"Popcorn pictures have always ruled. Why do people go and see these popcorn pictures when they're not good? Why is the public so stupid? That's not my fault. I just understood what people liked to go see, and Steven (Spielberg) has too, and we go for that."Thanks for defending us, George! Sorry we made you rich and all. We’ll try to do better next time.
The reality is this: most people live in a place called the Real World. It’s hard for us to get excited about movies centered on child abuse or drug addiction, because we’ve experienced that or know people who have. When we go to the movies, we’re seeking a little something called “escapism”. It’s in the dictionary; you can look it up. We don’t want a mirror held up to us and somebody to say “look how miserable you are!”
Hollywood types, though, live in Phony World. In Phony World all those things exist, too, but they’re swept aside by a torrent of more important things, like the size of J-Lo’s butt or Britney Spears’ haircut. So in Phony World, they think that we’re so distracted by the size of Angelina Jolie’s lips that we didn’t notice there’s problems in Real World, and they take great pains to lecture us on them.
Listen, we know there’s problems. But we’d like a little remove from those problems. Every once in a while, we’d like a lift instead of hearing about what a downer everything is. Every once in a while we want to see the good guys win.
Sometimes Hollywood delivers that, and the movies make tons of money. Mostly, though, Hollywood doesn’t deliver that, so we go elsewhere for entertainment (video games, books, television, the internet). And you know what? By force-feeding us drivel and calling us stupid, you’re encouraging us to look elsewhere.
So enjoy the decline, Hollywood elites. The Real World awaits you, too. Maybe one day one of us norms will make a movie about you.
