Yes, Hollywood Has Been Feminized, and It’s Ruining Everything
By now, most people can see that the American entertainment industry is in terminal decline. Last month marked a new record in low box-office returns, and the year as a whole will likely set a similar record for financial losses. We are long past the COVID shutdowns, but even so, fewer people seem to have any interest in going to the cinema or even checking out new television series.
Debate rages about what has led to this decline. Perhaps the best explanation is that advances in media technology have led to the dominance of streaming platforms and the rise of what culture critic Ted Goia regards as “dopamine culture,” characterized by the production and consumption of mindless content on addictive online platforms like TikTok. When compared to the money and effort required to go to a cineplex stinking of popcorn and teenagers, it’s far easier to stay home and watch reruns of The Office or scroll through amusing YouTube shorts.
The entertainment industry has also been impacted by globalization. Faceless corporate giants like Apple and Amazon are taking control of production studios. Instead of supporting talented storytellers who want to express their creativity, this new leadership aims to streamline content that appeals to the broadest possible audience for a solid return on investment, like selling a smartphone. Coming from tech and finance, these types are rarely interested in investing in talent or meaningful artistic work. As a result, the movies produced by their studios are often poorly made, bland, and quickly forgettable.
Then, of course, there is the problem of incorporating progressive messaging and mind-numbing political correctness (i.e., going woke) in all new movies and shows. While much of this reflects the sincere leftist sensibilities of filmmakers and performers, some of it was undoubtedly part of the “strategy” of the noncreative corporate leadership hoping monetize the zeitgeist.
But, as the saying goes, “Go woke, go broke.” Most audiences didn’t care for the girlbosses, forced diversity, and tales of liberation from the old order. Only now, after so many “flopbusters” losing millions, are filmmakers and actors taking the hint. This was recently demonstrated when actress Jennifer Lawrence suddenly realized that sharing her leftist political views was turning off audiences.
All the same, most of today’s challenges for filmmakers and artists could be overcome with the proper effort and talent. Put another way, it is possible even now to create a good, non-woke movie that appeals to a broad audience, but only if those working on the project are capable, maintain rigorous standards, and consciously pursue excellence in their respective genre.
Indeed, this was the norm in Old Hollywood. Genius directors, writers, and producers would work on projects with talented casts supported by crews of brilliant technicians, craftsmen, and animators. Everyone knew these individuals were often difficult, abrasive, and temperamental, but to operate at such a high level, they also understood they would need to sacrifice some peace and validation. Such is the nature of any artistic endeavor.
Unfortunately, this fundamental truth has been forgotten or deliberately ignored by today’s creators of popular culture. The competitive drive and exacting perfectionism that used to characterize the American entertainment industry have gradually been replaced by a warm and fuzzy mediocrity and clumsy virtue-signaling. At all levels, the difficult yet impressive impresarios and performers have been replaced with uninspired yes-men and embattled ideologues.
So what caused this? Conservative writers Helen Andrews and Joy Pullmann offer a compelling answer: systemic feminization. In a recent essay that has since gone viral, Andrews explains how so many sectors of the economy and academia have been feminized. Not only do women outnumber men in many institutions, but they are imposing a more feminine culture that encourages “empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”
Although she largely agrees with Andrews’s essay, Pullmann notes that this cultural transformation is not a simple switch from masculinity to femininity. Rather, it’s more the takeover of a kind of transgenderism (women acting like men and men acting like women) over traditional gender division: “our society has reversed men and women’s roles and in so doing abandoned both masculinity and femininity.”
The result is a toxic mishmash of values that combines the worst of both. Instead of masculinity and femininity, we get some confused, aggressive, and arbitrarily applied vision of conformity and safetyism at all levels, with little concern for excellence. In such a system, people advance by maintaining the status quo, pleasing the right people, and discrediting rivals who fail to follow the rules. Success is determined by maximizing harmony and collective self-esteem, not by delivering high-quality products consistently and efficiently.
The American entertainment industry was already feminizing (or transgenderizing) since Obama’s presidency—say 2008 onward—but this transformation was made complete by the #MeToo movement 10 years later. In a matter of weeks, serious male filmmakers and producers were canceled and replaced by less offensive substitutes (usually women) willing to compromise quality to push a political message. Perhaps there was some nominal cleaning up of Hollywood as a result of this, and perhaps it helped to empower some unfairly neglected women, but it all came at the heavy cost of ceasing to produce movies and shows that normal people would care to watch.
Not surprisingly, since 2018 the blockbusters that stand out as exceptions are unapologetically masculine or feminine, like Top Gun: Maverick and Barbie. Apart from these few exceptions, however, Hollywood churns out mostly safe, unoriginal, and dumb products. As a rule, the characters are shallow and unrealistic, the plots are predictable and simplistic, the dialogue is glib and cliché, and even the visuals look shoddy and unappealing.
If this is all we can expect from filmmaking today, then it makes sense that most audiences have migrated to rewatching old media or consuming user-generated content. And no, it won’t matter if studios finally cut out the woke elements in their movies. Slop is slop, whether it promotes leftist ideology or not.
What we need is a return to excellence and objectivity (as Andrews prescribes) as well as to traditional masculinity and femininity (as Pullmann prescribes). Whether Hollywood is ready to accept a meritocratic system that honors both masculine and feminine virtues is another matter entirely. It took a long time for Jennifer Lawrence to realize that no one cared about her political opinion, so it may take several more years for production studios to do what’s necessary to make money again. For the sake of popular culture and real entertainment, let’s hope they come to their senses.
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/yes-hollywood-has-been-feminized-and-its-ruining-everything