Docs/Interviews That Emphasize Degeneracy In Arts?

Cafe Society
1

Especially movies and music?

Personally, I think the last 40 years have been dead (I’m not that old, so no, its not nostalgia for me - just talent)…

I don’t know if the following YouTube movie is any good, but it seems to be along the lines of what I’m talking about. I watched the 3-minute preview, then saw the entire movie also on YouTube.

I think a lot of it has to do with visuals, especially music. There was a time people had nothing but a radio, and so there was less discrimination. And this is before the 1st MTV video “Video Killed the Radio Star”. You devoted all your attention to the music, instead of the face, tits, ass, clothes (lack of clothes), name, race, gender, orientation, etc etc… Once upon a time in the movie industry, the “dinosaurs” actually LOVED movies, and would take chances. Some lost MILLIONS of dollars with just one movie. Now, you have “people” who are nothing but those who want to turn a profit and don’t care what it is. CGI in movies is another example. A non-stop shoot-out, showing guts all over the screen, disguised as being free (when its exploitative). Car chases… Movies that start with the protagonist having to face 100 ninjas, knowing they won’t kill out the star in the first minute of the movie, so you have to sit and be bored while waiting for the time to die, which is horrible. Time shouldn’t be killed - its one thing you can’t buy.

Or having the freedom to show nudity, akin to being masturbated in a movie theater in the dark. Yeah, you might like it, but not if you are aware of whose doing the jerking.

Then you have the “social” media shit. It seems like the only movies that get attention are those that get all their attention talking about everything EXCEPT the movie itself. Some tweet, twat, post. Someone does something ridiculous, gets the attention, and then “sells” the movie. I notice they never talk about the merits of the film. It’s always, “First Tranny Director” or some other superficial nonsense. And judging by ratings by “professionals”, most seem to sustain from criticizing in fear of being socially ostracized, or being called a ____ist. I actually think political correctness is the ultimate prejudice - having a couple of elites telling EVERYONE else what they can or cannot handle.

It’s sad, because 20 years ago, I thought with the internet accessibility and cheap cameras, that there might be saturation, but there would be REAL diversity (thought, not things you had no control over, like skin pigment)… Someone can make the greatest movie and upload it on YouTube tomorrow. But I don’t see it. This isn’t to criticize, but its a plea for something better. I would love to find an artist whose work I can look forward to seeing. New movie, album, concert (at their peak). Maybe you can create something great and share it with the world? If not, maybe you can introduce people to great things that might have gone under the radar?

2

Okay, Boomer.

3

Well, OP, I hope you can be pointed in the direction of material that gives you hope for quality in new entertainment.

ISTM part of the problem is that the very existence of gatekeepers, that once upon a time filtered for what you or I consider “quality”, can now filter for optimized market return. And contrary to the illusion of organic anarchy that is often attached to social media, it is now known that the platforms are succeptible to social engineering – which beats the film/recording/book houses’ need to risk significant chunks of their own cash to try and push the latest release.

Hey, it’s not like it was always a world filled with creativity, innovation and imagination. The remainder bins at record stores used to be filled with soundalikes to the big stars, and there were hundreds of mediocre or bad westerns (or murder mysteries, or romances) done for each classic we remember.

When even the stock market now runs on an algorithm that periodically goes into runaway trim mode, rather than on human decisionmaking about whether something is a sound investment guidance or just an unfounded rumor, corporate entertainment will of course also function by-the-numbers.

I dunno. “Degeneracy” referring to cultural matters is a term that I associate with pre-Boomer usage. I mean, “degeneracy”, really… what is this, 1920?

And “First Tranny Director”? That’s almost asking for a derail :dubious:

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[Moderating]

That’ll be a Warning for threadshitting, Acsenray.

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I don’t quite know what to make of your rant, but I think that The Matrix is responsible for this special meme (which has been released a fucking 21 years ago). Neo, switching between real Keanu and badly animated Keanu, fighting dozens of even worse digitally cloned Agent Smithes. I just saw that film the other day on TV and noticed again what a ridiculous scene that was.

ETA: Though, I thought about it a bit further, and you also wouldn’t have supposed John Wayne to die in a shooting at the start of a classic John Ford Western. And that was always the case with Hollywood movies, the predictability.

