Is Hollywood Anti-Religion?

[smac97]

10 hours ago, 6EQUJ5 said:

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But Bro. Paul is denigrating the Latter-day Saints

Your choice of the word "denigrating" is interesting and indicates you are not interested in approaching this discussing in good faith.

I am approaching this discussion in good faith.

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"Denigrate" is such a nasty word, filled with intent.  

"Denigrate": "to criticize unfairly; disparage."

"Bro. Paul is unfairly criticizing the Latter-day Saints."

Doesn't sound too nasty.

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Do you normally respond to a folksy and light-hearted comment with such emotion.

How 'bout you stop trying to personalize this thread?

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... and their leaders ...

Why specifically call out Church leadership?

I didn't.  Cinco Paul did ("I can understand where the questioners are coming from, though, because I think most of them were raised in a culture where Hollywood was vilified regularly and seen as the enemy. I’ve heard these attacks on my industry often, sometimes from the pulpit.")  

I took that as a reference (or a partial reference) to the repeated points of counsel we have received through the years from General Authorities regarding avoiding inappropriate media content.  Do you think I was off in my assessment?

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Are you somehow placing leaders ahead of members? 

No.

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That somehow by "denigrating" members AND leaders is worse than "denigrating" members alone. 

I think there is some added risk to speaking evil of the Lord's anointed, yes.  But that is not because I believe they are infallible, or because they have more worth in the eyes of God.

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Again, this is not an indication that you want to move the conversation forward in a positive direction.

Again, quit personalizing this thread.  Address the topic, not me.

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for being concerned at all with the content coming out of Hollywood

No, he didn't.

Yes, he did.

If you have something substantive to say, I'm all ears.  If all you've got is unreasoned assertions, then I'll simply respond in kind.  

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited April 29, 2018 by smac97

[smac97]

37 minutes ago, cinepro said:

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Here's a contrary point of view from Kevin Sorbo re: Hollywood's generalized treatment of Christians in that industry:

With all due respect, Sorbo's success is already way out of proportion to his talent as an actor. 

Perhaps.  That can be said about a lot of people in Hollywood (and people in other industries as well).

We are willing to listen to Cinco Paul's assessment of how Hollywood treats religious people.  Why not listen to Sorbo?  I'm not saying either one has a 100% accurate grasp of what is going on, but their perspectives merit some attention.

Here's an article that goes into some further analysis of Hollywood's purported animus toward Christianity.  It discusses at some length a fairly disturbing scene from The Kingsman, one set in a Protestant church in which the parishioners are temporarily driven insane and viciously turn on and murder each other.  It's extraordinarly violent (it's available on YouTube if you want to watch it, though I wouldn't recommend it).  

From the article (emphasis added):

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The phenomenon emerging among the educated left-wing classes is better dubbed theomisia, or the hatred of God, and by extension God-lovers. I did not coin the term “theomisia,” but it is a good word for the kind of animus on display in the Facebook page of the Chapel Hill murderer.

It is also a good word to describe the hatred painstakingly indulged in and lovingly cultivated by the movie Kingsman in a way that I have never seen before from Hollywood. Stay with me a second.

Kingsman’s otherwise innocuous and comic plot involves a billionaire villain who decides that, to save Earth and mankind from global warming, he will depopulate the Earth. His plan is to offer the world a free cell phone containing a chip that can excite the hatred centers of the brain and remove inhibitions. Phones in hand, the earth’s people will slaughter one other, leaving only a handful of powerful and rich people whom our villain saves on his version of the Ark, a bunker in the snowy mountains.

Before our villain launches his plan to wipe out almost all of mankind, he decides to test his device on what appears to be a small Southern Baptist church, incongruously located close to London (maybe I missed something). Naturally, this congregation is identified as a hate group, a sort of fictional Westboro that hates gays, Jews, fornication, divorce, abortion, and black people, openly and generally.

But Kingsman dwells long, lovingly, and lasciviously on these Christians, with a cross and an altar behind them, hacking, shooting, and axing each other, while the hero (temporarily under the influence of the villain’s evil machine) joins even more efficiently in killing Christians and emerging unscathed. These are the only religious people in the movie, and the stage for their violent deaths is full of icons of ordinary Christianity — an altar, a cross, pews.

