"What is the purpose of Hollywood?" Topic

This is I hope the other side of the question on real life crisis Hollywood ignores.

Hollywood isn't here, nor can it either survive or be justified by alerting us to vast crisis. That's the job of newspapers, literature, and comedy.

And believe me the most devastating comment is satire.

Hollywood is entertainment, not education or information. It's job is to pick, people up, dust them off, and say "It's not so bad. Just keep living. It will get better."

And believe me the most effective elixir is comedy.

It's purpose is to help us survive the pain and suffering of our lives and hope for a better world.

So if you already know the answer, why did you ask 😀

To give the useful idiots someplace to congregate.

Useful???? I think you are being generous Stonemountain

To shift money from everyday people into the the accounts of film execs, superstar actors and luxury goods vendors.

The purpose of Hollywood is to take the history or literature of other cultures, and change or misrepresent it.

To make money by making movies.

Ultimately it's a business like any other business; the purpose is to make money.

That is truthful and very cynical at the same time. There are still people out there who have the knowledge, skill, and integrity to make quality art.

I'm pretty sure the purpose of Hollywood is whatever the heck it wants it to be, not one persons opinion of what they want it to be. Given that it makes the odd buck or two, mind you.

"idiots"? A bit of a sweeping generalization. I enjoy a bunch of stuff that comes out of Hollywood, and I avoid another bunch of stuff that comes out of Hollywood.

Idiots = People who like things that I don't (Mind you, by that definition on my part there are a LOT of idiots out there).

The purpose of any for profit corporation is to make money, anything else is just the way they go about doing so. The purpose of non-profits is to make money too.

To provide people with very little to zero talent of any kind who graduated from an "Acting School" over paid and over glorified jobs they actually don't deserve.

"The purpose of Hollywood is to take the history or literature of other cultures, and change or misrepresent it." and shape it for their own agenda.

The idiots need someplace to live that is not in my neighborhood.

If Hollywood's main purposes were quality and integrity, then it would only produce for Public Broadcasting. Obviously it doesn't because it is a big business. The deplorable fare offered up these days is largely due to the fact that the only dependable audience left consists of teenagers desperate for an excuse to get out of the house and away from the parents. The actual content isn't all that important for that audience. Cable, satellite TV, and streaming on-demand services have largely eliminated adult theater audiences, not that being an adult necessarily is any guarantee of good taste.

Original purpose? To entertain with a little escapism and make money doing so.

Today? To make people into actually believing a manufactured alternate reality, even via "Indy"* projects that will not pay off at the box office. There seems to be a concerted effort to overwhelm the masses with material intended to engineer our social and other norms in a very specific direction.

Now, who or what is using Hollywood as their tool to distract our population into acting that way, and to what purpose, is a matter of MUCH controversy.

Dan
* I love it when I hear hipster geniuses tell me they only watch "Indy" movies (political documentaries) and then they mention names of films produced indirectly by the same Hollywood studios. Or when they tell me that something must be true if so many different sources are speaking about it. Lol, so much for today's era of "enlightenment".

+1 StoneMtnMinis

I miss the old studio system, when "stars" were traded like baseball cards, and told to what to do, and what not to do.

I don't care….

The same as this talk back.

The movie industry is not a person, and therefor does not have a purpose. It may be put to a use, but that is quite different.

My goodness! What a bunch of hard boiled cynics! So you all see NO positive role for film entertainment?

I can admit to the correctness of much of the dystopian vision you have of Hollywood and the film industry in many cases but not all. As for "useful idiots" surely you don't mean anyone who goes is a useful idiot?

It is obvious that the industry is there to make money all corporations do. But consider that they do in fact make money and unlike the former Soviet Union no one drives them into the theaters to watch.

Therefore they answer a need.

The need may be escapism, dreams, hopes, fears, diversion or any of the mortal sins or cardinal virtues, but the need is there.

If that need is pernicious then is the fault in Hollywood or the consumers?

Admittedly much of what "Hollywood" (using it as a label for the entire entertainment industry) does is dreck, but there are now and then gems among the dross. We all have half a dozen films at least that we dearly love and not just because they are about our favorite battles or they get the uniforms right.

My own opinion, which I gave in the original post was to divert us from the horrors and unpleasantness of day to day life which often seems to offer no hope, no joy, endless care and suffering.

That Hollywood often fails to live up to its potential is something everyone on the planet does as well.

I prefer the Ernst Lubitsch screwball social comedies from the 30's and a good Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy film to the nasty vicious spiteful "comedies" that come out today. I can't stand the modern slasher-horror films of today but will hook in easily to the classic horror film canon of "Dracula" "Frankenstein," "The Mummy" and "Wolfman." To each his own. Some people like "war movies" like Saving Private Ryan, I prefer "Random Victory" and "Mrs. Minniver."

We all desire at times entertainment.

So in your lives is there NO films or NO shows that you have been especially fond of and have touched you? If there is then Hollwood has a purpose and provided a useful one to you?

That's not the point.

If I had no notion of what A-list actors opinions were on anything, and good writers were put on a golden pedestal like Big Name Directors, it would be jolly wonderful. They're all just a bunch of cartoon Marie Antoinettes.

God, I hope they don't track their dementia into north Georgia.

Otto, you may be correct – that 'Hollywood' answers
a need.

BUT, that 'need' may not exist among the users of this
forum, hence the responses to your original post.

Perhaps if you asked the question of the target audience
of 'Hollywood products,' whomever and wherever they are.

Otto, you didn't ask me whether there were or were not shows of which I was especially fond. Certainly there are. You asked me whether "Hollywood" had a purpose. Demonstrably it does not.

The first key to getting the proper answer is asking the right question.

I think a few tinfoil hats need to be loosened a bit.

"To make people into actually believing a manufactured alternate reality" ? What does that even mean? What sort of alternate reality are you talking about here? One where good people actually prosper?

And I have worked with journalists and media for the last 12 years, I've even been paid to write for newspapers and magazines, which I suppose makes me part of that 'industry'.

If you want a manufactured alternate reality, I suggest you looks at some tv networks and the tabloid press.

Khusrau: "And I have worked with journalists and media for the last 12 years, I've even been paid to write for newspapers and magazines, which I suppose makes me part of that 'industry'."

Lol. I started my relationship with local, state and national news media before 2001 as PIO for a government agency (which means I often get to actually see both sides of the story). Some foreign media too.

But if you're one of the few still with scruples left in that industry, then good for you!

Dan
PS. So Hollywood is actual reality? Lol. Got tinfoil?

The "purpose of Hollywood" is to make money for its investors. If it doesn't, it is abandoning its fiduciary responsibility.
Why is that so hard to grasp?
If you want fine art, find an Indie film that's financed by a recent lottery winner.
Correct uniforms, the right Tank, following the book or history etc are all irrelevant. It's getting the money back and making a nice profit are all that matter. "Getting it right" is nice, but not necessary.

Sturgeon's Law applies.

The writer/director of the recent Australian bushranger film, 'The Legend of Ben Hall', is fanatically devoted to historical accuracy, and it shows in the final product. The plot adhered very closely to the real sequence of events, and the movie can't be faulted in terms of costume, weapons, and other historical details, but… it received a very limited release (two cinemas in this state, only one of which is metropolitan), and cinematically falls far short of greatness. I suspect that the two planned prequels that were dependent on good box office takings might have been put on ice.