What do you feel is the biggest problem with modern entertainment

There's not? I thought for sure there was something there

I suspect that's also part of it. Every now and then, there are actors the director doesn't want to put on screen because they are "confusingly large," and "might distract the (male?) audience. (as in, makes them insecure)"

They don't give people credit for being able to think.

I can’t even believe I made that post.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

Yes, capitalism

Films are seen as 'content', something to fill the shelves on a subscription service. Filmmaking is a business, it's always been motivated by money though. Also when people throw around the term 'woke' to basically mean anything that doesn't have an all-white cast.

Part of the reason why there's more race-blind casting is that there are far more white roles than there are for other ethnicities. If we're speaking strictly historically, you basically wouldn't have black characters in costume dramas in anything other than a servant role. So regardless of talent, they don't get the same amount of opportunities.

Personally I only care about whether they're a good actor or not. Let's not pretend that costume dramas are intended to be documentaries- people like the romance and fantasy of what it was like in the nineteenth century.

And as mentioned before, Hollywood has been casting race-blind before- it's just that there's more high-profile white actors.

Also, we can talk about how Schindler's List wouldn't have been made today but that isn't true. Green Book has been accused of being patronising and having a white saviour narrative yet that won the Oscar. If filmmakers think it will make money, they will make it

There's too much "fabricated" content, which is not entirely a *bad thing*, if there was a bit more balance on the other side of the scale, but that's the thing. Films have gone back to the studio system machinery where "content" is just churned out modeled after a formula/template, music is being engineered and manipulated in studios... even kids shows, which I put to my sons often, seem to be devoid of that human spark of a devoted creator.

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Our expectations are too high. Most people are half dumb, half disinterested and half educated. Because that adds up to three halves, some of THAT gets cut out of our brains so they don't spill out on the floor. Prior to the movie/TV world, when books were king of content, most of them were awful too. Most of the stories that ever will be written have been done before and there's only a few dozen unique plot lines in literature. Ergo, movies and other entertainment are as good as we are, and probably as good as we will ever be.

I think a general blurring between aspirations (our "entertainment" is abutting our "art") has a lot to do with it. The category of "movies" is too broad to be talked about in aggregate in most contexts. We're often comparing things made with deep emotional aspirations to things literally made to keep 7-year-olds from fussing.

This is a very similar sentiment of Sturgeon's Law. (1956)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

For me the difference between entertainment and art is more about entertainment simply being something to leave you generally occupied and to push boredom away. To amuse you. Wheras art has a more broad and unspecified purpose or effect on viewing. It doesnt have to even make you feel or think positive things. It can disturb or confuse or frustrate. It can just be beautiful, spiritual or it can even be boring.

Few films save for documentaries are intended as documentaries. I can understand the argument that there aren’t as many period roles available to non-white actors, but I personally just don’t feel that’s good enough reason. See Eric Kaufmann on “asymmetrical multiculturalism” (fun fact: Kaufmann is not white).

There should be more all-Black entertainment etc., sure, but I find (again, just my view) that a Black Anne Boleyn etc. is too much to ask in terms of suspension of disbelief. If you want to go there, I feel like you might as well go the alternative history route, construct a whole new alternative historical reality (Fatherland-style) where people in Henry VIII’s/whosever court are Black, why the hell not, as long as it’s actually commented on in some diegetic way that doesn’t break the fourth wall/feels natural and is addressed within the world building, why not.

I feel like there’s nothing inherently racist in noticing that Anne Boleyn doesn’t look like Henry in this film and why is that, how do we explain that/why isn’t that explained? (Case in point to an extent: I recently watched Three Thousand Years of Longing, which I really didn’t like, but it felt natural that Queen Sheba was Black, given the Middle Eastern biblical context/Moors etc (there is, for once, some historical/scriptural/apocryphal evidence for that one). But Anne Boleyn? My disbelief cannot be suspended that far; it’ll drop down).

I don’t feel like this can be quite pulled off in a straight-up historical adaptation/film.

I don’t believe that is why. Not to delve too deeply into politics, but antisemitism is on the rise. Few things which can conceivably be interpreted as pro-Israel (unless they are made in Israel, e.g. Fauda) get made. That would be why in my view Schindler’s List wouldn’t get made now (the “saviour” thing is a valid criticism; I love the film and have been to Israel plenty of times, have seen Oskar Schindler’s grave and discussed this with local scholars etc. I think the penultimate scene of the film is needlessly sentimental, over the top and somewhat creepy. The sort of thing one would naturally view as ahistorical even if it did happen like that). We would need to highlight the plight of the Roma people during the Holocaust, but somehow not the Jews or, say, Russians, who suffered more losses than anyone in that war.

