Posted on 02/02/2006 8:23:41 PM PST by MrBallroom
Hollywood Does It Again
by Jennifer King, Managing Editor
February 3, 2006
Liberals have become so predictable, it’s almost boring prognosticating what they’ll do next. Anything to poke a stick in the eye of the unlettered bourgeoisie. All efforts must be aimed at insulting plebian Red America.
Thus, at the “Golden Globe” awards, the alleged precursor to the Oscars, the winners included a plethora of tediously tendentious offerings. Brokeback Mountain, a movie about gay sheepherders whose illicit lust destroys both of their heterosexual marriages, won for best drama, best director, best original song (which some wag dubbed, “Homos on the Range”) and best screenplay. Actress Felicity Huffman won best actress for her portrayal of a transsexual man undergoing a sex change operation. Actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman won best actor for his portrayal of Truman Capote, a gay man who deeply involved himself with notorious drifters who had murdered an entire family in Kansas. Rachel Weisz won best supporting actress for her work in The Constant Gardener, a LeCarre take on the evils of Big Pharmaceutical. George Clooney’s film, Syriana, was a conspiratorial take on Iraq and Big Oil. Tiresome.
The film industry is in precipitous decline, even in “Old Europe” which should be anxious to depart with their Euros for the chance to see their version of America vindicated. In Germany, home of Mohammed Atta, movie going has seen a 20.6% decline. In Spain, it is 15%. In France, 10%. In the United States, only 9% of the population goes regularly to the movies. In the 1940s, that number was 60%.
The industry studiously avoids examples of good films which make serious money. C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings series and The Passion of the Christ should have shown Hollywood that movies with a good moral message (and underlying Christian themes) would do well in theatres. Nevertheless, the industry continues to bleed away dollars trying to sell Americans on the triad of white liberal guilt, corporate corruption and the evils of religion.
The parallels with the news media are inescapable. As The New York Times, the Orlando Sentinel, and other papers continue to shrink in volume and ad copy, one would assume that they would examine their bottom line and perhaps adjust their journalists accordingly. Nay, they grow increasingly shrill, thrashing about like a dinosaur caught in the tar pits.
Their anger propels them to new heights of absurdity - available everyday on the web pages of fevered leftwingers, weekly in the editorial pages of the increasingly marginalized papers and monthly in the new releases from Hollywood.
Eventually, the bean counters should have their day. We can all anticipate it with joy. ***
© 2006 Jennifer King
COPYRIGHT © 2006 BY THE AMERICAN PARTISAN
All writers retain rights to their work.
Hey, Homo! Is her basic point right on target or what? If Hollywood had more heterosexual writers and producers, would they make more money or what? Would their market share of entertainment product be dropping so precipitously? Would all the crativity and mystery of good movie making seem so foreign to them? Would they have a better feel for what the customer wanted then they do now? Or what?
That's a very good point...but unfortunately everyone is too busy posting pictures of kittens to notice.
"Until then, I stand by my designation as "empty-headed, shrill whining".
___________________________________
I didn't actually see anyone designate you as such, but it is a good self observation on your part.
Welcome to FR.
We like our women to be able to think for themselves, act on their own, and have wants and desires of their own.
Nice of you to pop up while spouting the stereotype liberals love to state of wanting women to stay in teh kitchen.
How transparent of you.
If you'd read my reply, the current Hollywood establish doesn't care what the average American thinks because the majority of funding for the industry - not the production companies - comess from monied liberal hands. They don't care if their market share is dropping when people tune out of guilt-ridden anti-American flicks like Syriana or are put off by watching two men engage in coitus on screen.
The companies that try and make money screening these films are more concerned about that, but they're stuck trying to peddle the trash that Hollywood churns out. Until that changes, until there's a solid conservative alternative, you won't see a change and the article totally misses that point entirely.
Hollywood can " flatter a particular wealthy segment of the population's viewpoint" without ignoring the vast majority of it's market, which is what its doing.
Where are the movies it made a mere 10 years ago, like The 12 monkeys, or Groundhog Day, and so on. You got your teenage movies,you got your gay, effete liberal movies, and a few segmented others but almost nothing that even has the whiff of "patriarchal" normalcy? Are you telling me she doesnt have a point at all?
I was being coy in my first reply, but apparently it's now uncouth to reply to a persons self-stereotyping. Also, I've been totally serious about everything I've said here - criticism of another conservative for missing the point entirely doesn't make me a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. Save your paranoia for someone who deserves it.
Love that image.
Really?..And here I thought it was all about making movies for a global "Hate America" market
LOL!! There's another one! Keep 'em coming, you're on a roll. :-)
However, she then proceeds to lambaste them for trying to "sell Americans white-liberal guilt", and call them "dinosaurs" for not becoming more conservative - and thus increasing circulation. However, as I have repeatedly argued, that's not a reaction you're ever going to see out of the Hollywood establishment.
It exists to do exactly what she's lamenting - sell films at odds with the majority of America. It's funded by people who are at odds with the majority of America and relfects its backers, not its consumers. It's classical economic at its best.
It's simple economics - Hollywood does not rely on income from movie theatres to survive; the distribution and production companies do. These companies have absorbed the losses from the decline in movie admission; they have tried to regain market share, but because there is no alternative, they are stuck with trying to peddle Hollywood's films. Hollywood doesn't have to care what people think of there movies because they survive off their backers - not ticket reciepts. Those backers are still there, and are not going away any time soon, thus Hollywood will not change.
You can see this so clearly when there are alternatives presented - films like "The Passion of the Christ", which was developed totally independantly of Hollywood, and doesn't reflect their liberal doublethinkg became a nation wide hit because distribution companies jumped all over a palatable product to sell. If there ever becomes a "Fox News" version of Hollywood, you'll see a total revolution in American cinema.
I think you are on the wrong site. Just my opinion.
If you were being coy or sarcastic, it is best to use / sarc or / coy as your comment did not look at all like you are claiming.
Future reference.
Welcome to FR.
"Save your paranoia for someone who deserves it."
Considering that comment, perhaps you aren't here for honest reasons.
Hollywood was always "at odds" with the majority of America, but it knew who bought the tickets and it had a vigorous censor board. They played with the edges but they toed the line.
The disconnect now has to do with a more powerful and political (read liberal) beauracratic elite (including actors, journalists, academics, etc) who run right over the institutions that should be keeping Hollywood on the tracks, but doesent anymore. So therefore you have a disconnected and underserved customer base.
The reason I accept the writings of the "heretical Housewife" is because there is a fundamental unfairness and dislocation going on here. Major corporations are underserving the public AND losing money, and there seems to be nothing the average person can do but SCREAM.
Does hollywood think most of us really care to hear about
sheep herders covering their body parts in human feces
and those that can't figure out what sex they are by looking in the mirror?
Yet these exact story lines will likely win whatever "honors"
hollywood has to offer.
I'll pass thank you.
You just rewrote, with the same thoughts, the posted article you so disliked.
How can anyone follow your logic when you just flipped your own position??
He'll say he was being coy, and we're being paranoid.
As per his post 47.
Please, I know far too well that people will try and play caricatures of conservatives to gain points on whatever DU ripoff site they frequent. I don't feel any need to defend my conservativism to anyone, and I take it as personal insult when people question it because I happen to disagree with another conservative. Hence, I've spent the better part of an hour articulating precisely why the original article is so terribly flawed.
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