Hollywood reconnects with families

At a time when most forms of entertainment face shrinking audiences and plummeting public support, Hollywood movies have been enjoying a startling summertime surge in popularity. The booming box office simultaneously delights and puzzles powerful producers, since no one has an easy explanation for the dramatic 20% increase over last year's figures.

The conventional wisdom suggests that people seek escape at times of national crisis: "Moviegoers Are Flocking to Forget Their Troubles," proclaimed a headline in The New York Times. But such facile analysis can't account for the fact that the public seems indifferent to other forms of diversion at the same time they enthusiastically embrace new motion pictures.

Major television networks have experienced dramatic declines in viewership, while total spending on CDs and other recorded music formats has suffered painful retreats. Crowds are dwindling at concerts, sporting events and theme parks, while magazine and book sales similarly sag.

Only movies boast booming business. They do so because Hollywood has begun to reconnect with the mainstream family audience that other media shun - and that Tinseltown itself insulted and assaulted some 30 years ago.

The best way to understand the movie industry's current success is to come to terms with its period of greatest failure. Between 1960 and 1970, Americans rejected motion pictures with unprecedented ferocity and produced the sharpest audience decline in movie history. What happened between 1960 (when 22% of the population went to the movies every week) and 1970 (when only 9% did) to cause literally tens of millions of people to break the film-going habit? Contrary to popular belief, this abrupt collapse in the size of movie audiences had little to do with the introduction of television, because more than four out of five American homes already owned at least one television set by 1960.

The racy content of films - not their inconvenience or cost - drove ordinary families away from their local theatres. In 1973, the chairman of the National Association of Theatre Owners, B.V. Sturdivant, "blamed a commensurate drop in the morality quotient of films for much of the erosion in patronage," according to The Hollywood Reporter, which covered a speech he gave. Sturdivant declared that the box-office plunge originated "when the scatological stench permeated so many production circles and obscenity coupled with violence threatened to explode beyond acceptable limits."

The basis for such alarm involved the 1966 scrapping of the old Production Code that had placed strict limits on harsh language, graphic sex and excessive violence in motion pictures. Suddenly, moviemakers felt liberated to test the limits of artistic expression and to redefine their fundamental ideas of what constituted motion picture greatness.

In 1965, the Academy Award for best picture went to the irresistibly wholesome smash hit The Sound of Music. Just four years later, as mass audiences turned in disgust from the industry's increasingly edgy fare, the most prestigious Oscar went to the homeless/hustler melodrama Midnight Cowboy -the only X-rated offering ever to win best picture.

For the next 30 years, Hollywood indulged its counterproductive obsession with adults-only fare. Nearly two-thirds of all releases during these decades drew the restrictive "R" rating, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

As a result, ticket sales remained sluggish, rising more slowly than the overall increase in population. The steady rise in ticket prices masked the problem. Unduly optimistic numbers about record-setting "box office dollars" were reported even as the size of the audience remained disappointingly static. The American Enterprise reported a growth in the domestic film audience of only 20% between 1975 and 2000; meanwhile, the population rose by more than 25% and the overall size of the U.S. economy more than doubled.

Finally, after more than a half-dozen statistical studies reporting that R-rated fare performed more poorly at the box office than titles aimed at family audiences, Hollywood began to get the idea. This summer, the release schedule fully reflected a self-conscious reorientation that began several years ago. Forty "PG" or "G" films are among the offerings, compared to only 28 in 1999. The biggest box office winners aimed at broad family audiences, who responded enthusiastically and profitably to Stuart Little 2 (released last weekend), Spider-Man, Star Wars Episode II, Ice Age, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Lilo & Stitch,Like Mike, and even the wretchedly inept (but PG-rated and undeniably popular) Scooby-Doo.

The result has been a slight but significant change in the image of motion pictures. Parents in particular eagerly support the more wholesome alternatives now made available week after week. No other form of entertainment showed a similar shift, and no other form of entertainment showed a similar upswing in terms of public response.

It's hard to imagine that any wary consumer would suggest that television or popular music became notably less smutty in the last few months - though a number of TV networks (particularly, ABC) talk about getting on board the family-friendly bandwagon for the new season.

Hollywood's new approach represents an overdue return to balance and common sense rather than some moralistic revival. After all, the summer schedule has also produced commercial success for thematically dark but artistically excellent releases like the superb Tom Hanks-Paul Newman vehicle Road to Perdition (rated R) and the Steven Spielberg-Tom Cruise collaboration Minority Report (rated an intense PG-13). Even those who prefer such challenging material should celebrate the fresh availability of softer alternatives. They provide an outreach to an audience segment needlessly alienated some 30 years ago and encourage parents to share the movie-going experience with their kids rather than hire a sitter.

As the legendary mogul and Hollywood pioneer Samuel Goldwyn reputedly (and sagely) observed: "It is better to sell four tickets than two."

I agree that family fare does better, but often R rated movies are vanity projects, while the family movies are designed to just make money, which they do.

There were some great movies in the early 70's which were edgier. Edgy isn't bad, if it is intelligent as well. I am thinking of the great Gene Hackman movies like the Conversation, and the French Connection, and movies such as The Godfather, and Apocolypse Now. There is a place for adult movies like these. You can only see Bambi so many times ya know.

One of the things that made movies good in the 30s and 40s is that there were restrictions on what could be said or shown. Sometimes it is more powerful to imply something then to show all of the bodily mechanics involved.

