Is Hollywood Getting It Right?

I don’t like to call myself a movie or TV snob, but I suppose I give off that impression.  

It’s not that I am a snob.  I am merely as picky about TV and movies as I am about food and music.  I have particular tastes and particular dislikes.  I am a chronic over-thinker who is quick to notice plot holes, inconsistencies, scientific or historical inaccuracies, poor leaps of logic, and anything else that I feel doesn’t make sense.  I like novelty, so I have little patience for hackneyed, formulaic plots.  I have a low tolerance for violence and gross-outs that don’t advance the plot.  Extended violent action sequences bore me to tears (one reason why my two most hated movies are the much-loved Die Hard and Kill Bill).

What do I like?  I like dry humor and witty dialogue. I like speculative fiction.  I like creative stories. I like learning about people, places, and situations I am unfamiliar with.  I like stories that make me think.  I like stories that make me feel things without being emotionally manipulative.  Genre doesn’t matter as much as how the material is presented.  

This is why even in non-pandemic times I don’t go to movies often and can spend hours* browsing the titles on Netflix trying to find my next show or movie to watch.  TV and movies sometimes feel like a wasteland of unnecessary sequels, lame reboots, poor remakes, and anachronistic reimaginings, because nobody wants to write (or produce) anything original anymore. 

Even among the so-called original material it feels like everything is either about superheroes, some form of undead, or glorified criminals and gangsters. If a viewer isn’t looking for monsters or gangsters, there is always The Hallmark Channel where one can watch endless permutations of the same five romantic plot lines.  

Popular movies and television seem to be mostly about white men behaving badly.  White men figuratively stab each other in the back.  White mean beat each other up, blow each other up, and shoot each other up.  When it's not about white men behaving badly, it's about white couples having a meet cute, going through some misunderstandings, and then having sex.  When producers can't even come up with that much, they give us reality TV.

Does the entertainment industry think we all want this and nothing but this?  Do these studio executives believe we want our entertainment formulaic and predictable?  

Maybe it's more than that.  Is it possible we are complacent and have learned to not expect any more?  We are so used to being fed drivel, we don’t realize we want more until we get it.  It’s only when a movie or television show comes along that challenges our preconceived ideas of what we like, do we realize there is better entertainment out there.

For example, how many of us said to ourselves, “Gee, what I would really like to see is a miniseries about a young female chess prodigy in the 50s and 60s who struggles with drug and alcohol addiction as she attempts to be a world champion”?

Nobody said it, but how many people do you know who loved The Queen’s Gambit? 

Well, whaddaya know?  Movie and TV audiences will enjoy something different when it’s offered to them.

Even before the pandemic I rarely went out to the movies.  There aren't enough movies out there worth the time and money.  I do most of my movie watching when the SAG award nominations come out and Kevin receives his plethora of screeners (Kevin may not longer be pursuing a career as an actor and musician, but the SAG-AFTRA membership it produced has excellent lingering advantages).  This year I knew little about the movies he was sent because most movies were shown online and didn't seem as heavily advertised as the theatrical releases of a pre-pandemic world.  I would look at the screeners and have no idea what the movies were about.

I couldn't have been more surprised at the quality of the movies I watched.  I don't think there was a single movie I could compare to anything else I watched before.  I couldn't call any of these movies formulaic or boring.  They made me think.  They were emotionally stirring.  They took me out of my own world and taught me about people and places I never thought about.  They covered unfamiliar topics and dealt with uncomfortable situations in a way that made them real to me.

I was impressed with the number of films that were not about white people.  I watched the poignant Minari about the hardships a immigrant family faced as they attempted to start a farm.   I watched the disturbing Ma Rainey's Black Bottom about the struggle of musicians in the 1920s.  I watched the inventive One Night in Miami that focused on historical figures I rarely give much thought to.  I watched the tragic Judas and the Black Messiah and mourned about how little things have changes for BIPOC Americans over the decades.  (The Black Panthers were right about everything.)  I watched Da Five Bloods and went through an emotional rollercoaster with its masterful melding of the issues of race, war, friendship, and family.

Of course there were movies and TV shows about white people (there always are) but I was impressed with variety of topics these movies covered.  The haunting Nomadland brought to a life an American subculture that few of us in the mainstream know much about (unless you also watched Into the Wild).  The disturbing Promising Young Woman was a unique story of rape, revenge, and murder that was unlike anything I have ever watched before.  Mank and The Trial of the Chicago Seven were interesting historical pieces.  The former was a biography that provided insight on the little-known author of one of history's most famous movies.  The latter helped me understand an event that my history classes merely glossed over.  In The Sound of Metal, I was brought into the world of someone with a disability.  Best of all The Father was a brilliant treatment of dementia that brings the audience inside of the mind of the patient and creates a shifting reality that one never stops questioning.

Many of these films have been nominated for Oscars as well as SAG awards.  It seems more of the industry is appreciating diversity.  Filmmakers are taking a chance on new ideas and new stories and it's paying off.  I hope the writers and producers and directors of the world are taking notice and will continue to take risks and create interesting movies.

I look forward to the possibility of wanting to go out and see a movie when the pandemic is over.

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*Blatant exaggeration for dramatic effect, but you get the idea