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[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Over the summer, Barry Diller warned that the double strike by Hollywood actors and writers could “potentially produce an absolute collapse of an entire industry.”
Diller, who once headed Paramount and 20th Century FOX, may know what he’s talking about.
Hollywood, trying to compete with the vast resources of dot coms like Netflix and Amazon, has been spending untold billions of dollars to convince everyone to buy subscriptions to their streaming services. Netflix will spend $17 billion, Amazon spent $16.6 billion while Disney blew through $32 billion. Disney is trying to recoup some of the billions it lost on Disney+ by cutting costs and going into the lucrative but shady business of sports betting through ESPN.
Once upon a time, Disney might have worried about the damage to its ‘family friendly image’ but once it started peddling sexual materials to kids, gambling is actually a major step up.
The entertainment industry’s big companies have blown through over $100 billion to secure streaming subscribers. The longer the strike lasts, industry figures like Diller fear that the pipeline of new shows and movies will fade and the subscribers will go away. After spending a fortune they don’t have to lock in subscribers, Hollywood may be left with nothing.
But if Hollywood were to die, would anyone really miss it very much?
From the popularization of the cowboy to space exploration and the action hero, Hollywood once made up a vital part of the American mythos. Where the industry once sold the American Dream around the world, it has traded that in for a new woke identity that disdains the country.
New Hollywood is no more integral to the American story than the video game industry or Silicon Valley. It’s an addiction mechanism that no longer adds the faintest iota of anything to the culture. It can no longer pretend to be a dream factory, it’s where the dream goes to die to be reborn as intellectual properties with scripts written by woke AI that will soon star AI actors.
Hollywood is still big business and the strikes are estimated to cost the economy $5 billion, but there are industries that add far more, with less negative side effects, that are under siege.
Occasionally conservative movies, like ‘Voice of Freedom’, emerge as a reminder that the country can have a film industry that speaks to us without Hollywood. And that such an industry would be much more likely to emerge if Hollywood were to destroy itself or be destroyed.
Disney has been battered by its wasteful streaming spending, but also by its battle with Gov. DeSantis in Florida. The biggest old school studio in Hollywood took such a severe beating because the industry is far more vulnerable than most conservatives realized it was.
Hollywood has dozens of vulnerabilities from a dependence on tax credits and foreign investors to its infamously illegal accounting practices and countless legal exemptions. Until recently, Hollywood studios threw around their weight in red states, announcing boycotts over religious freedom issues and demanding (and getting) millions in tax credits from Republican governors.
There’s no real sign that’s changing outside of Florida.
Georgia has allocated a whopping $1.3 billion in Hollywood tax credits. That’s more than New York and California combined. A proposal to cap the credit at under $1 billion, and save $1.7 billion, was shot down by House Speaker David Ralston (now retired), who argued, “I’m not prepared to run that industry out of Georgia.” Capping Hollywood tax credits at a gargantuan $900 million somehow amounted to running the entire film industry out of Georgia.
Hollywood was more than ready to run Republicans out of Georgia by backing Stacey Abrams.
From Alabama to Mississippi, even the most conservative southern states have lined up to court Hollywood even when they lose money doing it. For example, Mississippi gets 49 cents to the dollar it spends on incentives, while other states are doing even worse.
Rather than fighting Hollywood, conservative states are actually backing it with tax dollars, pleading with it to come to their neck of the woods and film movies and shows which depict Americans as backward racists. Most Republican states have actually created, added or expanded their film tax credits in the last few years in a desperate bid to bring in more jobs.
And in the process they’ve ignored the cultural damage that Hollywood is doing to us.
There are exceptions to the rule. There was outrage when Netflix released ‘Cuties’ depicting the sexualization of young girls. DA Lucas Babin in Tyler County, TX,, who has his own history in the entertainment industry, got a grand jury to indict Netflix. While the streaming giant has far more money and resources, Babin has managed to tie it up in court.
While most people thought that the battle over ‘Cuties’ had ended back in 2020, it has kept on going into 2023. Babin has been badly outmatched and outspent, but he also showed that it’s possible to take on the biggest giant in the industry, which wields almost unlimited resources and whose wealth is utterly staggering, and still make it feel some pain.