My wife and I would go to a movie every week, and sometimes two, but as it became evident they were no longer making movies for me (or my generation) we slowly stopped. I have not been inside a movie theater in close to ten years.

Television followed the movies. As someone who could once tell you when and where every program was on, I am reduced to watching the history channel.

It is not all bad, it give me more time to spend reading on the FreeRepublic.

There's a place for edgy movies, sure.

Hollywood's mistake was to chase audiences by going further and further into gratuitous sex and violence. The more audience they lost, the further out they went, not realizing that they would only drive away more ticket buyers. Judging everything by their own tastes, it took them decades to understand that they had simply misjudged their audiences. Sure, a lot of people like a good R-rated film. But as this article points out, there were numerous statistical studies showing that PG and G rated films were more profitable than R rated films. I saw one study a couple of years ago that said, on average, they are twice as profitable. Because of their narrow mindsets, Hollywood producers simply couldn't believe it.

Also, I hate to say it, but at least some of these folks would rather lose money than stop corrupting America. "Priest" was hardly a best-seller, but it deeply damaged Disney's reputation for years. They just kept plugging it. "Nothing Sacred" is another example. It was at the bottom of the TV ratings for months, and it was damaging ABC/Disney's reputation. But did they back off? Not until dozens of advertisers were persuaded to drop their sponsorship.

It used to be said that these folks were willing to go to any lengths for money. Then it became evident that they were willing to go to any lengths even if it lost money.

But money will presumably win out in the end, as audiences vote with their dollars. GOOD edgy movies will still have their niche, but hopefully you won't have that obligatory pornographic sex scene stuck into every movie whether it fits or not.

I agree. I just want things done intelligently. I have seen some terrible kids movies as well. I am looking really forward to Jonah, the veggie tales movie, that is coming out on the 4th of October. We are taking the Sunday school kids from our church to see it on the 6th at a matinee.

I think the big problem is that Hollywood is populated by vain idiots. They don't realize that most people don't live in LA or NY, or that even most people in LA or NY aren't going to watch their films.

If ya figure an average ticket price of $6, a movie is a huge hit if it does $30 million it's opening weekend. But if there were no repeat viewers, that means that 5 million people watched it in the US and Canada. That means that there are over 300 million who didn't. More than 98% of people aren't watching a hit movie. That is where Hollywood gets in trouble. They figure that since a movie only needs to be watched by 2% of people to be profitable, they do exploitative junk trying to narrowcast.

Sometimes it is more powerful to imply something then to show all of the bodily mechanics involved.

You are so right. Some of the great Hollywood film stars in the old days burn up the screen, yet you never see as much as a French kiss. Consider Marlene Dietrich in "The Blue Angel," which introduced her to Hollywood from Germany.

The same is true of books. Who wants to read a cold, detailed analysis of sex when you can achieve more by powerful indirection? When the bars were let down to writers, most of them became trivial. Thomas Hardy had to work under extremely restrictive rules, yet most of his novels are far sexier than anything more explicit that was written later. Consider "Tess of the Durbervilles."

"Lady Chatterly's Lover," one of the great test cases in the American courts, is just plain silly. It's an unintentional hoot. Since then, most "sexy" novels have been sillier. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers" is a grea novel, in part because it is much less explicit but far deeper and more suggestive.

The author neglects to mention one absolutely critical point in this excellent piece. The shift in cinematic mores some forty years ago was the logical end result of the successful infiltration of Hollywood by the communists. The infiltration had actually started years earlier (in the aftermath of World War II), but took a while to complete because of the staunch opposition of men like Ronald Reagan.

I'll cast a vote for "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," and "Count of Monte Cristo."

Went to see "Greek" over Labor Day, laughed our behinds off. My wife, the Latin Bomb, is of Puerto Rican extraction, and with a simple switch of language, baby, I was THERE.

Scene from "Greek": Mother of the bride greets the fiance with "would you like something to eat?"

He replies, "No, we ate on the way."

Mother again, "Fine, I'll make you something!"

That IS my mother-in-law, folks.

Now as for the Count, actually took the 11 year old to that one. He a) loved the intrigue and the swordplay, and b) got the lesson at the end.

Then I ruined his world by telling him there was a book...

= )

What undermines the argument that nudity led to the box office slump of the 70's to me is the fact that the big budget family musicals of that era, "Star", "Hello Dolly", "Paint Your Wagon", "Oliver", etc were mostly flops as well. Disney movies did very poorly during those years. Nobody was lining up to see "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again".

My Big Fat Greet Wedding is THE movie of the summer. Ya wanna laugh? Go. Then go again.

This film has the best ever rendition of the girl-sees-boy-and-gets-stars-in-her-eyes scene. And much more.

I also like the backstory: Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson went to see this when it was a one-woman play. They liked it so much, they bought it. When nobody in Hollywood would produce it (um, but see the article we are discussing here), they produced it themselves. (Rita is of Greek heritage and she said her own big fat Greek wedding was a total hoot). Cost about $10M to make and has earned over $110M. And still earning.

It's a nice story all around.

I've heard many praising "The Count of Monte Christo."

My husband and I stopped going to movies because we didn't like being Peeping Toms and paying money to watch people having sex. Recently we have seen a number of enjoyable films:

"Lord of the Rings"
"Mexico City"
"Brigham City"
"Black Hawk Down" (not for little kids)

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