Haven't we seen this happen over and over again this past decade?
We grew up watching legendary actors who made their signature character iconic, in an epic tale of overcoming great odds in movies and TV shows beloved by entire generations (often passed down to the next)...
... only for the actor to come back and stand side-by-side with progressive directors and say "AKCHEWELLY, my iconic character did NOT live happily ever after and every great victory we achieved was for nothing and here I am to show you it was a BAD END... oh, and here's a bunch of new young progressive characters to shit on me while I literally say out loud how so much better they are than stupid old failures like me."
Why are they doing it?
The tales they told were epic. They were legendary stories that enraptured people, who then passed it down to their children. Why would these actors come back decades later to RUIN that story and cut that immortal lifeline and desecrate their memory?
Are they all truly broke? Were they desperate for the paycheck the studios were shoving through their mail slot? Did they really spend every cent they had and were now actors with zero roles and terrified of the humiliating prospect of applying for another job to pay the bills?
Is that the way the industry works? Do they keep you on the verge of bankruptcy by making you pay for membership in The Club™ , lest you be blacklisted? Is that it?
Did these legendary actors empty their bank accounts donating to Scientology all these years to guarantee producers hired them because that was "The Club" in those days, and membership was mandatory or you were blacklisted, and now Wokeness™ is the new mandatory membership and not publically regurgitating woke doctrine gets you on the new Hollywood blacklist?
Did the producers come up to them and say "you can either accept the paycheck and help us destroy your legacy, or we can spread the word and no one will ever hire you again. Choose: a legacy that outlives you, or bankruptcy"?
What other reason is there? Why do they do it? Their iconic roles and legendary tales would have outlived them for a century or more. But no more. Now no one will show it to their kids, who will go on to show it to theirs. Why do they do it?
Why do they keep doing it?
TL;DR:
Back to the Future 4 (2026)
College activist and inexplicably brilliant Zora Floyd (Willow Smith) uses her self-taught mastery of quantum time mechanics to rebuild the Time Machine from scratch.
With little to no help from her belligerent and lowkey racist mentor Martin McFly (now a miserable old divorcee following his arrest for wife-beating) Zora is fiercely determined to change history and prevent the rise of President Biff Tannen and his White Supremacy party so she and her trans girlfriend can finally get married.
Celebrities (and upper class people) are in constant competition with each other. It is all about meeting the expections of everyone within your class. You need to hit the right milestones and talking point lest you become a point of ridicule in the community or outright shunned for not fitting in. To these people the only status worth having is status within your own class, everything else is meaningless because everyone else is beneath you.
Haven't we seen this happen over and over again this past decade?
We grew up watching legendary actors who made their signature character iconic, in an epic tale of overcoming great odds in movies and TV shows beloved by entire generations (often passed down to the next)...
... only for the actor to come back and stand side-by-side with progressive directors and say "AKCHEWELLY, my iconic character did NOT live happily ever after and every great victory we achieved was for nothing and here I am to show you it was a BAD END... oh, and here's a bunch of new young progressive characters to shit on me while I literally say out loud how so much better they are than stupid old failures like me."
Why are they doing it?
The tales they told were epic. They were legendary stories that enraptured people, who then passed it down to their children. Why would these actors come back decades later to RUIN that story and cut that immortal lifeline and desecrate their memory?
Are they all truly broke? Were they desperate for the paycheck the studios were shoving through their mail slot? Did they really spend every cent they had and were now actors with zero roles and terrified of the humiliating prospect of applying for another job to pay the bills?
Is that the way the industry works? Do they keep you on the verge of bankruptcy by making you pay for membership in The Club™ , lest you be blacklisted? Is that it?
Did these legendary actors empty their bank accounts donating to Scientology all these years to guarantee producers hired them because that was "The Club" in those days, and membership was mandatory or you were blacklisted, and now Wokeness™ is the new mandatory membership and not publically regurgitating woke doctrine gets you on the new Hollywood blacklist?
Did the producers come up to them and say "you can either accept the paycheck and help us destroy your legacy, or we can spread the word and no one will ever hire you again. Choose: a legacy that outlives you, or bankruptcy"?
What other reason is there? Why do they do it? Their iconic roles and legendary tales would have outlived them for a century or more. But no more. Now no one will show it to their kids, who will go on to show it to theirs. Why do they do it?
Why do they keep doing it?
TL;DR:
Celebrities (and upper class people) are in constant competition with each other. It is all about meeting the expections of everyone within your class. You need to hit the right milestones and talking point lest you become a point of ridicule in the community or outright shunned for not fitting in. To these people the only status worth having is status within your own class, everything else is meaningless because everyone else is beneath you.