Is Hollywood Feeling it Yet?

The election was a wake-up call. The only question is whether they will answer it.

Imagine being Hollywood right now. The American people just told them, in no uncertain terms, that they did not matter anymore. Had they been paying attention they might have noticed it sooner. The box office is a grease stain where a thriving industry used to be. Even the blockbusters don’t make money anymore, not the kind of money they used to make.

Why? Because they have shut out not just half the country, but the masculine energy that has driven so much of human civilization forever. This kind of energy:

Donald Trump broke the Left. He broke the Democratic Party and he broke Hollywood. I lived through all of it, first as a Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton Democrat and then leaving the party to becoming an independent to then being one of the 76 million Americans who saw Trump as the only way out of the mess we were in at the hands of the Left.

Through it all I have been hoping that Hollywood could somehow come back. Can they un-coddle the American mind by telling good stories again? Can they revive the box office so that movie theaters will survive? Can they win back the millions they’ve alienated for almost ten years? I don’t know. I remain skeptical.

There was a time when Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Lawrence, Demi Moore, and every big-name celebrity mattered in American politics. Those days are long gone. Celebrities have very little value to most people and yet, they don’t seem to realize it.

The rejection against Hollywood stars has motivated some of them to leave the country, or at least X. What must it feel like to have all of that go away? Does it feel like getting canceled, like so many of us have by them? If so, they have it coming.

But still, it’s hard to watch a once-thriving industry completely collapse, even if I predicted it. I’m not sure who they are making movies for anymore.

I have been covering Hollywood for over 25 years. I built my website, Oscarwatch.com, to track the Oscar race and become a good predictor. Over time, it became less about the competition of the awards and more about “fixing society.” I could see way back in 2001 that the internet had changed things dramatically. It was like someone flicked on the lights in a room full of people and could see things more clearly for the first time.

That meant it wouldn’t be long before people began to notice just how white, heterosexual and male Hollywood and the Oscars really were. I could sense the shift way before it happened and I was one of the first people to become a “woke” blogger, meaning, I prioritized identity over merit.

But I never thought, in a million years, that identity politics would swallow up Hollowyood. I always figured there would be room for both. But the hysteria and outrage over Trump’s win meant Hollywood felt obligated en masse to draw a line between them and anyone who was not fully on board with the Left.

Politics and wokeness aren’t the only thing that destroyed the business. Adopting the fast food model for franchise movies helped. They churned them out, lowered expectations, gave people fewer and fewer options and they made unimaginable amounts of money.

In their height, Hollywood was generating $10 billion per year. Now, they’ll be lucky to come away with $7 billion. They can’t be both fixers for society and a profitable industry. They should pick one. If it’s to entertain, then entertain and stop trying to lecture the rest of us about how we should live our lives.

This past election was a complete and total rejection of Hollywood and its elite ruling class. There they were, on the campaign trail with Kamala Harris telling voters that they should worry about Julia Roberts being embarrassed to travel to other countries and admit she’s from America (as if anyone didn’t already know that). Meryl Streep fretting over “democracy.” George Clooney blabbering about saving the country from a fascist.

As usual, the YouTubers are on top of it and have delivered some powerful essays that would serve as wake-up calls to Hollywood if anyone of them paid any attention.

And Nerdrotic:

I don’t see how Hollywood can possibly dig itself out of the hole it’s in. Maybe they won’t. Maybe it’s just all over.

Maybe we’ll have to put our faith in outsiders who will build a new industry filled with filmmakers and actors who aren’t elitist snobs and really do want to entertain. I can only hope.