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Sorry, forgot to put in the link to the appalling scene from the Matrix.

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Okay, Chronos, that’s fair.

But let’s call it an unwise on my part reduction of several ideas:

  1. The gist of the OP, so far as it can be deduced, amounts to a “these kids today” rant. The fact is that people today as a whole are no better or no worse than they ever were. We can see that in political trends. Large numbers of people are unable to resist their worst natures. Sometimes our civilization is dragged forward into improvements. Sometimes it’s dragged backward.

  2. The OP is full of “damn political correctness” nonsense. “Tranny director”? Really? You’re going to top it off with a slur? Do you deny that there are groups of people who have been systematically marginalized? Why do you speak so contemptously of things that are actually getting better?

  3. Degeneracy? You know who else liked to complain of degeneracy?

  4. Every age has had people who wanted to express themselves about sex and violence. Sometimes they did it in secret, sometimes not. When it comes to violence, it seems better to depict it than engage in it. Eras in which these subjects were repressed weren’t better than today, except for a tiny ruling class.

  5. To the extent that something’s perverting our cultural expressions, it’s the dominance of amoral corporations who will always push for what’s most profitable. So, if you have a problem with the system, rant about late-stage capitalism rather than degeneracy of the modern generation.

  6. Really? You’re going to say “tranny”? And then complain about degeneracy?

  7. Constructing a persona around being a Mort Sahl fan doesn’t do much for a person’s credibility as a cultural critic. I’ve heard the guy. He’s a hack.

8

Movies lose money all the time. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets lost something like a hundred million dollars, not too long ago because someone took a chance on a sweeping sci-fi epic. Does that not count?

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Nitpick, that’s M:Reloaded from 2003.

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First, let me say that I’m older than the OP.

I have a subscription to the New York Times. Every Friday they review the week’s movie releases. In normal times that’s about 20 movies from all over the world. A thousand movies a year. How many of those are Hollywood blockbusters? Guessing even 10% would be too many.

Netflix released 371 series and movies in 2019, an increase from 240 in 2018.

Amazon Prime and Hulu and Quibi and the zillion other streaming channels probably equaled or bettered that number.

Every time I read through an article about entertainment I see names of people who started out on YouTube, built up a following, and then got a bigger contract.

There’s no shortage of good, maybe great, original and innovative programming being made. It might not be aimed at people in our age bracket, but the good new stuff has never in history been aimed at people in our age bracket. If the OP wants to watch it, do the work and hunt it down. But stop complaining that stuff you don’t watch and probably have never heard of is inferior or degenerate.

11

How do you feel about Back to the Future?

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Sorry, I saw bits of both films in the last days, and I mixed up the two parts. But I meant the scene I linked to.

13

Not sure I get it, but The Decline of Western Civilization, maybe?

There is a Part 2 as well. A sequel to a decline? I dunno, man.

14

you know Hollywood has always been big on sequels… i mean 25 blondie movies in 15 years… some series were cranking new ones every 12 weeks and the public didn’t mind a whole lot back then
one difference is you dont have the studio system (Disney is the closest modren equivalent) which was built on the theory 5 or 10 great movies with 10 or so great stars supporting the 30 mediocre movies and 50 ok stars

also the studios cant own the theatres which don’t help absorb the losses either

one technique was say the oater “cattle drive” didn’t make much? keep it in the warner’s theatre circuit until it does … modern theaters can’t do that today although some networks use the method…

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AND there’s a Part 3. It, too was about the metal and punk scene in L.A., and was made in the late 1990s.

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Ya gotta admit, ‘banned by the Nazis’ looks good on your CV. Not to highjack, but that’s an interesting artistic side street to take a detour down.

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I like it.

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It came out within “the last 40 years”.

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Anyway, check out the documentary, and then maybe we can dissect and have a conversation about it.

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I didn’t say it was great. That movie was one I saw as a kid (we actually had it), so that actually has nostalgia, but I’ll give you a great movie made within the last 40 years.

“Buffalo '66”… I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but its very original, even if many fans will say its “Cassavetes-lite” (even using Ben Gazzarra, who was in John’s small acting troupe). But I’ve seen hundreds of movies in the last 40 years that were really bad, unoriginal, bad writing, bad acting. I think even the talented ones realize this, but go along with the trends to make money.