Imagine if more conservatives were willing to take on Hollywood instead of pandering to it?
Conservatives complain about a culture war and too many would rather fight it with lame memes than with sharp legal elbows. Hollywood has never been this vulnerable and yet most conservatives do little more than complain about ‘wokeness, rather than expecting their elected officials to do to Hollywood what leftist politicians are trying to do to the oil and gas industry. Not to mention the automobile industry, gun manufacturers and countless others.
The Left has spent generations fighting corporations, sometimes to take them over, other times to outright wipe out an industry, while conservatives are still too timid to think big in this way.
The entertainment industry consists of a handful of incestuous giants that dominate video, music and book publishing with no legal pushback or serious challenge from conservatives. Its lobbyists know that all they need to do is spread some money around Capitol Hill, hire a few former Republican staffers to lobby for them and they can get whatever they want.
And that is how it will be until conservatives start expecting more from their politicians.
If the governor of a state that is heavily dependent on tourism can take on Disney and the DA of Tyler County can take on the most powerful entertainment industry corporation, there’s no excuse for House and Senate Republicans to keep doing favors for Hollywood, or for most red states to shove millions of dollars at productions wanting to show their people as inbred hicks.
Rep. Laurie Schlegel, a freshman state representative in Louisiana, recently brought down Pornhub, a massive industry giant, by passing bills mandating age verification. Those bills have been moving from state to state, threatening a pornography company with an estimated annual revenue of $97 billion. That’s what happens when politicians stop explaining why they can’t do things and actually do the simplest thing possible even when it supposedly ‘can’t be done.’
It doesn’t take much to be a giant slayer when the giants have glass jaws. What it does take is principles, a refusal to be bribed and a determination to take down cultural enemies who have countless regulatory weaknesses, but lots of money and a base of support from their users.
Hollywood can be killed and something better, more American, can rise from the ashes. The industry has never been this fragile and vulnerable. All it will take is the willpower to do it.
Hollywood is dropping dead with that Writers strike 🙂
Hollywood “no longer adds the faintest iota of anything to the culture.”
This from a guy who makes a living out of sitting in front of a screen trying to come up with new ways of saying the same four things over and over and over and over….
Enjoy the cultural enrichment of your next $1 billion tentpole movie based on a toy.
Sound of Freedom, not Voice of Freedom. Cheers!
Snark gets old. Try coming up with some rational arguments. My wife and I watch reruns rather than today’s crap. Today’s shows have become predictable with the same message every time.
So true.
That is why we gave up cable years ago. The pattern was obvious and boring. No way should we pay for such garbage.
Now it’s fun to enjoy great, old movies and comedy without all the gutter words many comics use these days. I still like watching (Laurel &) Hardy fidget with his tie over his heart throb.
Yeah, cable sucks and is expensive. I gave it up years ago. You can’t even select a show and watch it when you want.
Thank God for Netflix and streaming.
Could you be a bigger fag? I bet you’re sucking on a dick right now.
Whoever down voted me eats warthog ass.
You really suck at this. Maybe it is time for you to consider jumping off a cruise ship?
You are disgusting go away
If you don’t like what Mr. Greenfield has to say, then why come here? Like Hollywood, no one will miss you if you leave and don’t come back.
Gee this comes from some Hollyweird groomer whose job it is to dress up like a princess while insuring his beard doesn’t get caught up in the lace.
And nobody cares. Or even notices.
As Bob Marley wrote They are the big tree. We are the small axe
Bob Marley would love Daniel Greenfield, I’m sure.
You love little boys with fat butts.
Whoever down voted me is a child molester.
Do you like those baby butts, you scummy pervs?
You are a moron
Sports betting is one of the main factors that keeps sports interesting.
Why would people down vote that comment?
Gaylords.
Thanks Jeff! Just trying to point out the reality of the situation, but it seems to be a taboo subject.
Betting on sports is a major industry.
Every Super Bowl is major betting event right out in the open in Vegas and don’t get me started on boxiing.
*sound of freedom
Buried in the ground
Hollywood movies were always stories that gave a message. Nowadays the message is the only story.
The whole world seems to subside the film industry if you look at the credits of just about every movie.
