“I woke up on the floor of some Japanese family’s rec room, and they would not stop screaming.†– Anchorman
I hear William Shatner hates one pie:Â Pe-Khaaaaaaan.
I like movies. And I like television. Up until recently, I used to read a lot of fiction books; now I read a lot more non-fiction. Together, along with the news we read and the Internet sites we visit, this defines the core of our mythology, our legends, and our shared experiences outside of religion.
When The Mrs. watches movies she likes to watch them for characters – how people react and change based on the circumstances that they encounter. That seems to fascinate her, probably because The Mrs. is a human. Me? I like to watch movies for new ideas and new information. Billions of people have fallen in love, but how many have thought of a new idea? Ideas catch my interest, which might explain The Mrs.’ cute nickname for me: Soulless Human-Looking Robot.
But movies today, frankly, suck. They’re awful. Not all of them, mind you, but a big majority. Seeing a good one is rare enough today that it actually surprises me when I see one that I like. For the most part, what passes for a “good†movie is just one that doesn’t actively disappoint me. The Mrs. rarely goes to movies, and even before Coronavirus made Netflix® the king of media, she just stopped going to movies in about 2014 or 2015.
I had to stop talking to a friend who said that Netflix® was the cheapest streaming service. I just can’t be around a Hulu™-cost denier.
About that time was another event: the functional disappearance of an entire movie genre:  the comedy. What happened to comedy? Since the year 2000, there have been a total of 45 comedy movies that have grossed over $100 million (in adjusted 2000 dollars) at the box office. The last comedy to hit this threshold was in 2015. So, the numbers prove it – comedy is currently deader than a Clinton opponent.
The strange reason that this is happening is that comedy movies just aren’t funny anymore. It’s not that I’ve lost my sense of humor: objectively the movies aren’t funny. Audiences have largely abandoned them. America clearly has an appetite for humor, there were 45 comedy films that that made over $100 million between 2000 and 2015, but the numbers keep dropping over time: comedy movies used to take in about 20% of the box office. In 2019, comedy was down to 6.6% of the market.
So, why are comedies not funny anymore? The audiences haven’t changed: teenage boys are still teenage boys. So, it must be the movies.
When you look at the movies, they’ve gone from broad comedies that focus on making people laugh to either comedies that are created to push a particular viewpoint or comedies that depend on getting humor from extremely explicit sexual content. Certainly, there are good sexy jokes – remember you’re reading a post from the person who invented bikini economics graphs. But, like anything, there’s a line. And I’m not alone in being happy that Zack and Miri Make a Porno could have just as easily been titled Zack and Miri Make No Money since it did so poorly at the box office.
Another reason is that comedy is dangerous to the Left. To paraphrase a J. Michael Straczynski and Neil Gaiman Babylon 5 script, “Comedians say serious things and get a laugh, politicians say silly things and people take them seriously.†  At some level, great comedy is about telling a truth, but an uncomfortable truth. That’s the reason that Stalin didn’t allow real humor in the Soviet Union. It’s the same reason that Jerry SeinfFeld said he won’t do comedy shows at colleges – the woke crowd wants to hear humor, but only the jokes they find politically acceptable, regardless of the truth.
Obligatory Stalin Joke: One day Stalin decides to go to the cinema in disguise and hear what people are really saying about him. When the newsreel comes on the audience stands up and applauds each time he appears on the screen. Stalin is pleased. Modestly, he himself remains seated. After a few moments the man next to him leans over and whispers: “Most people feel the same way you do Comrade, but you’ll be safer if you stand up.â€
Sadly, the failure of comedies seems to apply to movies as a whole now – the movie industry growth has been stagnant since 2012 or so. I think it’s tied back to the same reason, Leftists feeling that movies should be explicit carriers of Leftist politics. Movies can have a point, but they have to have the politically correct point. They can be poignant or uplifting, but only in a Leftist-approved way that involves someone saying, “But I’m a lesbian†during the movie, though most of the time the other patrons tell me to shut up. Movies are crafted so they don’t allow the audience to come to conclusions outside of those approved by Hollywood and the globalist Left.
