Times are Changing
If you don’t know the reference in the title, don’t worry. It is from a different time. The obvious benefit of age is remembering all the different times and how they changed. Sometimes you get a confluence of events, a tectonic shift so distinctive that it is named an era, a period, or an age. Well, we are reaching an end to such a period, and I don’t know it’s name, but I know times are changing to something new.
What period or age was it? You could point to its beginning in some bizarre and inexplicable election results in the United States, Brazil, UK, and other places. Here in the good ole’ US, we would focus on the loony election of a bankrupt-prone businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump in 2016. Perhaps that was the beginning of this era, an era of angry populism, nationalism, polarization, and sadly, political violence. Politics became a topic we could not discuss in civil conversation anymore.
Is it over? No, but there are clear signs that it is receding and could be gone (see midterm election results in Arizona, Pennsylvania, etc.). We’ll know for sure after the next set of elections.
Another era began around the same time that focused public attention on social issues like sexual harassment, gender discrimination, trans rights, preferred pronouns, and the aggressive re-crafting of language to eliminate problematic words and phrases. Not only did you have to be careful talking about politics, you had to be extremely careful with what words you used in daily life. It was the time of cancel culture, the destruction of careers, and the arrest of Harvey Weinstein.
Is it over? These causes will persist of course, but will it dominate as it has of late? Weinstein was convicted and will die in prison. Yet, since then there are fewer careers being destroyed by cancel culture, with celebrities like Dave Chappelle surviving attempted boycotts. Bill Maher and others openly criticize the orthodoxy of these movements without fear now.
Then there’s the overt political messaging in entertainment, something of great interest to those on Twitter and YouTube. Is it over? Well, seeing as it is a business the question is whether it is profitable or part of a viable business strategy. The answer is clearly no. In 2022, we saw the list of box office and TV bombs grow. No more could they blame COVID lock downs. It wasn’t the country, it was the content. Thus far in 2023, theater box office receipts are still approximately 25-35 percent down from pre-Covid levels.
Large production companies are not yet openly stating a departure from the messaging and virtue signaling of their products, but given announced cancellations and altering of major projects, they don’t need to. Entertainment is a business and they can no longer afford to bleed money with passion projects and creatives with radical agendas.
The era of COVID is at an end. The lockdowns and restrictions largely expired last year but the trauma it left on the world lingers. Yet, with every passing year we move closer towards a post-pandemic environment.
Lastly, there’s the era of easy money. Interest rates have remained low for most of the past 15 years thanks to a spend-happy federal government and compliant Federal Reserve. Bubbles emerged, inflation followed, and many many bad ideas got funded. This is definitely ending. Failing ideas are now going bankrupt, bloated companies are making layoffs, speculators are losing money, and a couple banks collapsed.
How many times have we heard the phrase “fail upward” or in our own lives seen an incompetent person or team be elevated? How many times has executive ego kept bad ideas afloat because of their inability to admit they were wrong? How many horrible movies and TV shows were made, despite their obvious flaws? Later, the creators lashed out at the audience, essentially blaming the customers for these failures. Not exactly a winning strategy. Now those creators will struggle to get their next projects off the ground.
Times they are a-changin’. Our politics, our civil discourse, and entertainment is changing. Will it be better? Who knows, but it will be different.
Civil discourse will continue to slowly tone down and this wild populist era will end. They always do. Historically, it takes about 10-15 years for populist fads to die out and they are followed by a return closer to equilibrium. That is where we will be soon, perhaps by 2024 election.
Movies will have a different tone. There will be fewer TV shows, and those that premiere in the near future will not take as many risks such as indulging creatives and their agendas. Repositioning of old IPs will likely slow down. Some experimental projects will be cancelled. We will need to wait for what the next wave of creators and projects will look like, although my guess is they will move back towards the mean and towards more conventional storytelling.
Follow the money. Expect to see more Avatar: The Way of Water, Top Gun: Maverick, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Everything Everywhere all at Once, and House of the Dragon.
You will see less of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, less Rings of Power, less Halo, less Kurtzman Star Trek, less DCEU, less Witcher, and potentially a lot less Kennedy Star Wars.
I, for one, am optimistic about the future. It won’t be a golden age, but it will be different than the last age, and that’s good enough for me.