The violence is both voluptuous and visceral, and the audience is clearly meant to libidinously enjoy it, watching our suave hero massacre Christians with maximum blood and gore, our enjoyment made more complete and excusable by the fact that the villain’s machine made him do it.

I have a hard time conceptualizing that scene being played out in, say, a mosque.  Hollywood just wouldn't do that.  But Christians appear to be fair game.

37 minutes ago, cinepro said:

And there are so many thousands of talented actors who never reach his level of success, and so many more who never surpass it, that I'm hesitant to give credence to any theories about limitations being imposed because of what he believes.

I understand.  I guess we'll never know what opportunities he has missed because of his religious beliefs.

Thanks,

-Smac

[cinepro]

7 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I understand.  I guess we'll never know what opportunities he has missed because of his religious beliefs.

Thanks,

-Smac

Again, I just can't in good faith theorize that Sorbo's career trajectory is a factor of his faith (without something a little more concrete to go on).

One thing that has always amazed me is the amazing ability of actors' careers to evaporate.  Think of all the TV shows and movies you've seen over your lifetime.  Think of the shows that ran for seasons, or actors that appeared in lots of different movies, not as leading stars but smaller bit parts.  And then you never see them again.  I can think of dozens and dozens.  Some presumably make their money and are happy not to work again.  Others have a few career misfires before sputtering out.  And others simply vanish. 

Who could even begin to name all the reasons actors stop getting calls?  Maybe they get a little older.  Maybe they have a few failures and get looked at as "box office poison."  Maybe they get a reputation for being difficult to work with. Maybe they get typecast as their one popular character.  For women (and some men), maybe they weren't being friendly enough to the right people.

But again, Sorbo's career reached heights that few actors reach, with a popular long-running TV show. Countless actors of all faiths reach that height and then disappear when the show does.  They're the Hollywood equivalent of a "one hit wonder." 

It's gratifying to think of people being sidelined because of their religion, but I just don't see it.  Especially when "Hollywood" has shown itself to be more than willing to support Christian films when they make money.

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

With all due respect, Sorbo's success is already way out of proportion to his talent as an actor.  And there are so many thousands of talented actors who never reach his level of success, and so many more who never surpass it, that I'm hesitant to give credence to any theories about limitations being imposed because of what he believes.

 

I look at Jim Breuer, believe it or not he's a Christian and he prays before each set, he's a great guy and he's been in some good movies!

[Kenngo1969]

On 4/27/2018 at 6:15 PM, 6EQUJ5 said:

Do you know of a concept called "supply and demand?"

If people didn't buy it, they wouldn't make it.  But your ability to find offense and play the Mormon victim is always appreciated.

 

Got anything besides sneering condescension, like, say, oh, I don't know ... substance ... 6EQUJ5?  Just wonderin'!

[california boy]

9 hours ago, cinepro said:

The biggest flaw in the article is that he is basing his view of "Hollywood" on his own personal experience.

He has excelled and found great success in a small niche of the industry that is almost totally focused on providing "family" entertainment.  So he was somehow able to write three "Despicable Me" movies without a producer asking him to throw in a few F-words and a sex scene?  Yeah, that's not a huge surprise.

He also acknowledges a second type of movie that presents more complicated and "realistic" stories, and in so doing uses language or presents scenes of sex or violence that convey the story in a way that couldn't be done with less.  Some could argue that the movies would be just as good without the profanity and sex and violence, but for the sake of argument, let's just pretend that Martin Scorsese and other directors of that caliber know what they're doing, even if they sometimes miss the mark.

But there is an additional and sizable element of Hollywood that knows that for certain segments of the audience, a movie will either be taken more seriously or make more money if there are these additional elements, even if they are totally unnecessary.   We've all seen movies that could have been completely enjoyable as a PG, but included a word or two in a totally unnecessary way that makes it painfully obvious that they were just stretching for a more serious rating.  I cringe when I hear the F-word in "La La Land" not because that word usually makes me cringe in movies, but because it is so out of place it almost screams "this needs to be PG-13 so people don't think it's a kids' movie!"  (Compare that to the director's previous film, "Whiplash" which had torrents of bad language but the language was part of the story.)