Shifting the focus away from Jews on anything Holocaust-related is obscene (the issue with all this inclusion business is, you are decentring the primarily affected demographic in favour of the “diverse” 0.5 per cent). Unfortunately, of course, sidelining the Jewish people in Holocaust stories is not new and far predates the “diversity boom”.

It’s also hard to reliably predict what will make money, try as people might. And risk-taking is very obviously not something that’s been on the rise in the film industry/the arts overall, hence we have all the remakes/reboots/re-everything. I would argue Schindler’s List made money because of Spielberg’s golden touch, not because there was something inherently commercial about the concept (though that’s a whole other matter, and I’m very much on the Terry Gilliam side of the debate here in terms of the “happy ending” which obviously boosted the film’s commercial potential).

I did actually come up with this theory that I disccused with *cough* myself *cough*. The problem with a lot of entertainment movies, tv, music, etc. is the economics of it. Most of artists, whether acting, singers, writers, animators, etc. will struggle and barely get enough to live on and definitely just not get the money their work should deserve. This discourages a lot of talented people from making content. And on the flip side the few very lucky and the few very mainstream projects will get tons of money- and that also isnt good because too much money (and fame) ruin the spirit of art and story telling and dirties the creative process.

This also I think has the result of making the group of artists and people that work to create these things quiet small. Maybe thats why there seems to be a lack of originality and why things in film and tv sometimes feel the same. Somebody in this thread said something about theres only so many stories to be told but I completely disagree I think there are so many amazing stories (including music) even just in my imagination that could be told and made into great films and tv shows let alone in the minds of all the people on this planet.

I think if it was somehow possible where we were in a situation where a bigger portion of artists could expect to get paid more (and less fame and money for the biggest stars). Youd have fewer movies starring the same 50 actors that get recycled for every mainstream movie . I dont know if other people hate this but one of the biggest things I hate about movies and tv shows is how often youll see the same frickin actor/actress everywhere. In general I think movie and tv would be much better (at least for me anyway) if movies and tv shows would cast from a wider pool- like casting unknowns, etc.

This is actually why I think movies as a medium is generally somewhat better than tv. Movies can have an existence that is complete and flows and executed properly. Tv shows are constantly competing and getting external input (from the viewing public) while its in production. The writers can change actors can change (both like actors being replaced but also actors themselves changing as people do over time). The directors, actors and writers dont even know when the show will end or how it will end, etc. theyre basically just constantly improvising in a way. A TV show is both trying to be itself and tell its story while at the same time trying to sell and advertise itself to try and bag another episode, another season and prevent cancellation. While a movie, first you have to get sell the idea of the movie and get the greenlight and then you can just create the movie for the sake of making something a good movie.

I was thinking of this very thing only in relation to pop music. I have always enjoyed pop music from Doris Day to Katy Perry. But I couldn’t tell you who the pop stars of today are. I never hear pop music. Almost nothing new is on the radio. In my car, the only place I listen to music, I never hear anything new. It is just Classical, Jazz, R & B, Classic Rock and Oldies. Let’s face it most of that is the Oldies. I feel like I have been listening to the same thing for the last ten years. Is pop music dead? Is new music dead? Is it just that I am too old to find it cause it has migrated to the Internet? Is it behind some pay wall. It used to be a lot easier keeping up with the new back in the olden days. I may be old but I enjoy new things.

Ha, come on, now! That sounds like heaven, what radio is it you listen to!? I take cabs to work daily and it takes me circa 1 hour, I’m usually in headphones with my Tom Waits/Chris Isaak/Rammstein/whatever, but if I do happen to take them off, it’s all Harry Styles or Olivia Rodrigo or Ed Sheeran or Dua Lipa, for my sins. Seems one can’t escape!

I think theyre pointing to the extreme or negative parts of capitalism, not just the system of a free market. Like the ways things can be abused and hacked and where profit is KING. You can ideally have an economy (including in artistic industries) where there is the trade of money and products but the focus isnt just money making its also on the quality of those products and what those products are ultimately for- the people, the society that consumes it. Criticising capitalism, even in the context of making good movies and tv, doesnt mean saying communism would be better.

Love Tom Waits and Chris Isaak. I am in the US so it will probably do you no good knowing what I listen to. But I remember occasionally you would hear something new and good. Now it's just lame stuff. I have taken to listening to an oldies station. Sometimes you hear something from the fifties or the early sixties. Its not always what I like but it is definitely different. I just can't believe, I have to reach that far back for anything that seems new cause I haven't heard it in fifty years.

There are always gems. But you need to spend a lot of time researching and sourcing good new music, which I do, but most people are too lazy to. The oldies are more reliable, though.