Of course they hijacked the film for “the Message” and that’s why it will underperform or outright fail.
The reason Hollywood still hasn’t gotten the message is that it’s one gigantic circle jerk of delusional assholes. You have two forces at work. The first half of these people are the product of the 30 years of social indoctrination, they are true believers. This is their substitute for religion and existential philosophy. In the eyes of the faithful, it is never the fault of the faith when they fail. Either they didn’t go far enough or invisible forces of evil ( Satan, white patriarchy, etc) undermined them. They will burn down the world and themselves before admitting the thing they believe is not 100% right 100% of the time. They have to. Their whole identity, sense of purpose, and feeling of righteousness is wrapped up in it. To face reality would be to admit they were made a fool and acted like a monster based on a lie. Humans would rather die on a foolish hill than feel the pain of guilt and regret.
The second group, the old school corporate greed mongers, well I figure it’s sunk cost fallacy at this point combined with the fact that the business world is still figuring out how the internet and social media affects business. They believe that the people who tweet at them aggressively about social issues are current or potential customers, who will eagerly empty their pockets if they just change X. Meanwhile, board members, HR, and PR are overflowing with the true believers, who doctor up any report and offer assurances that the massively negative response to these changes are just a handful of bots, spammers, or racists who were never your customers. The declining sales? It’s because you didn’t go far enough, there’s still too much misogyny and racism in your product! Sounds crazy but if you were surrounded by people who told you this, whose job on paper was to help you sell products and make money, can you honestly say you wouldn’t believe the same?
This isn’t going to stop until several big names burn to the ground. It will take the charred corpse of Disney or WB to make group 2 realize that the true believers are insane cultists with no interest in making money, just social engineering and pushing an agenda. Just look at Indy 5. Everyone admits it bombed but absolutely no one in the media or Hollywood is blaming the failure on them shitting on an established hero to push “the Message.” The lesson will not be learned until one of the titans of entertainment fall. At this point, it’s just a matter of which of the big names is going to be the example for the rest of the studios.
The second group, the old school corporate greed mongers, well I figure it’s sunk cost fallacy at this point combined with the fact that the business world is still figuring out how the internet and social media affects business. They believe that the people who tweet at them aggressively about social issues are current or potential customers, who will eagerly empty their pockets if they just change X.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I'm not sure about this one.
We have a large enough sample size by now that I think someone has to be legitimately retarded to not realize that woke shit is far less profitable than non-woke content (for lack of a better term).
We know the truth and it would seem obvious, but remember who we are dealing with and that’s a bunch of insulated, disconnected, wealthy dickheads. This is the first calendar year it’s hitting them because:
Not every woke project or franchise failed spectacularly or neglected to make money over the last decade. Most of these franchises had years of good will and acclaim from the audience who unfortunately put up with a lot of bullshit before realizing it wasn’t going to get better. If you’re some Harvard MBA douche who just cares about the bottom line, your numbers have been still doing great for the majority of projects. They looked at the numbers and assumed the audience was happy, when it was simply the inertia from previous movies, games, or comics that carried them.
When “get woke, go broke” actually occurred, the company ALWAYS had something else to shift the blame to. COVID, poor marketing, franchise fatigue, claiming the franchise was dead to begin with (this was their go to excuse for things like He-Man or Willow for example) the list goes on. The last year, starting with Top Gun and ending with Indiana Jones and the Budlight fiasco, is the point where they’ve ran out of scapegoats
The people we are discussing don’t inhabit the same reality as us. It’s the old “How did Nixon win? No one that I know voted for him?!” situation. (I think it would help to read the following segment in as douchey and pretentious a voice as possible. ”What do you mean people don’t want this?! According to real news like CNN, and reading op editorials by REAL experts, identity politics is what the people want. Why else would the news publish 1,000 articles about misogyny in entertainment if it wasn’t a major concern for the majority? It doesn’t matter what filthy plebs like that racist Carlson or that beastly Scottish man who drinks too much says. Who cares if some silly helmet man called DeadlyDick or whatever says everyone hates our product. Our Non-binary marketing director Jaquisha showed us 1,000,000 likes on Xir Twitter at the last meeting. The whole team agrees with zhem, and they all have degrees from Harvard in business and marketing! Obviously they earned those degrees by learning business and are here to make money. Why else would they be here? The film got a perfect score from movie critics and a GLAAD award. The producer says it’s because we didn’t market enough on social media and Wall Street journal agrees. Why would they lie to us about that?”
As I said, that line of thinking has finally hit a brick wall because after a decade of this shit, normies, Christians, conservative, and even neoliberals have figured out what is going on. Without the ESG money and audience complacency, the true believers are out of lies to peddle board members and from the rumors circling the internet, they are finally starting to get pissed. It took years but the old men and women in suits are finally realizing they’ve been fed bullshit and the government/ investment firms can no longer save them.
I wish I could give you more than +1 for your description of true believers. Wonderfully written, and something more people need to understand. When your belief becomes your identity you become incapable of acting in good faith.
Their whole identity, sense of purpose, and feeling of righteousness is wrapped up in it. To face reality would be to admit they were made a fool and acted like a monster based on a lie. Humans would rather die on a foolish hill than feel the pain of guilt and regret.
