Economics only has a supporting role within the Hollywood studios. Tinseltown’s top-of-the-bill motivation is to attack the values that underpin civilisation.
”As America learns more about China, I am concerned that the Chinese people do not always see a clear picture of my country. This happens for many reasons, and some of them of our own making. Our movies and television shows often do not portray the values of the real America I know.”
- George W Bush, speech at Tsinghua University, February 2002
Most of the films watched in Britain emanate from Hollywood. And Hollywood, perhaps more than President Bush, portrays America to the world. What the world sees, however, is not ‘Real America’. It sees something much less religious and much more violent:
- 40% of Real Americans attend religious services on a weekly basis but, according to Michael Medved’s Hollywood versus America book, 93% of the 104 most influential people in mid-1990s US media never, or rarely, attended any kind of religious service.
- Medved has also documented how Hollywood films portray sex outside of marriage nine to fourteen times more frequently than marital sex, and rates of violence fifty times greater than the real vulnerability to violence of an average Real American.
- An Opinion Dynamics poll for Fox News found that only 13% of Americans thought Hollywood shared their values. 70% said it didn't.
Economics does not provide an explanation for the fact that the average Hollywood ‘red corner movie’ is gratuitously violent, knocks religion, undermines the family, and is stuffed with bad language. When Hollywood produces films in tune with mainstream values it does better at the box office than when it doesn’t. But Hollywood is more interested in promoting its worldview than making money. An academic analysis of more than two thousand movies by Arthur De Vany of the University of California has confirmed this back row role for economics.
Movies that preach to the choir
Hollywood is a victim of Groupthinking. Studios, actors, directors are part of an artistic and critical community with its own values and prejudices. Impressing that community is an important motivation. Offending that community - as Mel Gibson did with his 'Passion' film - can lead to ostracism. The Hollywood community appears to most love movies that attack civilised values:
- American Beauty was a critically acclaimed film in Britain and America. Its mix of voyeurism, cannabis, homosexuality, paedophilia, violence and ridicule of conservatives won it five Oscars from America’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
- The same year the pro-abortion Cider House Rules was a double Oscar winner.
- Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby ended with a pro-euthanasia message and scooped four Oscars. At the same ceremony, Spain's right-to-die-promoting The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro) also won the best foreign film award.
I coach at a small private scohol. I have a good skill set among this year's team to run a DDM style offense. The problem is, ours is a lower level of small scohol basketball. Literally 3/4 of the teams we face can be expected to play zone defense against us. (Most of them will be running a 2-3, Syracuse style zone.) Without understanding a whole lot about different entries into DDM against zone yet, am I asking to be frustrated by running it against so much zone? Will teams effectively adjust seeing the same types of entries so often? Or, will there be few answers if we are more athletic, and our post man is very athletic and dominant at the rim?
Posted by: Warisa | May 15, 2013 at 12:53 PM