And it’s been getting worse. By most measures, the last three Star Wars® films have been the worst of the franchise. Sure, The Force Awakens® got big box office numbers, but that was primarily because people were so excited to see a new Star Wars™ film that they would have spent money to go see Chewbacca® having lice combed out of his hair for three hours.
There was a movie about Chewbacca® making vases out of porcelain. It was called Hairy Potter.
But Star Wars® became something different after Disney© bought it. It became woke. The main character was a girl. I’m okay with that. But in this case, the girl had powers far in excess of, well, anyone. After merely touching a lightsaber® and never having trained with it, she defeated a man who had trained with one for years.
Yeah. I would rather have watched the Wookie™ be de-loused.
To cap off The Force Awakens, a thoroughly uncharismatic group of characters with no chemistry defeated yet another Death Star™ in a way that was so memorable I can’t recall it. Heck they might have unplugged it for all I remember, but I certainly do know that Luke Skywalker® didn’t drop a torpedo into a reactor exhaust.   When I left the theater after The Force Awakens, I was done with Star Wars®. For good. What had generally been a dependably fun series of movies was gone.
But having a series of movies is now the norm. Movies had become a batch of either remakes of old movies or movies in a franchise. Since 2000, 119 movies (at least) have been released as part of a franchise. 23 of those are Marvel® franchise movies. And, I’ll admit that in many instances those franchise movies have been entertaining. But after 23 movies, I think we’ve reached Peak Marvel™, since they’re quickly becoming woke, too. The final straw for many will probably be Thor, who is reportedly going to be replaced by a woman, and Ironman®, who will be replaced by Nic Cage in a suit he made out of old Coors Light™ cans.
Understand – it’s not enough to create a new character, the Left wants to destroy existing characters by replacing them utterly: 2016’s Ghostbusters is another example. I think these changes are because Hollywood simply cannot help itself. For the longest time they were content to make money while slowly changing culture to the Left. Now? The message that seems to be seeping in is that there is a need to pay for the sins of humanity even if it costs the studio money. Who should pay for those sins? Well, not the filmmakers. Really, it’s just the people they don’t like.
Don’t forget, celebrities are just like us!
And why? There has been a push to replace the dominant culture in the United States. That includes replacing old taboos with new ones that reflect the new culture the Left is seeking. The main idea is that you can do anything and there should be no repercussions. This especially includes sex, where the purely physical has been raised to the level of the sacred and there is no whim that shouldn’t be not only tolerated, but celebrated. This also includes career choices, where every Grievance Studies graduate with no discernible skills should be given a living wage, complete health care, and the respect that they feel that they deserve, paid for by you and me.
This is really an infantilizing of the culture: it’s the promotion of the idea that whatever urge you have should be indulged. The Mrs. described it as a culture of spoiled children with daddy issues: the fault is with their boss. Or their boyfriend/girlfriend. Or their parents. Or society. It’s never their fault.
In this instance, it’s easier to blame a Civil War general or a Founding Father than to blame themselves for their condition. The result? Pull down a statue, and complain about Thomas Jefferson.
I was named after Thomas Jefferson. He was named a very long time ago, so you were probably named after he was, too.
This spirit has even invaded books. I used to pick up a science fiction book at random in the book store and feel that there was a good chance that I’d be exposed to new ideas and have fun in the process. More recently, a lot of the books have become a slog. I wondered if it was me. I then picked up some stories written a few decades ago, and was pleased. It wasn’t me. Those old stories had more ideas and fun in a typical paragraph than most novels do today. Today, the novels seem all about preaching and explaining how awful people are. Back then, even though we faced a daily threat of nuclear annihilation, those stories were more positive about mankind and our future than the ones I see today.
We are in the midst of a concerted effort by the Left to destroy the culture we live in and the values it stands for. Old writers, old statesmen, and old heroes are all being viewed through the lens of the new culture and the new values in an effort to destroy them for sins they never committed. The Left understands the stakes:  until they destroy the old culture and values, they will be judged by the old standards.
And they know they will be found wanting. Especially their comedy movies.
