As an avid reader of the Entertainment Weekly magazine, i'll admit that one of my favorite parts is reading the editorials by Stephen King. I'm always surprised to find that even though he is almost fifty years older than I am, I frequently agree with, understand, or connect with his points of view. In my defense, however, I believe that this is due to his extraordinary ability of connecting with his readers rather than me having a mind similar to that of a sixty year-old. The editorial in this week's magazine, What's Next for Pop Culture?, struck a chord in my mind. He discussed the decline in the quality of movies and network tv, the decline of paper books, and the decline of radio programming. His essential argument is that the changes in pop culture today are for the worse, and in his own words, "When crap drives out class, our tastes grow coarser and the life of the imagination grows smaller."
One of the examples of the decline of the movie industry that Mr. King provided was that several high quality movies are only experiencing small releases while movies like Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen are released on thousands of screens.
Why is this? In my opinion, it is because people don't want the movies to be an intellectual experience anymore; instead, movies are just an escape from the negative things in our world. I think that this has to do with the recession. Why? The recession is making things harder for a lot of americans. The movie industry itself is doing pretty well despite the recession, but people come to the theaters wanting more cheerful and less analytical films because of the added stress the weak economy brings.
Have we lowered our standards? I think so, but is that our fault? I think that our standards would be higher if studios chose to produce films for the quality of writing and idea rather than viewer grabbing potential. Does quality of writing result in viewer potential or not?
Is the economy actually related to this change or does this change reflect America as a whole? Could it be that Americans nowadays consistently prefer films like Transformers to more philosophical films? Is it a reflection on my generation or on Americans as a whole?
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I agree with you that the quality of movies and tv shows get worse by the year. "Beverly Hill Chiuauas"? Really? People would actually pay to see something like that? I know I like watching those no brainer, predictable movies, just for laughs, or if I'm in a lazy mood. But I actually love watching movies that really make me think. Where there isn't a clear, definite answer. I haven't seen one of those for a while, until last weekend when I saw a pyschological thirller, and I was like "This is how movies should be!" I don't think the decreasing quality has anything to do with the recession. I think it is a reflection of the people that go to see movies in theater the most often. I think's it's terrible, and slightly funny, that people would pay money to go see "Beverly Hills Chiuaua" and it also makes me laugh. Whatever the reason may be, the quality of movies is definitely decreasing.
ReplyDeleteI think the terribleness of movies lately is due not only to escaping negative things happening in life, but people also wanting to get a feeling of nostalgia from what they're watching. New comics (like manga) and tv shows tend to suck so much sometimes compared to what used to be around (or so we feel), and as a result, once a movie based on a Marvel comic book is remade, people are going to go see it because it's something they like (or used to like) remade. Nevermind that oftentimes a superhero movie only needs a good guy, a bad guy, a troubled past, and an incredibly cliché triumph of good over evil in a final battle. People love it anyway because they're fans of it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the recession my drive what types of movies people feel like seeing (comedies, action, nostalgia), I don't know if the decline in quality has necessarily been a part of that-- at least not alone. I think it's mainly that our idea of what gets popular and what doesn't makes it possible for people to produce bad movies that still end up getting popular. For example, Twilight, despite being the equivalent of mary-sue fanfiction, is popular because it has an idealized, "irresistable" sparkly man vampire in it, and an attractive cast of hollywood actors. And Transformers has Megan Fox in it. People saw that movie because she was good-looking, not because they wanted to see robots do cool stuff. You advertise a movie by who's in it half the time.
Also, the film industry is hard to survive in if you're an independent worker, even if you have a lot of great insights, and that's the way it almost always is. If you don't have a hollywood budget for special effects or professional actors, your movie could be brilliantly philosophical and almost no one would care because it would not be shown anywhere except perhaps in a few indie film festivals. My granddad produces indie films in a business in NY, and I have some family members that are trying to make a living as independent directors, and from what I've heard, it's apparent that independent film may offer a very unique perspective on things, but it's extremely difficult for people to make a living doing it.
This is somewhat unrelated, but I've seen some really absurdly sexist movies lately, it's kind of hilarious. One was Bride Wars, where the only day of a woman's life that matters is her wedding day, and there was this other terrible one that was rated R a while back that was essentially, 'all you need to get the girl is 3 things: jokes, chocolates, and (some other garbage)'. Where do people get these ideas from, and who the heck is their audience? Why do they bother spending money on that?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that the quality of movies nowadays is pretty crappy. I think it mostly has to do with a shift in the interests of the people watching movies. Right now, 8 out of 14 movies playing in theaters are action films. Why? Because people will pay to see it. All it takes is for one movie to make a bunch of money for everyone to follow and create a similar story in order to make money off it.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I feel is contributing to the decline in quality is the amount of time spent on the graphics and effects in the movies. I've seen some movies recently with some pretty sick effects but they lack any substance. I think that the movie makers are spending too much money on how cool the movie's action scene looks and not enough on finding a writer that will make it intellectual as well.