I’ve called Hollywood out on their creative parasitism before. This is just a brief follow-up to the last one.

I’ve been working on a video project lately, and since I’m responsible for the soundtrack, I’m listening to a lot of classical music these days.

Shame on me, but I don’t pay much attention to what orchestra plays which symphony. It’s not like music composed post-Phonograph Age where you’ll get wildly different versions of the same song from different artists. If I like the symphony (or opera, or whatever), I’m confident I’ll like it no matter who the artists are.

But as I was listening yesterday, I noticed there are some subtle differences in how different orchestras play the same symphonies. Nothing major, because the notes are still the same ones written by some long dead guy with funny looking hair. But sometimes the pacing will vary, or certain instruments will be louder. I guess that’s the individual conductor doing what they can to put their own “stamp” on a fixed work of art.

While mulling this over, it dawned on me: the composers of Hollywood have mostly died off; only conductors remain.

I’m not talking about musical scores, here. I’m analyzing film as if movies were symphonies.

Once upon a time, Hollywood screenwriters/directors didn’t just artistically regurgitate; they created. In fact, their livelihood depended on it. Sure, there were remakes as early as the 1930s, but if you wanted to make a name for yourself, you couldn’t rely solely on the plundering of other men’s ideas.

The great film makers (called “auteurs” by the snobs) are often accused of making the same film over and over again.

Horsefeathers.

You’ll find the same themes running through most of their films; and many of them preferred to use the same cast and crew repeatedly…but that’s because those movies came from the same respective artist’s own arsenal of experience, world view and imagination. They didn’t come out of the DNC-approved cookie cutter.

Not for a few decades, anyway. Sure, there were socialist messages in plenty of the old movies. But they weren’t the only message allowed back then.

Directors and screenwriters of today are simply syphoning creative energy from the hard work of those who’ve gone before them; waving a stick at their assembled creative teams, tweaking a costume here and a set design there, while turning what were once original ideas into overused cliche`s.

To borrow a phrase from the publishing biz of yesteryear, they’re a bunch of hacks.

I’ve been kvetching about the sad state of entertainment for some time, so of course when this post  showed up on my news feed, it caught my eye.

The lack of original thought in our arts and culture would make anyone think the western world is truly in decline. The movie industry no longer invests in such frivolous things as plot, script, and original ideas.

…Modern movies reek of cronyism, group thought, and investment in profitable ideas rather than original ones. The movies are created to garner the most income with the least amount of investment, targeting the unthinking masses to maximize profits.  Popularity trumps quality.

In this dichotomy, political leanings often play a role.

Yeah, no kidding.

Those are the two forces dominating Tinseltown, (and the publishing industry, etc.), but the priority is reversed from what is suggested by the article.

The political agenda is supreme to the entertainment gatekeepers. Of course they’d prefer to make colossal profits while brainwashing you; but they’ll lose money to herd you into the approved groupthink corral when that’s what it takes.

But calling out the mass media svengalis on their propaganda with chapter and verse is something I won’t spend the energy to do in this post. You’re either aware of it; you deny it/whine that there’s not enough of it; or you only recognize little tinges of “liberal bias” now and then. (The latter group has been partially absorbed into the hive already, becoming less and less aware of the conditioning as they are conditioned.) It’s doubtful there’s anything I could write in a blog post to reverse 20+ years of cognitive manipulation undergone by the last two groups.

It is amusing to consider the multiple personality disorder of the entertainment industry: the corporate beancounter completely devoid of original thought and the arrogant Marxist artfag who pretends to have a monopoly on original thought.

During the red state/blue state meme of 2004, one of the aforementioned arrogant Marxist artfags crowed on national TV about how all the creative genius in the nation was concentrated in the major population centers represented as the blue splotches on the political map. She had in mind, primarily, the Left Coast and the Rotten Apple.

All that creative genius and original thought in Homowood, Commiefornia must be why they can’t produce anything but remakes, adaptations of old TV shows or video games, and oppressively formulaic romantic comedies.

Even when they mine their material from the comic books, with thousands of plots to plagiarize from, they keep rebooting the same old origin tales. Take away Kryptonite and those “creative geniuses” couldn’t pool enough imagination between them to conceive a single story idea for Superman.

I enjoyed the first couple Expendables flicks as much as the next guy. But when you think about it, it’s pretty sad that such movies stand out in a given year for drawing men to theaters without the coercion of a wife or girlfriend.

The solution is simple; demote both those megalomaniac hive minds (the Marxists and beancounters) from their gatekeeper position. Allow some cognitive variety. Allow some entertainment that offends…even when it offends (insert the Victim Class of the Month here) and tips over their sacred cows.

You know–offend somebody besides your favorite scapegoats in Flyover Country/the Bible Belt. You’ve already stacked up enough offense against them to last a few lifetimes.