Those are just awful.
Comedians have stopped thier college campus tours. They say that due to ‘Hate Speech Rules’, getting in trouble from people who take EVERY COMMENT SERIOUSLY just isn’t worth it. No different than large company HR departments – it just takes one person to complain to seriously mess up someone else’s career, even when comment is said in private and just overheard by someone else.
If ‘Blazing Saddles’ were released today (full unedited version), the PC crowd would scream bloody murder.
It certainly true that I rarely watch tv or movies anymore. Support what you like or it goes away. At least I hope.
I love to quote the movies I grew up with, but unfortunately to a much smaller audience.
Your website is a gem of comedy and i always try to remember to keep up.
The only true comedian appears to be Owens Benjamin and he has been ostracized to the fringes of the internet. The more someone is censored the more truth appears to there.
Thanks for all you do to brighten my day.
Yeah, Owen is just gone from YouTube.
Thank you for the kind words!! Keep reading and I’ll keep writing.
Of course if you go to his wikipedia page he is listed as “alt right”. I look at what he allegedly said and, given the history of the left of smearing conservatives, how out of context many of those quotes actually were. I don’t know. I’ve heard him on Crowder and thought he was pretty entertaining and well spoken. His stuff is available on his own website.
https://www.hugepianist.com/
Absolutely. And if you have comments that were made in the past that don’t conform to today’s version of PC? Still guilty.
Did you hear about the comedy made by feminists?
That’s not funny!
Q: Is Google feminist? A: Yes, because it doesn’t let you finish a sentence before making a suggestion.
An attack upon my culture is an attack upon my people. The culture wars are wars to the death. And the Left is in deadly earnest.
You want to find good SF novels in a book store? Ignore every publisher except Baen. For e-books, you can do a lot worse than to follow the blog “Mad Genius Club”, and check out the works by the authors there.
Self published, but they are hard to find. I recommend J.L. Curtis and his Rimworld series.
I didn’t mean Curtis was hard to find, I meant that self published authors were harder to find.
Yup, found him on Amazon.
Will give that a look after I clear a little room out of the non-fic backlog . . . thanks!!!!
Try John C. Wright’s new Pangaea series If you are an idea guy.
I like Mr. Wright, but I always wait until the series (any, not his) is done to buy it – I got burned a few times.
I’ve had some luck with Baen in the past – good to know they’re not yet converged. I’ll give the Mad Genius Club a look . . . .
Orwell was sooooooo right. It’s all about controlling the language. He said that in the future telling the truth would be a revolutionary act. We are that future. And our language today is so controlled we cannot tolerate fictional depictions in comedy OR drama that provoke serious thought. Here’s what was on the air when I was in college…on a beloved family show!
https://shadowandact.com/little-house-on-the-prairie-scene-that-calls-out-racism-resurfaces-todd-bridges
https://twitter.com/i/status/1256708410147434496
After being censored out of reruns for decades, you can bet this clip is resurfacing NOW solely to stir up resentment, not engender the compassionate, serious discussion that was the original intent.
Games are being corrupted too. Watched part of the game play for Days Gone. Looks decent as a game, but they have to get the cucking in. The young male car thieves and thugs (pre Apocalypse flash back) are confederate flag wearing good-old boy hicks who act like hood rats. Because it’s Eastern Oregon. And the girl saves the guy from them. The black–pilled conspiracy theorist has to interject about how we some this land from the Native Americans.
Don’t get me wrong. The guy is amusingly based in his interaction with the girl. She used a gun (poorly) to scare off Whitey the Hood. Men and women are still men and women. And the game play seems okay. But the creeping crud is there.
Also hilariously, whenever the protagonist rescues Some Dude from random Zombie Apocalypse effects, the game uses the same model, and it’s a Black teen. Inclusion!
Great comment. And we are getting closer to 1984 every day. Who would have thought Little House (and an eventual Wilder) could have been so controversial.