Much like comedy is now the message minus the comedy. The point of everything is tribal assertions not entertainment.
Also why movie comedies are on the decline.
“You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” is a funny movie, although not as funny as “Hubie Halloween” or “Easy Money” or “Back to School.” You’d like it, although you might have to buy Netflix, which I know you Hate.
Netflix is cheap though. Its price went up three bucks under Bidenflation but twelve or thirteen bucks a month isn’t much of a burden.
There are funny movies out there, interspersed with the shitty ones.
And you need to watch “Florida Man” on Netflix. It’s a crime story and quite violent but the humor is unmatched by any other TV series. You’ll laugh your ass off if you watch that. And the star of the show is very personable.
So, why not point out the real problem, instead of blaming THIS SAME PROBLEM on Hollywood? Yes, there is a problem in Hollywood. But it’s everywhere now! Our whole lives are affected by this problem which was created by mass immigration from enemy nations, communism, Islamists and the whole cabal of leftist policies – many of which act to destroy our country.
Why leave out the elephant in the room? Oh, I know – because we’re not allowed to identify it, especially because this administration is an enemy of America and wants to destroy and create conflict in every single thing about our nation. Once we are free from this administration, do you think these problems will change? I do, as long as we don’t get another tyrant in office, and we deport those that are here that do not qualify for amnesty.
Also, what happened to breaking up conglomerates? I don’t know how to express this, but it used to be true, to the best of my knowledge, that companies that get too big and take over the too much of an industry, was not permitted. What happened?
The best way to take on Hollywood is to by letting any industry that goes woke go broke at the box office
I never understand how lost tax revenue costs the taxpayers money. So Hollywood comes to Oklahoma, and throws a bunch of money around, the result is more money in Oklahoma. That money will eventually be taxed somehow. Every time some industry besides Hollywood or EV companies get a tax break the local news media Karens throw a hissy fit, ‘the schools are losing money.’ If the schools never had the money they didn’t lose it.
Very astute observation, if one looks at the situation entirely as an economic one. Hollywood’s pernicious effect is quite nicely summarized in Mr. Greenfield’s piece. I believe his point is not to criticize the allowance of tax credits in general, but specifically that giving tax credits to an industry that as often as not creates a product that is deleterious to the citizens who are being so financially gracious is short-sighted and unhelpful, to say the least. To analogize (dangerous, I know), if my business is to disseminate poison, how does it benefit the citizens of State “X” to encourage me to do so within its boundaries, as tax incentives are designed to do? Are the extra revenues thus obtained a benefit to the citizens killed or injured by the poison I distributed among them? Hollywood basically produces poison for the mind and spirit, so the more of, the worse off everyone is. The mere use of the word “entertainment” in front of “industry” shows that Hollywood does not produce anything that is necessary or required for human life; at best, it produces temporary diversions with little, if any lasting benefit.
If the government wants to hand out tax breaks to businesses or industries, it should do that across the board.
Why in the world should Disney get a tax break not local industries or the local hardware store?
I hate Disney. Bob on the knob Iger is a monster. That franchise is pure evil now. It’s all tranny and gay nonsense and other anti-American crap.
When I was a little kid and Walt was still around, Disney was a force for good. When my family would go to Disneyland, it was like Christmas Eve for me and my brother. We could barely sleep the night before in anticipation.
I’ve been there as an adult and although it wasn’t “The Magical Kingdom” for me anymore, I still enjoyed “The Haunted Mansion” and the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride and the “Blue Bayou” restaurant next to the Pirate ride. My grandmother took me and my brother to that restaurant Our parents never did. The food was good, too. I bet Iger screwed that up, though. It’s probably all tofu and yogurt now..
I still don’t know how they make those ghost images appear next to you in those Haunted house shuttle things, though.
The images in the “haunted graveyard” were obviously films projected on statues. I figured that out even as a kid but they were cool.
Disneyland was good in the 1950s. Anaheim too. Some of my best memories.
Anaheim has been rebuilt. I haven’t been there since 2013 or so but it was nice.
My wife and I went to a big shopping mall there. She’s Indonesian so she loves shopping malls.
There were big palm trees planted on the main streets and and the main area was a nice shopping district.
