What do you feel is the biggest problem with modern entertainment

Yes, Capitalism is a big reason why we have an abundance of product. Capitalism is also the reason why the focus on what gets made has narrowed until there is less and less risk involved in what gets chosen to be produced. It's deep in the dna of this recent need for films to make obscene amounts of money or not be worth it. That's capitalism, or at least the shitty end of it.


Because of all this Capitalism is very much responsible for the glut of superhero movies. But it was also responsible for the American New Wave. Those guys wanted to make money too. And they believed they could do so with a different model. Where quality and pushing unique voices was a bankable commodity.


So the problem isn't exclusively Capitalism, as it can be both blamed and praised for all the good and bad in the industry, since the beginning of time. But the purity of our modern strain of capitalism is definitely a new hurdle in getting new voices to the table. Producers have always wanted profit, but with new economic models, and higher and higher needs for maximum megabucks at the end of the day, aversion to risk has never been higher. I would also argue, cynicism towards the public has never been more corroded, allowing for the 'problem' of endless remakes and rehashes. The men with the money have come to finally and truly realize they can fill seats producing the same thing over and over, with diminishing results, and keep getting away with it. This has always existed to some extent, but the last twenty years have put this philosophy on steroids. And I almost think it could be argued that audiences actually couldn't care less, for the most part. So, since Capitalism is still working, and only weirdos on message boards and the occassion movie critic squawk about it, maybe they shouldn't change what they are doing. The strange bedfellows of art and commerce, which has intermittently flourished at different times through the decades, has now been able to kick the nuisance of art out of the sack. Capitalism is free to fellate itself, presumably for all eternity.


Which has led to a kind of seemingly indestructible kind of capitalism. So no, not entirely the problem. But still definitely the problem.

It's also not really clear what you think the significance of this "linking" is. As if any predominant economic system could not be "linked" to all the things within it, good or bad. Not to mention that the idea of an "entertainment industry" has never existed outside of such a system.

So yeah, the system that created the concept is responsible for all the things in it. But saying so has as much significance as "hey you know what's at fault for all the stubbed toes? The universe." Yeah dude, but the universe also has Van Gogh and bacon.

Don't be obtuse. Virtually every complaint here is inherent of the commodication of art and the inherent compromises that come with that territory. It's a broad brush but it is not as though it is lacking in accuracy or precision.

Obtuse is me pointing out that capitalism is responsible for all of it and you responding with what amounts to "aha so you admit it's responsible for the bad parts!"

This is effectively circular. "The problem with entertainment is <the natural secondary effect of capitalism on entertainment>." Right, and "the problem" with climbing Mt. Everest is that it's really high up and hard to breathe.

Usually when people say something is "the problem" they mean "it is excisable from the scenario in a way that would improve it," not "it created the entire scenario in the first place and thus is responsible for all good and bad within it."

I'm a little surprised we've made it this far and no one has explicitly said Hollywood's addiction to international markets (notably China - this seems to be the common complaint a lot of people had before those complaints shifted over to IP rehashes) and the purchase of studios by mega-conglomerates who aren't going to care about a movie, even one that's profitable and has good ROI, if it's not at a large enough scale to make a noticeable increase in the company's profits. They've got a lot of money to spend and they've got to make use of it.
All of this kind of killing interest in middle tiered size movies, or even movies slightly larger than that.


This is hardly ubiquitous across all studios, but I think it's affected all of the major ones.



https://mothership.sg/2022/05/spider...d%20the%20film.


Interesting thing to watch (or other people who watch superhero movies to watch; which doesn't really include me), I wonder if this is going to cause movies to slowly decide not to include certain US landmarks in the future. It'd be difficult for domestic PR reasons to film it and then acquiesce to the request, but maybe they'll just start deciding not to write such scenes in the first place.

It has also crossed my mind that Silicon Valley had horse dong in an episode, so I guess that alone isn't enough to save entertainment, but it did help that episode.

Art and entertainment can and have existed without capitalism.

I think I know about all of this abstractly, but don't know anything about China's influence in concrete terms. Nothing you are saying surprises me though, and it certainly would be a damper on all these sorts of things we might value on the capital A 'arts' side of the conversation

Often it's small things, I think (e.g. the flag for Taiwan is no longer on Tom Cruise's jacket for the sequel when it was in the original. Allegedly. I've seen neither), and I recall hearing anecdotes of it starting off way back with Iron Man where scenes were inserted to appeal to Chinese audiences. And for some reason, I seem to recall "the addiction to international markets" being one of the reasons Soderberg cited when he retired from the Hollywood system (caveat: my memory is shit and this was like a decade ago).