The latest example from this weekend of how media is being manipulated by the Left is unbelievably, jaw droppingly blatant…Chuck Todd on Meet The Press….watch this video.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1259549689239818240
Not only has NBC News so far to correct their misquote of Barr on the air…the original doctored FBI 302 Interview reports against Flynn presented to Congress as evidence have vanished. Poof.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/05/10/devin_nunes_we_cant_find_original_michael_flynn_interview_smmary_its_gone_poof.html
This is beyond madness, beyond totally insane….it’s beyond Soviet, even.
Evidence? Why would we need that?
That was enlightening. Missed that one, but, boy, they were trying to take that as far out of context as possible.
Top post. James Dakin wrote recently (referring to, “Brawl in Cellblock 99”) that no movies are now made about duty, honor and sacrifice.
I ALSO wanted to write that, “Blazing saddles” could not now be made. As in, “Did he say, ‘I like rape’? – how dare he!”
“Movies are crafted so they don’t allow the audience to come to conclusions outside of those approved by Hollywood and the globalist Left.” Well said. There’s no ambiguity.
Keep up the good work.
Thank you very much!
You’re right – no hero can exist unless he has something ugly about him. That’s what passes for depth nowadays.
Comedy requires a target, someone or some thing to be laughed at, belittled, taken down. There has to be a butt to every joke. Now that the only safe target remaining is white men, comedy has died as a genre, for even women and oppressed minorities can only dream up so many ways to belittle us. And self-deprecation by white men gets old real fast.
Culturally, we are being lorded over by the fat girl who didn’t get asked to the prom. If she’s not getting hit on, NOBODY gets hit on. A movie such as Apollo 13 could not even be made today. Why? No blacks or females in important roles. History would have to be mangled beyond recognition with the insertion of supersmart black lesbians carrying the day, and stupid, evil, portly white men sabotaging the mission.
Save your money, read a book. An old book, published before the pc era.
Unfortunately, studios produce more of what they sold tickets in the past, instead of what might sell tickets in the future. When you buy a ticket (or anything else, really), you’re sending a signal up the supply chain that you want more of that. There’s not really any way for those of us who haven’t bought a ticket to explain what we’re objecting to.
Last ticket I bought was for the WW-1 documentary: They Shall Not Grow Old. I’ve seen that one twice; first with family, then with friends. If you see it, be sure to watch the “how we made it” special feature. It’s an interesting story in its own right, and it gently draws you out of the horror of the trenches back into our own century.
Most people don’t understand that paying to see the latest Avengers movie is subsidizing the degenerate trash Hollywood is producing. Who cares if a movie bombs when they can just roll out another billion dollar superhero movie?
The Mrs. bought that one for home viewing. WWI fascinates her.
Yeah, Hollywood doesn’t count the butts not in seats. “It was just a flop.”
The Mrs. Bought that one for home viewing. WWI fascinates her.
Yeah, Hollywood doesn’t count the butts that aren’t in seats. It’s just a “flop.”
I don’t know how you continually crank out 3 terrific pieces a week. I suspect it is because it is therapeutic for you. It most certainly is to the readers too.
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all warned that the system of democracy would degenerate into chaos and disaster. Book VIII of Plato’s Republic and Book V of Politics by Aristotle describe our current predicament fairly close: people cannot handle ‘freedom’. They will self-destruct. We see it in the U.S. today via the tattooed and pierced morons, and the college women sporting “I ♥️ my vagina” stickers. They don’t know what to do with their ‘freedom’. The ancient Greeks saw it long ago.
About 500 years after the Greek philosophers recorded their insights, an Apostle named John, prisoner on the island of Patmos, recorded a vision he had of a “Beast that once was, now is not, and yet will come again.” I believe we have arrived.
I suspect you are right on the reasons I write. It feels pretty good when I write something I’m proud of.
I worry you’re right about our friend from Patmos.
And thank you for those kind words!
The girl main character in the new Star Wars is such a wooden, unlikable character. Her only expression was a grimace like she was especially constipated as if that makes her look fierce and serious. It didn’t, it made her look silly. The whole trilogy was awful, I managed to watch the first two but the third one was so terrible that we only got about 10 minutes into before I shut it off and deleted the file.