This is true, but nearly all the examples of people actually admitting responsibility and facing the consequences are religious people. When you realize God is infinitely larger than you, you accept the order of all things. The truth will set you free.
Of course they hijacked the film for “the Message” and that’s why it will underperform or outright fail.
The reason Hollywood still hasn’t gotten the message is that it’s one gigantic circle jerk of delusional assholes. You have two forces at work. The first half of these people are the product of the 30 years of social indoctrination, they are true believers. This is their substitute for religion and existential philosophy. In the eyes of the faithful, it is never the fault of the faith when they fail. Either they didn’t go far enough or invisible forces of evil ( Satan, white patriarchy, etc) undermined them. They will burn down the world and themselves before admitting the thing they believe is not 100% right 100% of the time. They have to. Their whole identity, sense of purpose, and feeling of righteousness is wrapped up in it. To face reality would be to admit they were made a fool and acted like a monster based on a lie. Humans would rather die on a foolish hill than feel the pain of guilt and regret.
The second group, the old school corporate greed mongers, well I figure it’s sunk cost fallacy at this point combined with the fact that the business world is still figuring out how the internet and social media affects business. They believe that the people who tweet at them aggressively about social issues are current or potential customers, who will eagerly empty their pockets if they just change X. Meanwhile, board members, HR, and PR are overflowing with the true believers, who doctor up any report and offer assurances that the massively negative response to these changes are just a handful of bots, spammers, or racists who were never your customers. The declining sales? It’s because you didn’t go far enough, there’s still too much misogyny and racism in your product! Sounds crazy but if you were surrounded by people who told you this, whose job on paper was to help you sell products and make money, can you honestly say you wouldn’t believe the same?
This isn’t going to stop until several big names burn to the ground. It will take the charred corpse of Disney or WB to make group 2 realize that the true believers are insane cultists with no interest in making money, just social engineering and pushing an agenda. Just look at Indy 5. Everyone admits it bombed but absolutely no one in the media or Hollywood is blaming the failure on them shitting on an established hero to push “the Message.” The lesson will not be learned until one of the titans of entertainment fall. At this point, it’s just a matter of which of the big names is going to be the example for the rest of the studios.
I agree with most of what you wrote, but I'm not sure about this one.
We have a large enough sample size by now that I think someone has to be legitimately retarded to not realize that woke shit is far less profitable than non-woke content (for lack of a better term).
We know the truth and it would seem obvious, but remember who we are dealing with and that’s a bunch of insulated, disconnected, wealthy dickheads. This is the first calendar year it’s hitting them because:
Not every woke project or franchise failed spectacularly or neglected to make money over the last decade. Most of these franchises had years of good will and acclaim from the audience who unfortunately put up with a lot of bullshit before realizing it wasn’t going to get better. If you’re some Harvard MBA douche who just cares about the bottom line, your numbers have been still doing great for the majority of projects. They looked at the numbers and assumed the audience was happy, when it was simply the inertia from previous movies, games, or comics that carried them.
When “get woke, go broke” actually occurred, the company ALWAYS had something else to shift the blame to. COVID, poor marketing, franchise fatigue, claiming the franchise was dead to begin with (this was their go to excuse for things like He-Man or Willow for example) the list goes on. The last year, starting with Top Gun and ending with Indiana Jones and the Budlight fiasco, is the point where they’ve ran out of scapegoats
The people we are discussing don’t inhabit the same reality as us. It’s the old “How did Nixon win? No one that I know voted for him?!” situation. (I think it would help to read the following segment in as douchey and pretentious a voice as possible. ”What do you mean people don’t want this?! According to real news like CNN, and reading op editorials by REAL experts, identity politics is what the people want. Why else would the news publish 1,000 articles about misogyny in entertainment if it wasn’t a major concern for the majority? It doesn’t matter what filthy plebs like that racist Carlson or that beastly Scottish man who drinks too much says. Who cares if some silly helmet man called DeadlyDick or whatever says everyone hates our product. Our Non-binary marketing director Jaquisha showed us 1,000,000 likes on Xir Twitter at the last meeting. The whole team agrees with zhem, and they all have degrees from Harvard in business and marketing! Obviously they earned those degrees by learning business and are here to make money. Why else would they be here? The film got a perfect score from movie critics and a GLAAD award. The producer says it’s because we didn’t market enough on social media and Wall Street journal agrees. Why would they lie to us about that?”
As I said, that line of thinking has finally hit a brick wall because after a decade of this shit, normies, Christians, conservative, and even neoliberals have figured out what is going on. Without the ESG money and audience complacency, the true believers are out of lies to peddle board members and from the rumors circling the internet, they are finally starting to get pissed. It took years but the old men and women in suits are finally realizing they’ve been fed bullshit and the government/ investment firms can no longer save them.
I wish I could give you more than +1 for your description of true believers. Wonderfully written, and something more people need to understand. When your belief becomes your identity you become incapable of acting in good faith.
This is true, but nearly all the examples of people actually admitting responsibility and facing the consequences are religious people. When you realize God is infinitely larger than you, you accept the order of all things. The truth will set you free.