Race to the bottom—movies and propaganda
Much has been said lately of the decline—perhaps permanent—of the film industry. It’s the peak of summer blockbuster season, and the top movie in America only made $20 million the other weekend. That is basically a repudiation of Hollywood entirely. It’s been said a million times, but it’s true—nobody really cares about movies anymore. American life long ago even pretended to offer the mass of people a shot at a decent life—nobody is going to be able to buy a house making $15 an hour; nobody is going to find a decent wife or husband on a dating app; nobody is going to be able to do the basic things that every American used to be able to do. Everyone knows this by now—hence mass shootings, opioid addictions, and on and on.
But now can't even get good movies anymore. And I notice that this isn’t just about Hollywood—we can’t even get good propaganda anymore. Geopolitical upheavals all fizzle out as soon as they begin, and we can't even get good movies anymore either. Remember a couple weeks ago when there was some potential civil war coup thing that was going to change the whole Russia-Ukraine conflict? Some guy called Wagner? Most of the liberal media establishment lost its mind for like a day, convinced that everything was going to change—and nothing changed at all. Back in February of this year, Biden visited Ukraine, and there was a big hubbub about an air raid siren sounding, to make it seem really dangerous and out of control. But the story was forgotten as soon as it came up.
The point is that the deteriorating stage craft of the CIA/Biden admin/consent manufacturers has gone along with the deteriorating stage craft of film and tv studios. Every movie sucks now, and we can’t even get good propaganda.
Political disengagement is going along with entertainment disengagement—nobody bothers following politics, or even voting, anymore, and nobody bothers seeing movies anymore. And less effort is put into both of them, because the powers that be realize that they don’t even need to bother doing anything well, because at this point the machinery of statecraft has its own inertia, regardless of its merit or content or how anyone feels about it.