However, it should be noted, I don't know how interesting Soderberg's stuff has been since moving away from the studio system (I don't have HBO) - though people liked this year's Kimi.

I think the observation of the impact of studios being bought by larger conglomerates is only something I've heard brought up recently. It's all speculation by people (non-econ people, more movie critics and such type people) as to why there's a dearth of movies below the big, big blockbusters now that we used to have (that Hollywood was quite happy with having).

Weirdly, it seems like the places where movies like those seem to show up are on Netflix now; which people are also complaining about. I'd have to echo the "us" part of the problem. For all the interesting shows or movies they've made (RIP Bojack Horseman), Friends and The Office were the most frequently streamed shows back when they had the rights to them.

Maybe not as "big" as some already talked about here, but one problem...

As far as adaptations: books to movies, comics to movies, TV shows to movies, remakes of movies, updates, reboots, sequels, prequels...
Everybody (in filmmaking) wants to be Marcel Duchamp - they all want to draw their own mustache on the Mona Lisa.

Wait, I've got the ultimate big answer!

The modern entertainment industry (which is the subject of all the "linked" complaints, which are not about the problems with mere art) was effectively created by capitalism. Listing things innate to the idea of having an entertainment industry (as distinct from mere art), therefore, is not really describing a problem separable from the industry.

Re: the general sentiment (paraphrased, of course) "capitalism is why good/daring films aren't getting made enough."

I don't think this is true. I think there's a little slide-step going on here which treats the widest releases as if they were the whole of the industry. Capitalism is why Minions: The Rise of Gru will be on 4,000 screens and whatever A24 puts out will be on 400, but it's not stopping the latter from getting made. In fact, it's why the latter exists at all. Only affluent cultures can cater to niche tastes like that.

It seems obvious that it's never been easier to make a film, and that we've never had more access to good films. "Most of the ads I see are for crap" is not the same thing as "only crap is getting made."

I don't walk into a Target and think it's bad that I don't want to buy 99% of what's in it. I worry about whether it's got the thing I want, and all that other stuff I don't want? I chalk up to the wild diversity in taste and need that is the rest of the world, of which I am not the center.

A true believer in capitalism would clean out the shelves. Or at least buy one of everything. Anything less is moral cowardice.

Of course, capitalism is the problem. It's easy to forget that, at the bottom line, movies are an investment. A bunch of people with lots of cash invest in a movie, hoping to not just get their money back but also make a profit. They may or may not give a whit about "Cinema".

Money has flowed from different places over the past century, but it's always been make a movie >>> make lots of money. Build a studio, build sets, hire actors and crew and make a movie and sell lots of tickets or video rentals or DVD's or whatever. It's no less mercenary than building and selling cars. It's actually pretty amazing that something we might call "Art" (note the capital A) sometimes rears its beautiful head.

The other question, however, is what could replace this system. The track record for socialist movies isn't that great and nobody is seriously considering funding a big-money "work of art" from the public coffers, so it's kind of inevitable that that the people with the money want a proposal for a movie that sells. Demographics, disposable income, popular taste all become key parts of the equation. Larger markets attract a bigger investment than smaller ones (play to China?), but a smaller player, like A24 can succeed with the right expectation and a good product.

How else WOULD movies get made?

No idea how seriously to respond to this. You know Poe's Law? That, but for people trying to dunk on capitalism on the Internet.

Capitalism is definitely the top problem in films today. Movies have to check a series of boxes to get "good reviews", get produced and not bullied on twitter so every movie has 20-30 minutes of junk to appease segments of the audience. Because all films cast based on a formula it creates formulaic films and those films are disposable and cynical.



The Boys did a great job with how capitalism has created this cynical entertainment system.

Just gonna re-up this:

There's a lot of unacknowledged movement from "all the films" to "most of the films I see ads for/are in most big theaters." We can talk about the latter, and there's plenty to talk about there, but only talking about that is basically stacking the deck on the question by defining things in a way that specifically excludes all the upside for cinephiles.

Wish I could elaborate but my hands are full of this sweet, sweet Target merchandise. You can't argue with those savings.

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Still can't tell! You're killin' it. Or totally failing to get your point across. I'll never know!