If you want a prime example of how different The Elites conceive of the notion of sexuality relative us Poors, look no further than Cate Blanchett. The woman has never met a lesbian character to play that she didn’t like. I think it’s safe to say she’s giving the audience a sense of what’s going on in private life.
Yes, she’s married to a dude, but I think they probably have an “understanding.” And if they don’t then whatever urges Blanchett may have to wade into the lady pond, she uses her Art as and outlet to do so.
As such, it’s comical how all the Swifties want Tay-Tay to be a ‘mo. She probably is “queer” but she’s not…gay. She, and every other powerful female celebrity just has a very vague, flexible concept of who they do what with with their bodies.
So, no, Tay-Tay isn’t probably going to start dating a woman in public because she’s America’s Heteronormative Sweetheart, but in her private life, I think she’s probably done her fair share of same-sex bed hoping.
Now that we learn that Warner Brothers Discovery is thinking of licensing HBO content to Netflix, why don’t the two companies just merge? It would make a lot of sense. It would be a massive media powerhouse that could go toe-to-toe with The House of Mouse.
What’s more, then Paramount Global could merge with NBCUniversal (or something) and then all of America’s media would be owned by The Big Three (Except for Columbia studios, owned by Sony.)
I just don’t know enough about the companies involved, but just a back of the envelope thought experiment about a Netflix – WBD merger seems to make a shit ton of sense.
To every season, turn, turn turn. As such, it is at least possible that we’ve finally reached the end of the post-911 “If Only A Superhero Could Have Saved The Day” expectations of audiences. But what’s going to replace the Superhero Movie Era if that is the case?
I only ask this question because, apparently, The Flash was something of a dud this weekend — at least, relative to Hollywood expectations. My natural inclination is to think that Hollywood is going to, because of inertia — just drift until AI Generated Movies are good enough that, lulz, movies made by people will seem quaint. Like silent films once Talkies went mainstream.
And, yet, nature abhors a vacuum, so, it’s at least possible that the upcoming hard reboot of the Alien franchise might be so good that between now and our inevitable Her scenario future where we have a digital assistant who will make all our entertainment for us, that humans might manage to squeeze out a brief era of good scifi movies.
Maybe?
I wouldn’t get too excited, however. I think we’re just going to slouch towards a post-human Hollywood between now and, say, maybe 2026-2029. Remember, there’s a good chance The Fourth Turning is going to happen and all hell will break loose for a few years while we sort out if America will be an autocracy or not.
Anyway. Enjoy your human-made movies while you still can, I guess.
As I often say — I’m always, always wrong. But it definitely seems as though it’s at least possible that we’re in something of a waiting game when it comes to the current WGA strike.
And the two sides, tragically, are waiting for different things.
The WGA is waiting for the Suits to come back to the negotiating table, while the Suits are waiting for LLMs to advance to the point that Hollywood writers are…moot. So, rather than “September” being the deadline as one very young and naive striking WGA writer proposed, I think we have a far more open-ended situation on our hands.
It could be 18 months before there’s any resolution to the Writers’ Strike and the resolution will be that technology has reached a point where the Suits feel like they can just ignore the WGA altogether. And, rather than thinking about a WGA strike, they’re thinking about how many programmers they’re going to have to pay in place of them.
Like I said — I’m always, always wrong. So, I suppose it’s possible that something will happen and the Suits will come to some sort of agreement with writers. But..I couldn’t count on it.
I have very strict metrics for consuming a story and if the story doesn’t meet those metrics, I bounce. And, yet, I can’t just read my own writing all the time. If I’m going to be a well-rounded author, I have to consume someone ELSE’s story on occasion.
I’m trying to watch Tar, but I’m not having much success. It’s a really good movie and if I was 20 years younger, I probably would really enjoy it. But I’m an old coot now who has spent a few years obsessing over the finer points of storytelling and I find it overwrought and sort of meh.
Get to the point, people!
But, whatever. It IS a good movie. I think I’m going to have to get so drunk that I don’t care and just sit down and watch it without skipping 10 seconds forward TOO many times.
I watched “This Is Where I Leave You” and all I could think was, “Man, this movie has really bad background music compared to The Big Chill.” The movie itself was pretty good. I didn’t roll my eyes too much. I did skip through some parts, but that says more about me than the movie.
But I will note — spoilers — that it would have been more interesting if the wife had slept with the “good brother” and they were forced to keep it a secret. This prospect happened in the third act and THAT would be have taken things to the nexxt level.
But, whatever. I’m just pleased I managed to get through a movie — any money. I’m so spoiled when it comes to storytelly that just the act of finishing a movie is a big deal for me. I usually get upset and don’t finish a story if it doesn’t meet my own very — very strict — requirements.
Hollywood is fucking doomed. While we may have to go through a civil war (Reds) or revolution (Blues) between now and then, it definitely seems as though within 10 years even Hollywood suits will be replaced by a Her-like AI.
Let me say that again in a different way — it could be that through a combination of Her and Simone all recorded entertainment will be generated by AI. People will develop parasocial relationships not with Tay-Tay or a this or that Hollywood heartthrob — but with a simulation generated on-the-fly by their very own Her-type digital assistant.