And I've heard from some writers I know that it is simply impossible to get a story looked at by Showtime or HBO if the first couple of episodes don't have some nudity or hard-edged stuff.  If you watch their shows regularly, apparently there are some that will include some gratuitous scenes in the first one or two episodes, and then rarely if ever again.  And this trend extends to Netflix and other distribution channels that want to be take "seriously."  I don't watch enough of their shows to cite examples, but if anyone knows of some, please share.

Oh, and another factor isn't that the creators (and financial backers) of these movies and shows are deviously trying to craft harmful media.  The simple fact is, that's how they see the world.  They write dialogue like that because that's how they think people talk.  They include sex scenes because they want to have sex scenes in their movies.  They include profanity because it never occurs to them that someone wouldn't talk like that.  There are lots of people making movies with very different world views. 

So is it fair to fault LDS leaders for advising (warning?) members against seeing movies that contain gratuitous elements?  Probably not.  After all, not every sex scene is there to depict "reality." (When was the last time you saw two fat, ugly people having sex in a movie that wasn't going for laughs?)  Sometimes the sex is there to give the viewers (especially teenage boys) a jolt of dopamine.  Some people start to see swearing as normal (or even admirable) if they're exposed to it a lot.   (No comment about fake violence in movies.)  Sometimes a degree of effort and wisdom is needed to discern which R-rated movies are worth seeing, and the risk of seeing a bad one is greater than the reward of seeing the good ones, so it's easier to just say "Don't watch R-rated movies."

It would also be interesting to see what guidance Bro. Paul gives his children about choosing media. 

 

Also, on an additional note, I would recommend asking any filmmaker (or defender of Hollywood) who makes an appeal to "reality" being a justification for showing sex or including swearing whether they feel that smoking should be included in movies.  We've gotten to the point where smoking has been almost entirely eliminated from movies.  That's probably a good thing from a social engineering and health perspective, but it also seems to suggest that Hollywood knows that what they present in their movies doesn't have to be totally "realistic", and that it can have a very real effect on the behavior of audiences, especially children.

If we could just get "Hollywood" to agree that profanity and gratuitous sex and nudity are as bothersome as seeing someone smoke on screen, that would solve the problem right there.

 

 

My first job after graduating from BYU was working for a motion picture company. One of the first movies I worked on had just been completed and the rating had come back as G.  The producer knew that a G rating reduces the mass appeal of a movie, especially if it was not made by Disney.  The reason? Families don't make up a very big demographic group of who goes to movies.  So they went back to the ratings board and asked how they could get a PG rating.  They were told they had to include a swear word.  It couldn't just be a swear word.  It had to be a swear word used to curse some one.  For example a preacher couldn't just say "sinners are damned". A character had to curse at someone.  So they cut another scene into the film and got the PG rating.

Hollywood is a business.  It is not a hobby.  If they think there is an audience big enough to make a movie they will make it.  this is nonsense to think that Hollywood hs some kind of agenda to punish Christians. They make the movies they hope the consumers will want to see.  This is just another in a string of threads we have had where someone thinks Christians/Mormons are being unfairly victimized.  If you want to see more Christian themes made, or films with less violence or more wholesome themes, then start going to the movies again.  

I go to the movies a lot.  Sometimes there is not much playing that I am interested in.  I am such a victim of a Hollywood conspiracy as well.  Maybe I should start a rant about how gays are portrayed by anti gay Hollywood.  The characters that are gay are always over the top flamers or some tragic figure that are always dying.  Why can't they make more movies where gay characters have just happy normal lives?  This years Love Simon was one of the first.  Great film.  Pretty successful in large part because the gay community supported the film.  Maybe I should start my own thread about how I want to run Hollywood because I am entitled to tell them how to do their business.

[california boy]

9 hours ago, Amulek said:

I am aware of this.

 

From the list of top grossing films last year? None of them. 

 

I'm a pretty avid movie goer myself, but I haven't said anything in this thread a bout what I consider to be great films. 

 

Well then, what is your complaint that these popcorn movies don't get put up for Oscar nominations and that the Academy doesn't give them critical acclaim?  Are you withdrawing that assertion?

[california boy]

2 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Got anything besides sneering condescension, like, say, oh, I don't know ... substance ... 6EQUJ5?  Just wonderin'!