Hollywood today is all about smashing the white supremacist patriarchy and one of the chief ways they do this is by taking beloved cultural icons, rewriting them into crap and then destroying our memories.
She is really awful. I’ve managed to avoid the last one. I watched the second one when I showed up on Netflix. So very bad.
I seem to get in about 1 movie/year at the Midland IMAX. Other than that, Netflix is worth the $10/month. There’s usually 1 or 2 or 3 little gems that I’ll run across every month. Just watched an AI flick with Michael Pena that was pretty good.
I was never a big Adam Sandler fan but his Netflix special a few months ago was fabulous. Gotta use that big TV for something.
I’ll have to give it a look – I normally skip him. Yup, Netflix is a frequent companion as I write. It’s nice to have some noise in the background.
From the ‘bleachers’ department:
I have zero interest in ‘pop culture’, the current events depicted in TheMainStreamMedia and driving the reactions of many of my fellow humans.
Hula Hoops, Michael Jackson, politicians.
None of it interests me.
I trace this back to the American president election of 1972-ish.
Irregardless of my vote, Nixon got elected.
At that moment, I realized I can choose to be swayed by TheCoveredEvents and the propaganda flushing them.
Or I could choose to sit on the porch with the dogs, occasionally chucking a tennis-ball out across the yard.
In mid-May 2020, I am vastly amused by TheTrueBelievers, dutifully wearing masks while following silent ‘structions from taped arrows on grocery floors.
Maybe I could join the crowd if I had my ‘structions, but the last time I owned a television set was sometime last century.
I have zero interest in televisionprogramming.
Will the routes to the boxcars use taped arrows?
*****
I also have zero interest in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, probably because I am constitutionally adverse to anything ‘woke’.
.
.
Show of hands:
How many notice this’s a three-dimensional target-rich environment?
On the porch, each step off the porch, is entering a combat zone.
Is this Stage Eight on the Wilder Collapse Chart?
I somehow always manage to mix the stages…
That would be an interesting political cartoon – the taped “stand here” boxes for the line to the boxcar.
Stage 8 is pretty bad, nearly as bad as a Disney movie.
The worst part of the current unpleasantness is how it has taught us Americans to look at each other with suspicion and fear.
Yeah. Had my first handshake in a month on Tuesday.
Missed that.
And I thought it was just me. I have taken to watching comedies in the hope that they will be funny for everybody, Just does not make me laugh or even keep my attention to the end. I have started to read at the same time to help a little. Our Netflix has a much smaller choice than in the US, but there are still a lot of films on there. Just not working any more.
Yeah, it’s all junk. And the few actually funny things that do come out are normally buried. What We Do In The Shadows is pretty good.
John RE: to your comment about books becoming political, just before the lockdown I went to the library to stock up on a few. One of the books I picked was a novel titled “Agent Running in the Field” by John LeCarre (David Cornwell is the actual author Lecarre is his pen name). I was struck by the thought when I picked it up “isn’t Lecarre dead”? No, he’s not, 89 years old and still writing. Now you’d think that a novel written under Cornwell’s John Lecarre pen name would proceed along as a good yarn in the vein of Lecarre’s (Cornwell’s) earlier works. Truth be told, I haven’t read a LeCarre novel since the 70’s. NNNOOOOOO. By page 5, Cornwell commenced to bash President Trump, by name, undeservedly and unmercifully. Where a British citizen gets off bashing the President of a foreign country, like he knows what the hell he’s talking about is just crazy to me. Needless to say by page 6, I had stopped reading that particular tome. Even though I am totally against book burning, what I should do is burn the damn thing, so that this drivel isn’t read by anyone else, until and if it can be replaced and pay the $31.00 fine for a lost book.
So, to your point, yes, even novels have become political, although this is the first NOVEL that I’ve read that made no bones about it. You sort of expect political commentary in some non-fiction depending on the subject. I have always read novels to be entertained and sometimes to learn a few things if the novel is well researched, ala Michener’s body of work. Now I must be picky. Sad that.
There are a set of authors that simply cannot handle it. At all. Leftist Derangement is a real syndrome.