It Just About The Audience

It is Saturday, the sun is peeking through the clouds, and we are being warned by all media outlets of an upcoming heat wave here in the heartland of America. As always I begin to think of what I want to share with you, something that I am pondering and something that hopefully you may find beneficial. My goal in writing these weekly pieces is to hopefully get people to start thinking outside the box as it were. I do not think I know better, but I do think I have the luxury to give some of these concepts thought process.

?I also have received profound benefit from forcing myself to write these essays/articles weekly. My thought process has become much more disciplined and on a weekly basis I fall in love again with the movies and moviegoing.

?There is a quote attributed to George Lucas, but I think it comes from many places.? It goes something like this, “The door of your cage is open, you can walk out if you dare”.? I think this is a quote that we can apply to most of our lives. I think that our lives are being shaped constantly by gnawing calls for conformity. Buy these clothes, buy this car, use this drug, spend your vacation here…there is incessant messaging coming at us at all times. The pioneering work of this kind of message was initially done by the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays. Bernays felt that that the way to the American public was to induce fear. He was quoted as saying “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” Unfortunately I think he created the idea that the American public is not capable of thinking for ourselves and that our betters should do the thinking for us. Political correctness of the left and right-wing sound bites of hate are both byproducts of this perception.

?To be frank, the studios are convinced that they not only have to impose a product, (lately some of it is pretty bad) but also how this industry should evolve. The problem is that they do not possess the ability to empathize with audiences since they have abdicated their investment in localized advertising. It is interesting that Hollywood still feels the need to control their audience or deludes themselves that they are some kind of elite that indeed can control the public.

?Another quote from Bernays “The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment.”

Bernays was not a nice person and supposedly, although the father of American Public Relations, he had few friends and was not terribly well liked.

?What has become increasingly evident to me is that while you do have forces who are impacting the weak and the afraid, the majority of the American public will continue to be free-thinking. When a movie is successful it becomes on some level a reflection of the aspirations of the audience. Top Gun: Maverick is an example of this, the filmmakers reached into a cultural yearning and painted the screen with it. It reached audiences and as a result provided the studio, economic rewards. In the end though, the success of the movie was due to the connective tissues it had with the audience.? In regards to movies Bernays was only half right, movies do populate the world with new ideas and opinions. We shape the movies and movies shape us.

?I once worked with a group of filmmakers and were ensconced in Hollywood. They described themselves as enlightened and believed they just knew so much more than their audience. The wore recycled shoes, had belts made of recycled tires and generally carried themselves in a more than high handed way. The movies they made were nonsensical and frankly appealed to no one.

?At one time Hollywood was intensely worried about the opinion of the common man and woman. Now they are attempting to appeal to everyone and in fact appealing to no one.? What is evident is that this torrent of Bernays inspired PR has subdued a certain part of society. It has made them loud, verbose, and unintelligent. This control is like that thin skin on top of pudding that has a sat a bit too long. For a moment it can seem daunting but can be easily poked through. This control that the studios seek to place over the business does not really exist. They have little or no control of the theaters. The biggest deterrent for theaters is the word no….I have heard many stories of the studios after being told they are not playing a weak title like “Bob’s Burgers” that the theater will be blocked from any future studio releases. This is an empty threat since this is illegal. The studios can huff and puff and threaten to blow the house down. You see, the truth of the matter is that the studios have no control over this business, the theaters do not, and there is only one group that does control movie going.

?The audience