He has expressed several ideas worth discussing.  You can agree with him or disagree.  Did you comment on those?  Or do you just want to make some "sneering condescending" pot shot at him.  

Welcome to the Mormon board  6EQUJ5.  First lesson, grow a thick skin.

Edited April 29, 2018 by california boy

[6EQUJ5]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

I am approaching this discussion in good faith.

Your use of the word "denigrate" betrays this statement.

I'm not sure if you are aware but in the law there is a concept of what a reasonable person would conclude from a set of facts/circumstances.  No reasonable person would use the word "denigrate" to describe Paul's comments.  Pornography is denigrating.  Ed Decker and his ilk denigrate the sacred ordinances of the Saints.  Some defenders of the Church on this board denigrate the Gospel through their actions/words.

Your use of the word isn't just unreasonable, it is an attempt to blind reason by stirring up emotion.  

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

"Denigrate": "to criticize unfairly; disparage."

Don't play the dictionary game with me and pretend you have actually made an argument.  You know exactly how the word denigrate is used commonly used.  Your word choice was intentional.

 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

Again, quit personalizing this thread.

You chose to be "denigrated", Smac.  Sounds like you are the one taking things a bit personally. Don't ya think?

 

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

How 'bout you stop trying to personalize this thread?

Serious question here.  What motivated your use of 'bout rather than "about?"  You had to type the same number of keys so its not like it saved time.

[Gray]

On 4/27/2018 at 10:45 PM, Calm said:

Generally it is the lower level Catholics priests or lay members that are the good guys/heros though from what I watch (lots of British and mysteries, I want police procedural to focus on the policing stuff and less personal drama so BlueBloods feels more family drama to me, so never have watched it since one or two episodes when it first came out; I don't watch realistic family drama because I feel like I am intruding on private moments if it is done well).  And Catholic priests rarely actually teach actual Catholicism in the shows I watch.  They come across as actually pretty generic feel good, God loves you treacle from the stuff I have seen, not the actual power I see in Catholic teaching (the huge sanctity of marriage and procreation for example is rarely mentioned).  Upper level Catholics are petty, political, out for personal gain or power, in league with demons or so burnt out fighting them they are more or less atheistic (God isn't there helping).  Estatics (so?) and visionaries are epileptics or mentally disturbed zealots.  Revering of Saints is used for self promotion and money making and true reverence is hiding their bones in forgotten graves away from any worshippers.

Father Brown mysteries of BBC is a perfect example minus any demons.

Law and Order:

http://observer.com/2016/03/law-order-svu-17x18-recap-all-demons-come-out-to-play/

Havent seen BlueBloods so it may be different.

My wife is really into Father Brown and Law and Order! But yes, TV tropes seem to be as you describe

[6EQUJ5]

8 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Got anything besides sneering condescension, like, say, oh, I don't know ... substance ... 6EQUJ5?  Just wonderin'!

Oh hey, Kenngo.  I'm sorry man.

Supply and demand is the basis of free market economics.  In a free market, a person will sell goods/services as long as there are people willing to buy them.  Likewise, buyers only buy what they want to purchase and only at a price they deem appropriate.  If we graph both supply and demand we see that they intersect at a specific point called equilibrium.  It is this equilibrium which represents the *price* of goods and services.

Now, when we start adding in taxes, market regulations or the existence of monopolies or cartels, this starts to shift supply and demand around in ways economics call "market inefficiencies."

Anyway, in the case of Hollywood, consumers will only pay to see movies they will enjoy. As a result, Hollywood produces movies that people will pay to see.  You have probably seen in the news lately a lot about "cord cutting" and how this is hurting traditional cable companies and bloated networks like ESPN. This is because the demand for their service is going down.  It's "curve" is being shifted to the left.  So this is a really timely example of supply and demand!   🤣😂🧔🧚‍♀️

Let me know if you would like to know more!

Edited April 29, 2018 by 6EQUJ5

[smac97]

4 hours ago, 6EQUJ5 said:

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I am approaching this discussion in good faith.

Your use of the word "denigrate" betrays this statement.

No, it doesn't.

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I'm not sure if you are aware but in the law there is a concept of what a reasonable person would conclude from a set of facts/circumstances. 

