Scrutinizing the fake and defensive press when it covers Hollywood
Are you worried about film culture? The showbiz trade publication Variety is plenty worried because She Said, the slanted, moralizing New York Times #MeToo drama, flopped at the box office upon its debut last weekend. In an article titled “She Said Bombs: Why Aren’t Awards Season Movies Resonating With Audiences?,” writer Brent Lang highlighted the panic felt by Hollywood and the media when their political messages are ignored. The Wall Street Journal followed suit with John Jurgensen and Ellen Gamerman’s observing industry desperation in “Now at a Theater Near You: Cannibalism, Vomit and Severed Fingers,” an article about trends in “this season’s Oscar bait.” Anxiety has replaced drama. Worry has replaced criticism.
Lang quotes Jeff Bock, an “analyst” at Exhibitor Relations, a data-research firm, who made the absurd statement that “audiences decide what gets made and right now audiences aren’t choosing to watch these films in theaters.” It’s an annoying media dodge to pretend an industry is serving the public’s interest (“we give readers/viewers what they want”) when, in reality, both Hollywood and the news media operate in terms of their own interests; those biases are sometimes hidden by audience acceptance. Except now. Poor attendance at theaters showing She Said, Bros, Armageddon Time, and Tár suggests the public is rejecting what Hollywood and the news media are trying to sell them.
And just as corporate media are brazenly aligned with the Democratic Party, showbiz reporting refuses to scrutinize the repellent content of movies that push Left-progressive ideology. When Variety defends She Said as “a searing look at an abuse of power,” it borrows the film’s judgmental presentation of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. Then Variety offers a prejudicial excuse that the film “may not have been what audiences were hoping to see at a time when headlines are—let’s be honest—pretty bleak. From Ukraine to the economy there’s a lot to be upset about.” This is another dodge that reveals the full depth of corporate media’s political bent. Variety doesn’t mention the unsecured southern border or cashless bail or the nationwide epidemic of mental illness, drugs, and crime as possibly affecting box-office economics.
Variety’s superficial observation coddles and perpetuates Hollywood’s partisanship, giving it editorial support. It’s important to realize that this is what entertainment media has become; Lang’s article refuses to admit its politics are politics. The canard that quality (award-worthy) films are made without political intention prevents audiences from fully engaging with a movie. It’s better — easier — to stay home than watch overly remunerated professionals congratulate themselves, as in She Said, for not understanding the corruption of their own industry.
First describing She Said as “a sturdily made look at the pair of crusading New York Times journalists who helped expose” the Weinstein scandal, Variety secondarily admits it opened to a “dismal $2.2 million from 2,022 theaters. That ranks as one of the worst results for a major studio release in history.” (The latter contradicts the “sturdily made” assertion; unacceptable for a trade publication.) But blaming that embarrassment on the film’s non-escapist subject matter oversimplifies why people go to the movies; it also ignores how good movies — even an effective muckraking movie — can open minds and touch feelings.
Maybe after years of gossip media, a cynical public is inured to movies such as She Said and Bombshell that inflate transactional sex arrangements and excuse feminist revenge. Audiences won’t pretend they didn’t know, as Meryl Streep did, and so Hollywood’s prevarication reaps the indifference it deserves.
There is no justification for Variety’s lament about ineffective political movies or the Wall Street Journal’s panic about gross-out pictures, especially when they are considered “prestigious.” Both are morally and politically ugly. This isn’t really industry reporting — you can’t report malaise simply by quoting “experts” — but it’s how the media convinces itself of and defends its delusions, a process already familiar from such Beltway guilds as Politico and Axios.
If our media cannot honestly report on the politicization of Hollywood (and criticism), audiences and readers are left to assert their own independent thinking, harsh skepticism, or refusal.