Christian Toto, “The great Iraq war movie scam” at Hollywood in Toto = http://www.hollywoodintoto.com/great-iraq-war-movie-scam/. Short article but to the point. Toto discusses how Hollywood churned out several movies about the Iraq war that painted President Bush and the War on Terror in a critical light. And they flopped. Some of them badly. Hollywood seemed to learn from the experience… avoid such movies and maybe put out a few that were at least neutral… which did much better at the box office. And now Hollywood has apparently decided to put out another negative movie about the Iraq war. From a studio that has produced only one movie. Directed by someone who has had one hit in the last 20 years. In one sense… who cares? I am not a huge supporter of the war in Iraq. And many who supported it then later have said, Maybe we should not have done that. Which does not let the Obama administration off the hook. If we made a mistake… do not make a second worse mistake that arguably throws away what little was accomplished. But in any case what this is about is the role of Hollywood in American culture. People I know and respect tell me Hollywood cares about money. I always push back and say, Yes, but they seem to care about ideology and social-cultural-political messaging even more. I think there is plenty of evidence that Hollywood is quite willing to lose piles of money on movies that advance a point of view that surely they know ahead of time the American public will reject… not pay to see it… the movie will lose money or make almost nothing. Yes yes I know that Avatar was an exception. I hardly think it disproves the rule. Toto seems to capture neatly the tension between “Hollywood cares about making money” and “they seem to care at least as much about inserting messages even when it will cost them millions”.
Modern Hollywood is as risk averse as any business. Studios are pressured to produce as much can’t-miss fare as possible. Audiences simply have too many credible options for their leisure time. They can watch cutting-edge content, or old favorites, on their tablets on smart phones. They can play some of the most sophisticated games ever produced on computers and gaming systems.
That’s why we see so many sequels and reboots these days. Studios pray that familiar brands will draw a crowd. If not, millions might be lost. Careers compromised. Companies, too.
The stakes have never been higher….
Show business is always a business … until the filmmakers have a message to send. Then, the industry ignores reality and cries, “action!” It’s what Reiner is about to do once more. [emphasis added]
I think that is what motivates Hollywood exactly. The entertainment industry/ies care about making money. Until they have a message they want to send. Then they do whatever… even if no one likes it and they lose millions.
Rod Dreher, “Freedom and speech” at The American Conservative = http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/freedom-speech-trump/. Partly because I want to link at least a second article. Longish piece by Dreher that reflects on the rise in popularity for Donald Trump as well as what seems to be a rise in efforts not simply to protest against him but to shut down speech and rallies. Let me be blunt. I agree with pretty much everything Dreher writes here. I am not fan of Trump and do not trust him. Period. At the same time… I have no patience at all for people who try to shut down speech and rallies with which they disagree. None. Note especially the last section of the article where Dreher quotes Alasair McIntyre on why protest no longer persuades…
His point is that protest cannot hope to persuade anyone, because our culture has gone so far down the road of radical individualism that there is no longer a shared rational framework within which one can be persuaded. We are an “emotivist” culture (says MacIntyre) in which whatever people feel is true is taken as truth, rationality be damned. Protest, then, can only be expressive, not persuasive — and indeed, SJWs don’t intend to persuade anyone who disagrees with them, only to intimidate them and to make it impossible for them to speak or to be heard. As Sailer points out, that is the whole point of the “Safe Spaces” racket.