Tort law.  Yes, I'm familiar with it.

The key bit there is "what a reasonable person would conclude."

Is it reasonable to presume to know someone else's mind and motives and intentions based on a single word?

Is it reasonable to obsess over such a triviality?

Is it reasonable to ignore the very reasonable request to address the topic of this thread, rather than personalize it, as you are doing (particularly since the board rules require it)?

You are new here, so I'm happy to cut you some slack.  What you are doing here is sometimes referred to as "board nannying."  That's when a self-appointed person goes around nitpicking about trivialities in the posts of others, often in lieu of substantively contributing to or addressing the topic of the thread.

Again, please address the topic.  Quit attempting to personalize this thread. 

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No reasonable person would use the word "denigrate" to describe Paul's comments. 

I disagree.

If you have something substantive to say, I'm all ears.  If all you've got is unreasoned assertions, then I'll simply respond in kind.  

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Pornography is denigrating.  Ed Decker and his ilk denigrate the sacred ordinances of the Saints.  Some defenders of the Church on this board denigrate the Gospel through their actions/words.

Those are examples of usage, yes.

Here are a few more: 

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• Two months ago, and based on research described by pediatricians as "solid," the U.S. government was prepared to launch an ad campaign encouraging mothers to breast-feed their babies and thus lower their infants' risks of contracting juvenile diabetes and other illnesses. However, it ran into fierce opposition by some infant formula makers which denigrated the research, calling it "sketchy" and "questionable."
• Before I begin my presentation on why we lost the GSA contract, just remember: my objective is for us all to learn from this experience. It is not my intention to diminish or denigrate any particular employee or department because I know that everyone put forth a lot of effort.
• A company sometimes regarding a competitor's ads as denigrating, such as when Colgate-Palmolive filed a lawsuit against Proctor & Gamble, alleging that some P&G ads amounted to a denigration of Colgate's Simply White teeth-whitening products.

And another:

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No one is trying to denigrate the importance of a good education. We all know that it is crucial for success.

And another:

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 I know I shouldn't denigrate her behind her back, but if I do it in her presence, she will probably take offense.

I also thought this was interesting:

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Q From Charles Hendrickson: A recent film, The Great Debaters, suggests that denigrate is an offensive term for African-Americans because it means “to make black”. The Denzel Washington character says that the word has racist undertones because of this. What do you think?

A The story sounds extremely unlikely. Whether it’s just a simple mistake or an underdog’s attempt to find an insult where none was intended, I’ve no way of knowing (I’ve not seen the film, though I understand that it is set in the American South during the Great Depression and conveys the day-to-day insults and slights African-Americans had to endure). The argument would carry more conviction if we could find examples of denigrate being used as a racial insult or with racist implications. So far, I haven’t found any.

There’s enough truth in the etymology to give the story legs. It does come from the Latin niger, meaning “black”, via the verb denigrare, to blacken. At one time it could be used in English with that literal sense, but from when it first appeared, in the sixteenth century, it also had a figurative sense of blackening somebody’s character or staining their reputation. This goes back to ancient ideas in western culture that black is the colour of despair, misery, wickedness or infamy.

So it is easy to see how denigrate could be thought to be a bad word for black Americans. It reminds me of the fuss some years ago over niggardly. In that case, there was evidence that the word was indeed thought to be disparaging and complaints were made about an instance of its use. However, so far as I know, no such belief or perceived insult is present in the African-American community. The way it’s said, with the stress on the first syllable, obscures the supposed origin.

But if popular films argue powerfully enough that it is insulting, then no doubt it will become so and another useful word in our language will become possible to use only with great care.

So it seems that the word has a range of usage.  You are fretting and fussing because you apparently think you can read minds, such that you can insist where my intended usage falls in that spectrum.

I've explained my position far more than I really should need to now.  So please get back to the topic.

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Your use of the word isn't just unreasonable,

My use of the word is reasonable.

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it is an attempt to blind reason by stirring up emotion.  

No, it is not.

If you have something substantive to say, I'm all ears.  If all you've got is unreasoned assertions, then I'll simply respond in kind.  

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Don't play the dictionary game with me and pretend you have actually made an argument. 