I remember when I was a kid, the areas around Disneyland were scummy and right across the street where the Disneyland Hotel was, it was all slumland..
It’s was nice the last time I was there.
I doubt Iger had anything to do with the renovation, though.
Santa Clara Valley, not Silicon Valley.
There’s no silicon here and microchips haven’t been made here since, what, the 1980s?
SANTA CLARA.
It used to be known as the Valley of the Heart’s Delights, when it was full of fruit orchards. Better days back then. My grandmother used to say she was glad she lived during the g00d old times. She used to give me Persimmons from the Valley, sweetest thing I ever tasted.
They still have some fruit valleys here. Campbell has some. Big orchards. Not like the Central Valley but not small.
Death will be a blessing to something suffering as badly as Hollywood. It has been re-telling stories like a dementia patient for years.
California, I am sorry for your loss. In times like this we all have to remember that death is a part of life.
Death is just a part of God’s great plan, everything happens for a reason……the reason is (you suck)
I don’t suck but I know what you mean. 🙂
Does everything you write have to contain some sort of phallic reference or gay joke? You might come across better if you dropped the “14 Year-old Boy in a Locker Room” persona.
You suck dicks, Don’t you?
Very mature answer, are you in the early stages of dementia?
Good comment. The comic book movies have rehashed the same stories for decades. Most were good the first 3-4 times.
Hollywood had an agenda from it’s day of inception. It’s just a matter of whether you were able to see it. Most don’t deny it now, but go back & you see what you really missed.
The old movies did have agendas, reporters were always heroes, and sometimes career women were reporters, a win win situation.
In the sense that a lot of writers were left of center, but a lot of studio owners were right of centers. Ditto for directors.
So you had a tug of war between Frank Capra (there’s a new documentary labeling him out) and Communist writers over what went into movies like It’s a Wonderful Life.
But there are hardly any conservatives anymore and the whole thing has become unfiltered leftist messaging non-stop.
I don’t think you have to kill an industry that’s in the middle of committing suicide.
The last dime I spent on Hollywood should have gone to Roy Rogers.
Roy Rogers. He retired to Apple Valley in the high desert next to Victorville. I remember his house. I drove past it many times and hiked past it when I took my dog down to the Mojave river. I never saw him, though.
Roy Rogers, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, Bonanza, Cheyanne, were produced when there was good clean programming. Too bad Hollywood slid so far down on the hill.
I watched all those shows! The High Chapparal ” was good, too.
I watch movies to be entertained – not preached to.
Even in High School, I listened to Van Halen and well, most hair bands because they were out there to entertain and to party – no agenda other than hanging with your girlfriend at a party on a Saturday night – kind of stuff.
I could not stand springsteen or midnight oil, and a the others that had an agenda based on lies, deceit, and cunning. Repeat that last line to yourself because it is accurate and true.
And like most normal people, I did not seek out truth or knowledge from some dork with a guitar in his hands who was raised by lefty/union-loving/racist scum parents like springsteen, etc.
I sought knowledge from my parents, my neighbors parents, and oh yeah – my teachers and professors.
I always thought Neil Young was eccentric, because he held on to his silly youthful ideals, long past the sell by date. I on the other hand, as the Bible exhorts, became a man and ‘put away childish things’ like a hippie world view.
Neil Young never put away anything.
Great songwriter. Bad singer and worse guitar player, but it’s not always the being the best at everything, but having chemistry with the people. He had it.
And there are those that, like myself, believe that you hold onto your silly youthful ideas long past the sell date. Do not denigrate those that do not hold your world/religious views, as most of the world does not believe in your particular god.
Well, your own statement is partially denigrating regarding the world not believing in his “god”. If you’re aligning with “most of the world”, you’re probably in trouble anyway. Mark Dunn mentioned “silly youthful ideals” but didn’t mean all youthful ideals. I’m all for a more youthful outlook given the jaded cranks that dominate the landscape.
“The power and the Passion” by Midnight Oil is a good song. “The beds are Burning” and “Blue Sky Mine”are good too.
They’re leftist retards but they have talent.
Not nearly as good as INXS but no Aussie band ever was or will be. Those guys were great.
‘Words are weapons, sharper than knives, makes you wonder how the other half dies.”