The path to this (dystopian?) future won’t be a straight line, but that’s definitely where macrotrends seems to be taking us in the medium-to-long term. Hollywood is so, so very fucked.
Two things to keep in mind.
One, the transitional phase of all of this will be a new Feudal system for Hollywood where there will be three types of people — suits, software and schmucks. Writers, directors and actors will be seen as quaint and moot soon enough — unless they join together and demand specific, hard-fast carveouts for those jobs.
I just don’t see that happening because things are moving too fast.
The other issue to think about is — Broadway may see a real resurgence. It could be that the revolution may not be televised — because it will be performed live on the stage. People who want “real” actors will turn to having parasocial relationships with Broadway and Westend, (and local theatre) stars rather than some computer-generated bullshit.
I can’t predict the future, but it’s definitely something to think about, something to worry about. The future may see a very, very dramatic change in how we interact with entertainment.
I feel kind of sorry for the major Hollywood trade unions. It definitely seems like they’re kind of fucked. I say this because I’m using ChatGPT and Bing to develop my first novel and the potential is definitely there. I say this because I sometimes have to fight with these LLMs and remind them that *I* am the fucking writer.
In the not-too-distant future, Hollywood will look like this: well paid Suits, ok paid programmers and…interns who are “prompt engineers.” And even the idea of a prompt engineer is will seem quaint when, soon enough, we reach a Her-type future in which people have digital assistants who know everything about them to the point that there will be no need for a “prompt engineers” in the first place.
With that in mind, all the Suits have to do is just cool their heels and snort coke off hooker assholes until AI advances to the point that that they end writing as Hollywood professional, period. The way things are going, the WGA (and SAG?) strike would only have to last 18 months before AI makes writing in Hollywood very very very moot.
I say this as a writer who loves writing, is writing a novel and wishes to be a screenwriter in Hollywood one day. But just like you can’t go to Windows on The World to eat anymore, the day may come when….being a professional writer or actor or director in Hollywood is just a quaint memory…..
Here is what I think is the endgame for the streaming industry. At some point in the near future — probably after we’ve either transitioned into a MAGA autocracy or wrapped up a civil war / revolution — Netflix will be morea database than an entertainment provider.
Simone is the future of Hollywoodand celebrity culture.
Because of advancements in AI, you will sit down in front of your TV or cellphone and you will be scanned for your particular mood at that specific moment. Then AI will spit out a six episode TV show or a 2 hour movie that fits your specific mood at that specific moment. It will use the bodyscans of your favorite actors to produce these completely AI-generated forms of entertainment.
So, there will come a point when Hollywood just feeds off the popularity of stars from the last 100 years, never generating any new ones because there won’t be any need. Unless, of course, someone really makes name for themselves on Broadway and they get a body scan so they can live passively off the licensing of that scan on streaming and other forms of mediated recorded entertainment.
But, wait, there’s more!
Soon enough, even having any form of human actors will be quaint and moot. All your favorite stars will be AI generated. They will be human like that all those dystopian 1990s movies about people developing parasocial relationships with faux Hollywood stars will seem very prescient.
And, what’s more,give us 20 years and all of your favorite Hollywood stars could be fucking androids. Unless SAG gets its act together, the only actors making any money professionally will be those on Broadway.
Otherwise, lulz.
We’re careening towards a very strange and weird future — especially when it comes to entertainment.
There is so much to unpack about Blazing Saddles. And I’m lazy and don’t want to give this post the proper research, so think of this as more of a off-the-top-of-the-head vibe check than something you might find on, say Vox.
Anyway, the misguided discourse about Blazing Saddles is it “couldn’t be made today” because it uses the N-word and all that. The people who say such things usually are older, white and get “triggered” by just the mere mention of the term “woke.”
But that is A LOT going on with this movie.
The chief thing is the context in which the movie was made. The movie was intended to be a critique of white racism. And, yet, because it came out a long time ago and because of how Blue and Red no longer interact with each other unless they’re screaming at each other, Reds think that the fact that the movie “couldn’t be released today” is a sign of the decline and fall of Western civilization.
This brings up to interesting questions.
One is, would these “anti-woke” MAGA people feel the same way if, instead of being “triggered,” “cultural Leftists” embraced this hypothetical version of the movie being released today? I mean, white people — and specifically the type of people you consider MAGA — are portrayed in the movie as racist morons. The very thing that MAGA is very, very touchy about being considered today. So, the pining after this movie on the part of MAGA is a result of a lost of context — they’re taking broad, anti-racist satire at face value and liking what they see.
Which brings up the SECOND point.
Given the misguided and conflated understanding of the movie that MAGA has — that it being released was a symbol of when America was “great,” what does that mean about MAGA? Why is MAGA so eager to be able to say the N-word if they don’t think of themselves of racist? Why are MAGA people so angry and aggrieved all the time?
The answer is, of course, that MAGA is a symptom, a side effect of the loss of power by straight white Christian men. (I fucking hate MAGA, by the way.)
Anyway. You could pretty much write a 10,000 word New Yorker article about this movie and still not convince some MAGA people that they’re missing the entire point of the movie!
What I can compare it to is how women’s fashion magazines sometimes have nudity, but all some dudes see — despite the context — is “tits and ass.”
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