You are complaining about the usage of a word (obsessively so, it seems).  The dictionary is a good resource for sorting that out.

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You know exactly how the word denigrate is used commonly used. 

Yes, I do.  It has a spectrum of meanings, including fairly banal ones.  See above.  

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Your word choice was intentional.

Yes, my word choice was intentional.  I didn't accidentally type it.

The question here is who is better situated to discern my intent, me or you?

Again, you're new here.  I hope you can sort yourself out and start focusing on the topic rather than personalizing the thread.

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Serious question here.  What motivated your use of 'bout rather than "about?"  You had to type the same number of keys so its not like it saved time.

My usage of "'bout" stems from generalized but deep-seated feelings of misanthropy, nihilism and despair, and also an uncontrollable rage that my wife had a teenage crush on Joey from New Kids on the Block.

Now, can we put aside the pop psychoanalysis and get back to the topic?  Please?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited April 29, 2018 by smac97

[Kenngo1969]

3 hours ago, 6EQUJ5 said:

Oh hey, Kenngo.  I'm sorry man.

Supply and demand is the basis of free market economics.  In a free market, a person will sell goods/services as long as there are people willing to buy them.  Likewise, buyers only buy what they want to purchase and only at a price they deem appropriate.  If we graph both supply and demand we see that they intersect at a specific point called equilibrium.  It is this equilibrium which represents the *price* of goods and services.

Now, when we start adding in taxes, market regulations or the existence of monopolies or cartels, this starts to shift supply and demand around in ways economics call "market inefficiencies."

Anyway, in the case of Hollywood, consumers will only pay to see movies they will enjoy. As a result, Hollywood produces movies that people will pay to see.  You have probably seen in the news lately a lot about "cord cutting" and how this is hurting traditional cable companies and bloated networks like ESPN. This is because the demand for their service is going down.  It's "curve" is being shifted to the left.  So this is a really timely example of supply and demand!   🤣😂🧔🧚‍♀️

Let me know if you would like to know more!

More sneering condescension.  Thanks for the economics lesson though.  Usually, I'd have to pay tuition for something like that, so ...

[Kenngo1969]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

... Tort law.  Yes, I'm familiar with it. ...

C'mon, Smac97.  Cut 6EQUJ5 some slack!  After all, it's not like you went to law sch ... Oh, wait!  Sorry.  My bad.

[6EQUJ5]

2 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Thanks for the economics lesson ... Usually, I'd have to pay tuition for something like that.

No problem!  That's what message boards are for, right? To learn from each other.

[cinepro]

10 hours ago, 6EQUJ5 said:

Some defenders of the Church on this board denigrate the Gospel through their actions/words.

Your use of the word isn't just unreasonable, it is an attempt to blind reason by stirring up emotion.  

 

Seriously?

[Jeanne]

6 hours ago, 6EQUJ5 said:

Oh hey, Kenngo.  I'm sorry man.

Supply and demand is the basis of free market economics.  In a free market, a person will sell goods/services as long as there are people willing to buy them.  Likewise, buyers only buy what they want to purchase and only at a price they deem appropriate.  If we graph both supply and demand we see that they intersect at a specific point called equilibrium.  It is this equilibrium which represents the *price* of goods and services.

Now, when we start adding in taxes, market regulations or the existence of monopolies or cartels, this starts to shift supply and demand around in ways economics call "market inefficiencies."

Anyway, in the case of Hollywood, consumers will only pay to see movies they will enjoy. As a result, Hollywood produces movies that people will pay to see.  You have probably seen in the news lately a lot about "cord cutting" and how this is hurting traditional cable companies and bloated networks like ESPN. This is because the demand for their service is going down.  It's "curve" is being shifted to the left.  So this is a really timely example of supply and demand!   🤣😂🧔🧚‍♀️

Let me know if you would like to know more!

My favorite part is all your emojis!!!

