One of most common refrains I hear these days is that modern films and TV shows are horrible. Sure, every now and then a Sopranos, Breaking Bad, or a Downton Abbey manages to surface but it’s rare indeed.
Art reflects the artist.
Another way of saying it, crude yes, but true nonetheless is: garbage in, garbage out.
Jesus said something similar about people which can be applied to practically everything in the universe:
You shall know them by their fruits.
Every person, organization, company and institution can be properly evaluated by this universal maxim. No matter who you are, the inescapable truth is that what you produce will be a reflection of your character, your values, and your morality.
The same is true of the television and motion picture industry. The recycled comic book superhero garbage you see today on the big screen and at home, is produced by perpetually adolescent beta males and alpha females. For me, Netflix — the current street drug of choice for our generation — is unrelatable and unwatchable as is every single other premium cable TV channels like HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc.
I like to save snippets of quotes and memes as I paddle through the murky swamp of Internet. Here’s one paragraph that I saved that I would like to share. I’d be happy to give the author credit if I find out who he is:
The people who were writing stories and creating new IPs in the 60s, 70s, and 80s were mostly men who had experienced the world before creating their great works. These were war veterans, race car drivers, working men, etc. So they brought their unique life experiences with them when creating new characters and worlds.
The GenX filmmakers grew up watching the movies and television shows, or reading the comic books, created by those men and then went straight into making their own movies instead of experiencing life for themselves. So most of the GenX guys’ “creativity” is just reimagining or mashing-up other people’s ideas. They don’t have any original ideas of their own and they don’t know how to craft a proper story, they just know how to get a reaction out of an audience. They remember something from an episode of a TV show and how it made them feel when they were kids and they craft their stories with the intent of recreating that feeling, regardless of how it affects the narrative.
I’m sure Generation X had its George Lucas, or Stan Lee, or Gene Roddenberry; but those guys got overshadowed by snake-oil salesmen like J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson (who sure does get super defensive on Twitter for someone who claims that he wants half of his audience to hate his movies).
I remember watching an old A&E biography of actor Jimmy Stewart. During the height of his popularity, he stopped acting and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps to help the war effort in World War 2. Being a real man back then meant you had a sense of duty and honor and we were willing to sacrifice your life for your fellow man. Could you imagine a Hollywood actor doing that today?
The person who posted that missive above is right: today’s bubble dwelling filmmakers have never experience much of life. Instead, they’ve consumed the films that people who did experience it and are recourgiting it with endless remakes.
There are thousands of outstanding films made since the 1930s that are far better use of your time than watching any of the sanctimonious woke rubbish coming from Hollywood.
Marvel and J.J. plus his usual collaborators are indeed the worst offenders. Rian Johnson also did pretty bad, but I did not know him before The Last Jedi and most of his fame seems to be due to “Looper”, what is outstanding is a long list of nominations for this or that on Wikipedia which I cannot explain.
The blatant and extreme amount of copying just to give it a slightly different twist with something copied from something else, so epigonal and uninspired, shows how stunted the creativity of these people is. They just don’t have the background and personal experience of the mentioned creators.
Add in virtue signalling and elevation of this or that minority so that an equally lacking bunch of journalists can trumpet and push this to be the greatest thing ever.
That Han Solo / Harrison Ford got shot, that’s how much they love strong male characters by now. It happens in many video games and movies, very often angry female characters are killing (old) white men.
I am watching the latest accusations against Blizzard, in particular Alex Afrasiabi. Dozens of ex-Blizzard strong women crawling out of their holes to testify the supposedly unbearable horrors they had to endure.
This is a weak generation without values that managed to create a destructive and self-destructive train of self-righteousness and hyper-easily offended hatemongering.
It won’t stop when finally every employee is female, transgender, black or a total gamma male. They will turn on themselves.
The games won’t become better with an extra dozen presidents and vps of diversity. And no, the workplace will not become better for people either. I don’t want to defend bad company leadership and a failing HR department. But I rather see a “strong” (?) and diverse community going for a weakened former giant to deliver the death blow.
That scene in Fight Club (both the book and the movie) resonates even more strongly now. As pointed out above and mentioned by Tyler Durden in the movie, our (presumably Generation X, but can include generations after) “generation did not have a Great War or a Great Depression”, which in short was the ‘life experience’ of previous generations.
Perhaps what is needed is another ‘Carthage’, so to speak. When the USSR dissolved, this country lost an external enemy to keep the rest of the population in their place. Indeed one Soviet apparatchik remarked at the time: “We are doing a dangerous thing, depriving you of an enemy!”.