Those are good lyrics, man.
“It’s hard to believe we need a place called Hell.”
INXS. What a talented rock band. I’m listening to them right now, and so should all of you.
“New Sensation.” What a cool song. It’s rocking me out right now.
I don’t think they wore women’s clothing, but yes, they did get made up ridiculously. I don’t think your comparison holds water. The band members may have gotten made up like their girlfriends, but they projected heterosexuality to the max without too much agenda other than “hot chicks and rock and roll”. Did hair bands represent a stepping stone toward decadance? Maybe. However, the drag shows with children in attendance are something entirely different, and I think you know this.
Hollywood’s been in a moral decline since the 1960’s Era they haven’t made as many as box office block buster since Star Wars back in 1977 then the show their total hypocrisy about Guns and The Climate
Oh yes…let Hollyweird die…completely! May the whole vile industry go up in financial flames and more moral (and more talented) producers and writers replace them. To all those involved in the disgusting entertainment industry, from sick musicians to debased Netflix, I say Burn baby burn! Cleanse America,
Hollywood is dying. Reality shows came out due to actors and writers strikes in the past. In a Reality show, you don’t have to sing, dance or read any lines. Hollywood is now a shrunken industry in importance and size. Maybe it’s important to California but it means nothing anywhere else. If you’re living in Georgia, you ought to have your state pull funding of Hollywood East. It’s all a waste of money.
We don’t have to kill Hollywood; they’re doing a pretty good job on their own.
The ‘average’ person doesn’t go to see their overpriced trash. Few pay for it any longer on the streaming services. They’ve used sex, violence, gay, trans, now grooming is coming of age. Where does the insanity stop? Let the “industry” die, please.
Hollywood pedals depravity. Therefore, it is dead to me.
Hollywood was at its peak when the studio bosses were former garmentos who’d done time on Seventh Avenue en route to Bev. Hills from the Russian pale. Their grandchildren, bolting for the exits of Jewishness and Americanism, made themselves no more substantive than the rootless cosmopolitans Stalin warned about as they perversely champion a Marxist agenda.
Two problems: The “little people” – not the Munchkins but the grips, set builders and myriad others who earn a living making the magic that was once Hollywood; and the second is the economy of Southern California. There are a LOT of everyday people who will be economically devastated by the demise of Hollywood writ large.
Then as lets go brandon said learn to code . Just like everybody else.
It’s absolutely an issue. I don’t want plenty of those people, many of whom are conservative, losing their jobs.
But rather than eliminating a film industry, I would like to see it replaced with a more representative one that caters to the whole country.
There are some good movies out there. They me be hard to find but they exist.
HOLLYWEIRD, the center of WOKE FASCISM, exists only by exploitation, sexploitation and creative accounting.
If hollyweird burned down today, nobody’d care!
there are better ways to do everthing they attempt!
Hollywood has destroyed itself with its movie content. They could have been promoters of courage, bravery, History, moral influence, and good subjects. Instead they went with the woke, and won’t recover..
When do we ever see the slogan by Roy Rogers “Happy Trails to you, till we meet again,.” Those were the Good ole Days. of sanity.
Hollywood Hypocrisy like Celibertis who make movies using Guns then take pat in some phony program Demand a Plan then they so about Climate Change while doing ads for United Airlines(Its Time to Fly)like Robert Redford did
Excuse me, is this a good news story or a bad news story ??
. . . to continue . . . if you lined up the 10 most famous movie stars who’ve become famous since the year 2000, I think I’d be able to name 2 or 3 of them.
Another great article. Excellent advice. Incidentally, those Hollywood Ten really were Commies out to subvert the nation, slipping in Commie messages in regular films such as “The Best Years of our Lives.”
Hollywood will do ITSELF in without help from anyone. “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.” Napoleon Bonaparte.
For a long time, Hollywood accountants have been more creative than writers. The biggest blockbusters somehow never make a profit. Max Bialystock (of the movie The Producers) has nothing on them.
AI might do better than the real stupidity of the current management of studios. Used to be, producers knew what people wanted, and gave it to them. Now, they are trying to tell us what we are supposed to like..
Serves them right, now they can own nothing, and be happy with that, just to show us the way of the future!