fund the woke drivel that will get them little statues.
Says the top-rated comment on "Are the Movies Liberal? Everyone knows Hollywood is progressive. But look at the films it churns out. They tell another story" by A.O. Scott in the NYT.
Let me know when Hollywood start producing pro-American movies while there's a GOP President.
Yes, Hollywood is a leftist shithole
Lurker21 said...
It's a business. Of course they're out for money.
No, they're not
if they were, there would have been a rash of pro-war movies made when the US Invaded Iraq in 2004.
There would xenon-"woke" Marvel and DC movies made for the actual fans of the comics
When forced to choose between pushing a left wing agenda, and making money, Hollywood essentially always goes for pushing the left wing agenda
There's not been a movie in years I'd spend money to view and very few I'd spend time watching for free (see my 20,000+ on-demand movies). That said, recently viewed British film from 2020 which I really enjoyed, "23 Walks". Highly recommend if you enjoy well written/acted human interest/relationship stories.
"Everyone knows" that books are liberal/conservative/whatever. Everyone knows that texts are liberal/conservative/whatever. Too big an unrelated grouping to make blanket statements.
re: The idea that the New York Times or the New Yorker are any more sincere than Hollywood is an illusion.
Well, there is this difference. Hollywood does not write overwhelmingly progressive scripts, though they nod to wokeness regularly. Whereas the NY Times and the New Yorker appear to be all in.
I think much of the MSM, having (I presume) see their revenues dwindle over the past decades, have decided to cultivate and appeal to a much more narrowly defined audience than formerly.
The industry mostly consists of people making products that people want to view. Since the majority of people are far from woke, so is the content - except for certain Oscar bait, virtue signalling movies. In Tina Fey's 30 Rock, one of the characters decides to get an Oscar and makes a movie called "Hard to Watch."
Just because the progs dont like the product doesn't mean that the product isn't what the progs demanded.
Consider the Biden Administration. Or prog government everywhere. Or public education. Or the universities.
Progs think that because they know they are good, then everything they want is good. And if they get crap because what they want is based on foolishness and nonsense, it must be someone else's fault. The Evil Capitalists are always a good target.
"You can still make a blockbuster by being politically incorrect."
RA Heinlien's Stranger in a Strange Land has not been filmed. Starship Troopers has, in a quasi parody presentation.
Okies. So libs are flying under the radar. What a joke. I’ve not heard anything so ludicrous in ages. Come up with something new fascists.
For 100 years Hollywood (as relocated from NYC/New Jersey for the weather and sun) has been about $$$$ and selling oneself to make more $$$$. This always included the female casting couch to be made a star, as active with Harvey Weinstein circa 2017. Hollywood also routinely made films for its largest market -- be it swords and sandals in the 1950s for Christians, an endless series of comic book adaptations, or "Kung Fu Panda" for the Chinese market.
For art films go to France or Italy or just out of Hollywood.
The amoral Hollywood capitalists got kicked in the gut with the duo of Weinstein and Trump: "We're going to be moral for once." Well, that resulted in ideological woke nonsense that no one watched. This happened as competition came on from streaming, independent, and gaming sources, so it may be a simple generational transition and rightsizing than anything signaling a deep change in philosophy.
Oh my. Ann, get your hat on straight. Meat is an integral part of the diet. Some proteins you can never get from vegetables. Thats a proven fact. You want to go veg only? Good luck. Not gonna ride that railcar.
Oh my. Ann, get your hat on straight. Meat is an integral part of the diet. Some proteins you can never get from vegetables. Thats a proven fact. You want to go veg only? Good luck. Not gonna ride that railcar.
Can't wait to see that new Alec Baldwin film "Rust".
People who read comics 50 years ago and don't go to the movies now assume that they are the audience for the superhero movies and wonder why they don't like them. But they aren't the target audience. It's the twentysomethings, here and abroad, who make up the audience, and they don't mind how bad or how woke the movies are. Similarly, people who don't have television shouldn't be surprised that programmers ignore their tastes and interests.
Sure, the industry leans left, but Hollywood also recognizes that the country isn't what it once was, and the mass audience for movies isn't there anymore. Still, you do sometimes get war movies and films about the military that aren't anti-American, and that maybe what A.O. Scott is complaining about. It's just that it's not 1942 any more and the country doesn't go to the movies every week.
