Is Hollywood Rejecting Agenda-Driven Movies?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Despite the darkness that is so present in Hollywood and the media today, filmmakers are seeing the population’s distaste for agenda-driven and political content and are making a change.
Recent movies have centered around feminism, perversion and other not-so-family-friendly themes. However, new hits like TWISTERS seem to be rejecting that trend.
“I just wanted to make sure that with the movie, we don’t ever feel like it is putting forward any message. I just don’t feel like films are meant to be message-oriented,” said TWISTERS director Lee Chung.
The New York Times reported, “Trend spotting in cinema is a hazardous pursuit. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. TWISTERS, however, is emblematic of a clear shift in Hollywood: After a period of openly using movies to display progressive values, sometimes with success at the box office (BARBIE) and often not (STRANGE WORLD, THE MARVELS, THE COLOR PURPLE, DARK WATERS), studios seem to be heeding a message that many ticket buyers — especially in the center of the country — have been sending for a long time: We just want to be entertained, no homework attached.”
Movie marketer Corby Pons believes that the motive behind this change isn’t as genuine as one would hope. Ultimately, in this rough economy, moviemakers need the profit and will forego their ideologies to get it.
“It’s a reflection of economics and the desperation of the film industry. We want you to attend our movies. We need you to attend our movies,” he said.
Even Disney, heavily criticized for its indoctrination through films like LIGHTYEAR which portrays a same-sex relationship, has changed its tune, saying that its only goal now is to appeal to audiences.
“We have to entertain first — it’s not about messages,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said at a conference late last year. “I don’t really want to tolerate the opposite.”
INSIDE OUT 2 is another example of the entertainment industry’s shift to prioritize movies people actually want to watch. Movieguide® reported:
The movie’s massive success shouldn’t come as a surprise.
As Movieguide® knows, “family-friendly movies reflecting strong Christian, redemptive, moral, biblical, traditional, or conservative principles and values usually do significantly better at the box office in the United States and Canada than those movies that don’t have such strong content.”
INSIDE OUT 2 has done just that.
Movieguide® celebrates its “Very strong moral worldview with some redemptive elements. [It] promotes doing the right thing, controlling your emotions, [and] caring for your friends.”
Regardless of the reasons behind the industry’s change, we can be thankful that it’s a move towards more family-friendly content.