They call the early half of the twentieth century the Golden Age of Hollywood, but it might more aptly be called the American Age. In those days, the American people had a great love for Hollywood. On an average week, three quarters of the population turned out to the local theater.
Contrast that with today when, according to a recent poll, fewer than 40 percent of Americans approve of Hollywood, and only ten percent of the population shows up at the theater each week.
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Like many of the readers and contributors at Big Hollywood, Declaration Entertainment is interested in why this change, this sharp reduction in approval and attendance, took place. Undoubtedly it is a complex issue with many variables over a long period of time. The advent of television and home video, digital downloads and piracy are all factors. So too is the explosion of other forms of media entertainment, from video games to the Internet. But while these changes in landscape have unquestionably cut into the dominance of the Hollywood theatrical experience in terms of the sheer numbers of viewers, they do not seem to explain the reduction in affinity.
To understand Hollywood’s dismal approval ratings – better than Congress, of course, but horrid none-the-less – other factors must be considered.
The knee-jerk answer for many on the right is that Hollywood’s anti-Americanism stems directly from its well-known liberalism. They argue that actors like Sean Penn and Danny Glover cozying up to communist despots and Middle-Eastern dictators, and bleeding-hearts like George Clooney and Barbara Streisand campaigning for the Democrat du jour alienate half of the population who might otherwise support their films. But liberalism in Hollywood is nothing new. Communist meetings were common fare in Tinseltown throughout the Golden Age, culminating in the McCarthyism of the 1950s.
The difference was that the movies themselves remained pro-American, even if the people making them dreamed of a socialist Utopian, post-national world.
So why did the movies change? Why did Hollywood stop championing the values of the average American citizen? Why did the anti-Americanism that used to simmer below the surface of Hollywood finally boil over unchecked?
The answer to the ruin of cinema lies in the same place as the ruin of almost everything else – Government. In 1948, the Supreme Court decided, in a case called United States v. Paramount Studios, Inc., that the big movie studios could no longer own the movie theaters where their films were played. To do so, the court ruled, was a violation of the Sherman Anti-trust act of 1890.
Ironically, the United States was both the winner and the loser in this case. The undoubtedly well-meaning members of the federal government, anxious to prevent a monopoly, did succeed in forcing the studios to divest themselves of their theaters, but the American people were robbed of their direct voice in influencing the films Hollywood would make.
As long as the studios that paid to produce the movies also sold the movies directly to the American people, audience support for a film at the theater was critical to the studio’s bottom-line. Simply put, the studios could not afford to make movies the American people did not want to see.
After United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc, however, a new entity came into existence – the Theater Owner. Now, this third-party sat between the studio who took the risk to make the film, and the audience who would pay to see it. These theater owners, rightly, had to make money as well, and in addition to the monies they make on popcorn and candy, they used their powerful new positions (the studios cannot survive if they cannot distribute their movies) to demand a huge portion of the ticket revenue – more than half in most cases.
This left the studios forced to look elsewhere for their revenues. Today’s Hollywood is masterful at finding creative ways to make money. They have to be. Since the American theatergoer no longer pays the studios, but the theater owner, the American theatergoer is not Hollywood’s chief concern.
Instead, they look to other markets. TV, DVD, and the biggest market of all – the foreign market. Markets, really. There are 42 of them worldwide with literally billions of potential customers, many of whom have values inconsistent with most of Hollywood’s old audience – the American people – but uniquely sympathetic to the values that Hollywood has always harbored quietly.
So the American people no longer get the movies they want to see because the American people no longer drive the revenue stream. Government do-gooders, trying to protect the public, created through that pesky detriment of all statist machinations – the Law of Unintended Consequences – a worse problem than the one they sought to solve.
American movies have never been the same.
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