In that respect, Hollywood isn't entirely different from the news media. Neither is really appealing to a large general audience anymore.
. . . . .has anyone told Pauline Kael about this?
She'd be shocked! . . . . . . . No, wait a minute, she wouldn't be shocked at all.
That woman had her point of view, but man, she was good at it.
"RA Heinlien's Stranger in a Strange Land has not been filmed. Starship Troopers has, in a quasi parody presentation."
Not parody; satire.
Much better than the book.
The problem with Hollywood is that liberals do not have utter and complete control over all content, not that it makes money.
Where have all the great movies gone lately?
I come from the past. I'm just biding time in this current moment prior to joining eternity. In my era, as a marker of character for women, chastity used to rate higher than tolerance. Tolerance wasn't even part of the subtext. Single women didn't used to have gay or black best friends. Men, the heroes anyway, were physically brave. They weren't particularly chaste, but no mention was ever made of their tolerance for gays and minorities.....Tolerance in this present era is the supreme high virtue. It's like piety was to Puritans.
Ann, giving a counter example of 1 to the headline of a piece that as always wasn't written by the author is its own straw man. The everyone knows framing in the actual essay is not at all what you describe nor what's in the headline. I think it's worth actually reading.
"Progs think that because they know they are good, then everything they want is good."
Boatbuilder, this is true! But so is this, from Scott in this essay:
"a sense of grievance and victimization has come to permeate the modern conservative identity."
A.O. Scott has always been a flabby blowhard. There is a great takedown of him that precisely validates your irritation: Critic Without a Cause, by Leon Wieseltier.
Of course, critics with causes are asses too, bar a handful having fun, such as Mark Steyn, or misanthropic but too talented to ignore -- James Baldwin, V.S.Naipaul. Even that commie hag Mary McCarthy is admittedly fun to read.
Michiko Kakutani does not make any list.
Leonard Cohen was pretty sure that…
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Oh, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
When you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still picking cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it's coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
Everybody knows
"The Critic" with John Lovitz was a great animated series, tag line: "It stinks!"
The money is generally foreign and they don’t tolerate to super liberal excesses.
The makers lean-liberal.
The actors average super-liberal (or silent for survival).
The workers on set (electricians and carpenters, etc) are apolitical out of survival.
It’s a balance but the loudest voices are lefties willing to cancel others and push their agenda who are seen as necessary at this point, and the rest trying to placate them and survive. Luckily the big lefties are burning bridges fast and Chinese money is not what it was, so things might change.
Hollywood did produce some films after 9/11 that could be called pro-American. They weren't going to produce the kind of movies they did in the 1940s or make films that were pro-Bush, though. "Everybody knows" that Hollywood leans left. That's true. One has to distinguish though, between filmmakers who often clearly have a marked agenda, and executives who have to turn a profit. The idea that they could make bigger profits by appealing a mass Middle American audience that doesn't really exist anymore is, I think mistaken. And at this moment, "wokeness" is so common in big business that the entertainment industry isn't as much of an outlier as it once was.
I didn't read Heinlein's book, but was the movie really "better," or did some people just agree with its point of view? The novel may have been pulp fiction, but the film was a one trick pony, the sort of formulaic send-up that radicals overappreciated back in the Sixties.
Come on, Cook.
The movie Starship Troopers better than the book?
One of the great opportunities to present a truly imaginative story of the future, reduced to a cavalry-vs-indians scenario.
Remember the Colorization Controversy? The best take on that was: the products of Hollywood deserve the same care, love, and attention to the original as Hollywood lavished on the plays and books it selected for adaptation.
I.e., none.
Daniel12: Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they are not out to get me.
Robert Cook said...
"RA Heinlien's Stranger in a Strange Land has not been filmed. Starship Troopers has, in a quasi parody presentation."
Not parody; satire.
Much better than the book.
That's the stupidest thing you've ever written
I guess if the only thing you're going to the movie for is the coed shower scene. Other than that, no
It was a crap movie directed by a loser who hated, and did not understand, the book
" I didn't "know" it, didn't think it, and would prefer to read an article about the things the film critics "know" that just are not true."
Althouse gibberish, Exhibit 25,000.
So is that the top rated comment because people like or dont like that about
Hollywood?
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