[Calm]

10 hours ago, Gray said:

My wife is really into Father Brown and Law and Order! But yes, TV tropes seem to be as you describe

I like Law and Order myself, it is usually well done (though I hate it when they toast a guy just as he is leaving for a promotion kind of thing, resolving one's issues seems to be wise to avoid if one wants to continue on the program).  Father Brown....that got old quickly, especially since I think it is insulting to the original author, GK Chesterton who made the stories beautiful demonstrations of Catholic faith and doctrine (include the very 'hard' parts this series totally ignores).  I can enjoy something even while it trashes a faith, I just assume they don't know what they are talking about and include all the religious stuff in the fiction.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

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You are new here, so I'm happy to cut you some slack. 

Not really, s/he signed up in 2014 according to the profile.

[Amulek]

On 4/29/2018 at 2:20 AM, california boy said:

Well then, what is your complaint that these popcorn movies don't get put up for Oscar nominations and that the Academy doesn't give them critical acclaim?  Are you withdrawing that assertion?

The author of the article said he always tries to disabuse people of the notion that “Hollywood is satanic and out to get them.” And, as evidence of that claim, he says to look at the box office: “Every year the top ten movies are almost always those targeted towards the family audience, a trend which has been going on now for decades.”

My original comment was that that his appeal to box office numbers is a bit of an evasion, and I think that is substantively correct. If I want to know what Hollywood values, I don’t look at box office numbers, because the box office numbers tell me what the market values, not what Hollywood values.  

If I want to get an idea of what Hollywood values, I’m going to look at the films that Hollywood chooses to hold up for praise and acclaim. And when the people in Hollywood come together to show off their ‘best,’ it invariably isn’t these kinds of movies. 

To which, you responded, something to the effect of, ‘Nuh-uh! There were some PG-13 movies nominated for best picture this year, so you’re totally wrong! Admit it!’ 

Which, in my opinion, is also an evasion. The author of the article wasn’t talking about WWII dramas that managed to not have enough gore in them to earn an R rating. When he referred to “movies…targeted towards the family audience,” he was talking specifically about the highest grossing blockbuster films that get put out each year. And the last time a real blockbuster won best picture was, what, fifteen years ago when the third LOTR movie came out?

Look, you can try to spin it however you want, but the fact is that, for the last several years, the films that are taking home the big award are filled with content that is most definitely not targeted towards a family audience. 

So, yeah, you can point to Dunkirk (and two other films this year) and say they were nominated, and that it’s an honor just to be nominated. Sure. But you know what’s a bigger honor than being nominated? Winning. 

And what won this year? Was it the WWII film that happened to exclude enough profanity and violence so that you could actually take your children to go see it (assuming, for the sake of argument, that you have really weird children who would actually sit through it)? Or was it the romantic dark fantasy film whose protagonist begins each day, as the viewer is forced to watch, by pleasuring her fully nude self in the bathtub (get it – she’s in the water)? 

Sorry, but the problem isn’t that I don’t understand the film industry and what it values. It just happens to be the case that I value things differently, though I don't really consider that to be a problem.

 

Edited May 1, 2018 by Amulek

[california boy]

8 hours ago, Amulek said:

The author of the article said he always tries to disabuse people of the notion that “Hollywood is satanic and out to get them.” And, as evidence of that claim, he says to look at the box office: “Every year the top ten movies are almost always those targeted towards the family audience, a trend which has been going on now for decades.”

My original comment was that that his appeal to box office numbers is a bit of an evasion, and I think that is substantively correct. If I want to know what Hollywood values, I don’t look at box office numbers, because the box office numbers tell me what the market values, not what Hollywood values.  

If I want to get an idea of what Hollywood values, I’m going to look at the films that Hollywood chooses to hold up for praise and acclaim. And when the people in Hollywood come together to show off their ‘best,’ it invariably isn’t these kinds of movies. 

To which, you responded, something to the effect of, ‘Nuh-uh! There were some PG-13 movies nominated for best picture this year, so you’re totally wrong! Admit it!’ 

Which, in my opinion, is also an evasion. The author of the article wasn’t talking about WWII dramas that managed to not have enough gore in them to earn an R rating. When he referred to “movies…targeted towards the family audience,” he was talking specifically about the highest grossing blockbuster films that get put out each year. And the last time a real blockbuster won best picture was, what, fifteen years ago when the third LOTR movie came out?

Look, you can try to spin it however you want, but the fact is that, for the last several years, the films that are taking home the big award are filled with content that is most definitely not targeted towards a family audience. 

