June
29Escaping Bad Times
Glance at the weekend box office numbers and the ‘big question’ pops up at you: Does bad news mean good news to Hollywood?
The economy is plunging into a recession and millions of people are losing their homes, but folks are nonetheless lining up to spend their remaining bucks at their local megaplexes. During the month of June, movie grosses were 17% ahead of last year, and attendance was up 14%, while revenues for the summer are running substantially ahead of last year’s record numbers.
So what’s going on here? Are the movies that much better? I don’t think so (although both the critics and the audiences applauded Pixar’s “Wall-E” this weekend -- a rare convergence).
What we’re seeing, I’d argue, is a need for escapism -- a recurring phenomenon going back to the Great Depression. The war in Iraq grinds on, jobs are disappearing and as many as five or six million more families will lose their homes by year’s end, so people want to forget their cares at the movie palaces.
“We don’t wish hard times on anyone, but the cinema business does very well during challenging economic times,” John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, told Pam McClintock in this week’s Variety.
So given the need for escapism, is Hollywood coming through for its audiences? This summer the studios are serving up a steady diet of superhero fare (ranging from “Iron Man” to “Hancock” to “The Incredible Hulk”) with a sprinkling of comedy (or wannabe comedy like “The Love Guru”). The diet obviously is working, but it’s very narrow compared with the offerings of the past.
I don’t want to get pedantic here, but consider the spectrum of escapist entertainment offered up by Hollywood during the depression era. In the vintage year of 1939 the studios offered up westerns like “Destry Rides Again”, musicals like “The Wizard of Oz”, comedies like “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”, dramas like “Wuthering Heights”, family fare like “Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever”, horror movies like “The Gorilla”, crime movies like “King of the Underworld”, chick flicks like “Bachelor Mother “-- and then there was a tentpole called “Gone with the Wind”.
I know, I know -- the studios don’t have that kind of muscle any more. They don’t own the theaters. They have to compete with the web and video on demand.
Nonetheless, the folks out there are crying for entertainment. Maybe it’s time for Hollywood to widen its focus a little bit. Given the state of the world, the studios could look like heroes if they dreamed beyond superheroes.
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People who are losing their homes (and no there aren't millions of them) wouldn't pay extra money to go to the movies. They would be scrambling to pay their mortgages. People go to good movies because it gives people SOMETHING to do without sitting around the house all weekend.
Posted by: jbinminot | 7/3/2008 7:42:13 PM
Revenues are up? Well...ticket prices are up.
Posted by: SMH | 7/1/2008 6:08:44 AM
Wow Peter. That's quite the opposite of something you just wrote. You wrote "Hollywood's Flight From Reality" not too long ago, right? Saying attendance was down and questioning when Hollywood will recognize the tough times, right? Huh. In that entry you never mentioned escapism but now you do. Come on Peter, pull yourself together, man.
Posted by: Big Tex | 6/30/2008 4:07:12 PM
I believe that people turn to movies during times of great change, challenge and distress, not only to escape, but also to find meaning, understanding, inspiration, hope and courage.
Movies are our modern day storytellers. Whenever indigenous tribes and cultures confronted such times, they looked to their storytellers to tell the archetypal stories that helped them face their fears. They would take heart knowing that others had faced similar hardships and life endured.
I very much agree with you, that at a critical time like this we need more archetypal, mythical stories like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. I am a screenwriter who is moved to write stories that bring meaning to the present and hope for the future. Anybody out there interested?
Posted by: NADYA WYND | 6/30/2008 3:28:09 PM