https://archive.ph/2022.03.25-133359/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/25/opinion/oscars-movies-end.html
But the effects-driven blockbuster, more than its 1980s antecedents, empowered a fandom culture that offered built-in audiences to studios, but at the price of subordinating traditional aspects of cinema to the demands of the Jedi religion or the Marvel cult. And all these shifts encouraged and were encouraged by a more general teenage-ification of Western culture, the extension of adolescent tastes and entertainment habits deeper into whatever adulthood means today.
Over time, this combination of forces pushed Hollywood in two directions. On the one hand, toward a reliance on superhero movies and other “presold” properties, largely pitched to teenage tastes and sensibilities, to sustain the theatrical side of the business. (The landscape of the past year, in which the new “Spider-Man” and “Batman” movies between them have made over a billion dollars domestically while Oscar hopefuls have made a pittance, is just an exaggerated version of the pre-Covid dominance of effects-driven sequels and reboots over original storytelling.) On the other hand, toward a churn of content generation to feed home entertainment and streaming platforms, in which there’s little to distinguish the typical movie — in terms of casting, direction or promotion — from the TV serials with which it competes for space across a range of personal devices.
Under these pressures, much of what the movies did in American culture, even 20 years ago, is essentially unimaginable today. The internet has replaced the multiplex as a zone of adult initiation. There’s no way for a few hit movies to supply a cultural lingua franca, given the sheer range of entertainment options and the repetitive and derivative nature of the movies that draw the largest audiences.
The possibility of a movie star as a transcendent or iconic figure, too, seems increasingly dated. Superhero franchises can make an actor famous, but often only as a disposable servant of the brand. The genres that used to establish a strong identification between actor and audience — the non-superhero action movie, the historical epic, the broad comedy, the meet-cute romance — have all rapidly declined.
I think the video game industry is a microcosm of this and have been like that for years now. The industry is built around the demographic of teenage shitheads with small worldview who just play the same damn games and genres over and over again. The industry is built around chasing whatever the current trend is and driving it to the ground, companies pretty much sticks hard to whatever genre they're known for and only make games in that lane. We even have reached the point with Gacha games where the exploitative skinner box mechanism isn't hidden behind the curtain, but rather up in the front as the entire core gameplay.
Of course, off the side we still have indie devs doing cool unusual shit like :lt-dbyf-dubois: or Cruelty Squad. But just like indie movies, the only people who know indie stuff are those who are already in the know in the first place, and are still ultimately a miniscule minority when compared to the mainstream industry raking billions of dollars monthly.
I don't know if this relates to your point but this is why I play almost only single player games involving stealth (whether exclusively or one of many options) or strategy. The rot is strong in multiplayer
I haven't bought a AAA game in years. They all look so bland and boring - I don't know how anyone can get interested in the new Assassin's Creed or Far Cry games or whatever else when they're so trite and basic. Half of them are just a multiplayer only thing, and seeing those just makes me want to play the games I already have because they aren't doing anything new. The other half are these horrible unending open world games where you just have the most bland, undesigned map ever and a random scattering of scavenger hunt bullshit in the place of actual gameplay. Like sure, they look pretty, but they're not actually conducive to interesting or fun gameplay. I won't even play good games with open worlds anymore because after I sat through all of Borderlands 2 I never want to have to go to a place ever again, and I'm actively having to fight myself to play Fallout: New Vegas. The only stuff I can even understand people liking from recent years is stuff like FromSoft games and Nintendo stuff, since those still have some kind of coherent vision instead of just trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
I recently voiced my fear to two friends that the GTA Online/Fortnite Battlepass model will consume all of gaming and I was rather shocked when they were all for it
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