So, yeah, you can point to Dunkirk (and two other films this year) and say they were nominated, and that it’s an honor just to be nominated. Sure. But you know what’s a bigger honor than being nominated? Winning. 

And what won this year? Was it the WWII film that happened to exclude enough profanity and violence so that you could actually take your children to go see it (assuming, for the sake of argument, that you have really weird children who would actually sit through it)? Or was it the romantic dark fantasy film whose protagonist begins each day, as the viewer is forced to watch, by pleasuring her fully nude self in the bathtub (get it – she’s in the water)? 

Sorry, but the problem isn’t that I don’t understand the film industry and what it values. It just happens to be the case that I value things differently, though I don't really consider that to be a problem.

 

Thank you for explaining your position.  I really didn't understand it before. I do see your point.  If I can, I will give you my perspective.

I am an artist.  Designing and creating things is at my very core.  It is when I am doing that I feel the most energy and excitement for life.  I do art for galleries and have been petty successful at doing it.  But I try to find galleries that fit my work.  Not all of them do.  I remember walking into a gallery in Sausalito, a more touristy area near San Francisoc.  The gallery owner loved my work, but said, it would never sell in her gallery.  Most of her clientele were tourists.  They are not much into abstract.  She literally told me, they want cows and landscapes.  She had run this gallery for over 20 years.  She new what sells.  So she asked me if I could do something like that.  I absolutely could have.  And I am sure they would have probably sold well in her gallery.  But I have no interest in doing cows or landscape.  So should I do it for the money?  Or should I look for another gallery that has the clientele that likes the kind of art that I do, even if that gallery sells less art?

 I think it is difficult to brand all of Hollywood in one big block.  It is made up of thousands of people who have their own idea of what kind of films they want to make.  Some consider themselves more artists, using film to tell a story that hopefully touches people in an emotional way.  What those emotions are depends a lot on the story and what it is conveying.  But they want to evoke thought to those that see their film and perhaps look at something in a different way than before they walked into the theater.  Others are more business men.  They are in it for the money.  They specifically design their films with that goal in mind.  

Generally speaking, the summer block busters are specifically made to make money.  They are the cows and landscapes of the movie industry.  They are the Thomas Kinkade of the movie industry.  But no serious art critic or awards show is going to take those films as serious artistic movies.  But they make buckets of money.  And that is ok.  More people love cows and landscapes than love abstract art.  That is just reality. Hollywood makes something for everyone because not everyone has the same goals.

I don't fault someone who wants to paint cows and landscapes.  But it is not what interest me.   I want to do something that has never been done before.  I want someone to be moved by my art.  Should I change my passion in order to make more money?  Or is there a place for me to do what I want, and express myself in a more creative way?

I don't always agree with the Academy's choice for best picture.   But actually this year I agreed with their choice.  The Shape of Water was also my favorite movie of the year.  It was beyond creative.  The cinematography was amazing.  The sets were interesting.  The characters had depth and emotion.  The costumes were intriguing.  And the story was compelling.  It was a story about not fearing someone just because they are different.  It was a love story.  One about looking past the exterior and into the heart.  It was about human kindness at it's best, and at its worse.  It was about the evils of exploitation just because the person is not like you.  It is the kind of film that makes you think.  Like an onion, it had many layers of thoughts to explore.  It made me think.  It was an artistic triumph.  It deserved the Oscar.  

Families don't go to a film that have a lot of nuances and subtleties. They want action.  They want dare devil stunts.  They want fast paced film cuts.  This was not that film.  There is one reason why this film got an R rating.  Their was nudity in it.  Could they had made the film without it?  Absolutely.  But in general, the audience that this film was targeted to really doesn't have issues with nudity.  The creator of the film felt that it helped the story.  He was right, unless nudity is a no go for a persons decision on how good a film is.  I get that for some people, nudity is the line they won't cross, no matter what the movie is about.  

There is a reason this film won Best Picture and a block buster from your list didn't  I agree with you.  Hollywood respects a film like this.  If you go see the film, I think you will understand why.  It is a film that needs to be seen on a big screen.  Not everyone loved this film, but I did.  I thought it was the best picture of the year, and this year Hollywood agreed.

I hope you find this helpful.  

Edited May 1, 2018 by california boy