BROKEBACK FAMILY VALUES

 

 

 

David R. Usher
December 31, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

These days, the film industry bemoans decreasing box office sales by crying about illegal downloads of movies. If all the major providers of peer-to-peer software had not been shut down, they might have a point.

Industries who think consumers are slaves to their products usually end up in this boat. The consumer goes elsewhere.

�Brokeback Mountain� has netted a paltry $4.9 million in box office sales, nearly identical to �Memoirs of a Geisha.� Both movies have been out for about two weeks. King Kong has earned twenty times more in only eight days of apish reincarnation.

Here is a wake-up call for Hollywood: Nearly one-fourth of viewers gave Brokeback Mountain an �F�, while 69.4% gave it an A, leaving no middle-ground. We can easily guess who these votes came from on both sides of this tin coin.

Golden Globe elites went into plebian parinirvana over the idea of two married cowboys rustling something more than livestock on the range. Monkeys go �ape� seeing themselves in the mirror, too. A �Gone With The Wind� this is not.

The business model for film distribution is changing rapidly in ways Hollywood is loathe to admit. With cable and satellite, viewers do not need to waste money going out to see movies they do not really want to see, out of sheer boredom. We can more easily surf cable to watch the best of the worst, in far more comfortable surroundings, with our favorite snacks just a few steps away. The box office and DVD rentals merely give us time to figure out what we really want to see.

Hollywood no longer has a monopoly on entertainment. The internet and video games are where celluloid ex-pats now reside.

Consumer dollar-votes are most instructive. The fish now know the difference between a real worm and a fake one with a hook on it. We are no longer addicted to seeing the latest insult to family values just so we can pretend we are hip while complaining about it at lunch.

Subscribe to the NewsWithViews Daily News Alerts! Enter Your E-Mail Address:

Shock entertainment will be an increasingly marginal market. Those who wish to be successful in film and television will look to the great box office hits, shows, and the legendary acts for new foundations for the film industry.

� 2005 David Usher - All Rights Reserved