Never have I read an article based on such a false premise as this one from the far-left New York Times over the weekend: “Hollywood’s Message to Red States: Our Movies Are for You.”
“For nearly two decades, Hollywood has seemingly missed no opportunity to sound the alarm about climate change,” reports the Times. “So it was startling when the weather-focused Twisters arrived from Universal Pictures this month with no mention of climate change at all.” More…
Trend spotting in cinema is a hazardous pursuit. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. “Twisters,” however, is emblematic of a clear shift in Hollywood: After a period of openly using movies to display progressive values, sometimes with success at the box office (“Barbie”) and often not (“Strange World,” “The Marvels,” “The Color Purple,” “Dark Waters”), studios seem to be heeding a message that many ticket buyers — especially in the center of the country — have been sending for a long time: We just want to be entertained, no homework attached.
And then comes the lie: “Put bluntly, it amounts to an attempt by Hollywood to bend to red-state audiences.”
What in the hell are they talking about?
Granted, this dumb outlet is not wrong that movies are at long last becoming less political and that this is paying off at the box office while woke titles crash and burn at a nearly 100 percent rate. Hopefully, after destroying so many Golden Geese franchises, the studios have got the message. No one goes to the movies to be insulted or scolded. There is nothing wrong with exploring Big Ideas in movies, but this should be done with art, theme and subtext—not divisive lectures. Movies are about story and the moment you break the storytelling spell, you have failed as a filmmaker.
Now let’s talk about what the dim-bulbs at the New York Times get to horribly, terribly, stupidly wrong…
Urban leftists hate woke movies every bit as much as us deplorables. How do we know this? Let’s use the science of math, shall we…?
Almost 66 million people voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. All that’s required to get your movie to a $200 million domestic gross is for about one-third of those voters to show up and buy tickets.
That’s it.
In a country where nearly 66 million people voted for Hillary Clinton, Hollywood does not need a single red-state customer to make a profit. Hollywood’s problem is not that Republicans refuse to pay for this woke trash, Hollywood’s problem is that not even their own lefties are interested in paying for this woke trash.
If Hollywood made movies only to appeal to Hillary voters, to Democrats, that pool of customers would be more than large enough to create one box office hit after another. If you add in their kids, you’re talking about blockbuster after blockbuster.
What the New York Times cannot face is this fact: No one wants to watch this crap. No one—and that includes people in their own tribe.
We are all human beings and from our storytellers, we are hardwired to ask only two things: 1) cast a spell, 2) don’t break that spell.
That is a universal part of the human condition.
This means that even though woke is aimed at the left’s sweet spot, it violates rule number two. And while leftists might appreciate Hollywood propaganda, they still won’t pay for it with their time or money.
So, no, it’s a lie to claim Hollywood is catering its latest releases to red-state audiences. All Hollywood is doing is removing the woketardery everyone hates—which, as the math proves, is catering to everyone.
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.
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