Movies are, first and foremost, a business.

They employ thousands of people and push the development of a nation and, by extension, the world.
Movie theaters create jobs as well as help keep some businesses, like travel, lucrative. Streaming services, like Netflix and HBO+, are born. While these cause their own complications with the cable industry, the competition is part of the capitalistic market. I’m for that, especially in this situation.

But, even more than just the movies, the money is in the marketing and merchandise. Disney and Warner Bros are significant examples of how a movie is just the base marketing vehicle for stickers, costumes, jewelry, and theme park tickets that keep increasing every year. Frozen made 1.3 billion dollars at the box office. But, the related merchandise filled Disney’s coffers by over 107 billion dollars. That’s a lot of cake toppers and fidget spinners. But, that’s the reality. The merchandise made over ten times as much as the film.

That’s what movie production companies are looking for. That is what is important to them. It’s not the telling of a story, relating to an audience, or educating about an event.

It’s merchandising! Merchandising! Merchandising! as Yogurt from Space Balls proclaimed. He’s not wrong. Sometimes, the truth can be found in satire.

But, the attitudes of the Hollywood elite try to be elite. The actors, producers, and (sometimes) the writers are direct beneficiaries of capitalism. The fame and name recognition are nice. But, the money, mansions, lavish vacations, and limos. The elite, just like the kings and queens of yesteryear, tended to have the attitude that the wealth was granted to them by the power of their birth and God.

— I know enough about history to know that this isn’t always the case. Some royalty did try to enact social reforms to help the poor. But, that did not keep them from creating play villages for their queens or buying twenty thousand pairs of shoes. Even the best of those who tried spent lavishly on themselves.

And so it is with Hollywood. They are granted special privileges and money but tend not to look at how it is made. It’s kind of like not peeking into the slaughterhouse. Well, that may not be correct. They do, occasionally, look. That’s how Scarlet Johanson knew that Disney was trying to stiff her and Anderson became aware that Duchovney was making way more money than she was.

I guess they like to pretend they don’t look when they’re actually involved in the process. At least football players are honest about how much they make a year as it’s often broadcasted when their contract comes up.

Actors, actresses, musicians… tend to have the attitude that they’re above and beyond us plebians. That’s what the Oscars are for.

It’s a night when they can be artists because no one “truly” understands their art and skills. They sit, cheer for each other, and self-propagate just how awesome they are. But, it’s not enough for them to admire each other. They need us simple folk to waste our lives as well…

—————– Okay.
I kind of lost my chain of thought. I wanted to finish this yesterday and didn’t make it. Now, I’m just kind of blanking on the point I wanted to make.

So, short, short version.

Celebrities have gotten to be really good about lying to themselves. (After all, lying <acting> is the job.) They need public and peer adoration to believe in the lie. It also helps them think that there’s a connection between us plebs and them the royalty.

There are many ways to go about creating this link to the lie. Traditionally, the Oscars and other award shows have been a vehicle for that. The Oscars are defended because the opinions of all of us little people matter about movies, — which is BS. The whole movie industry is absolutely crooked to its core.

And/or .

Movies were, once upon a time, considered a form of art. (Video games aren’t, but movies are. BS detected.) Actors, who are ‘artists,’ only appear in art and not this common dribble that most Americans like – such as superhero movies and comedies.

Only certain movies are nominated for the important categories. They are ‘art’ so we have an answer of what ‘art is’ without knowing or caring what the question is. Apparently, “Dune,” “King Richard,” and “Drive my Car” are art forms.

“Spiderman: No Way Home” and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” are not art. They don’t qualify because they have mass appeal to us plebians. Plebians don’t know know what art is because we’re not educated to see or understand it.

The movies chosen must also be aligned with THE MESSAGE in some way. The movies need to majorly include the current societal themes that are considered ‘right’ and ‘just’ at this particular moment. So, the movies are nominated and, ultimately, the winner must project the woke message in some way.

That doesn’t mean that all nominated movies are artsy to the degree that the normal person won’t enjoy them. I really liked “Don’t Look Up,” for example. But, the majority would rather watch something else than any nominated movie.

Well, actually, they’re wrong and this has been a long time coming.

Just like how the American adult reading level keeps falling, the presentation of a message in the simplest form is what gains attention and money. If there’s some violence and explosions along the way, the better it gains notoriety.

For example, I was at the gym today and watched the first hour of Nightmare Alley. It’s directed by del Toro. I’ve liked his movies in the past and thought that Nightmare Alley sounded promising. I couldn’t finish it. The first hour — seriously meh. The zero plot and character development was a total snooze. I’d rather watch Guardians of Justice again. Instead, I turned to historical documentaries on Youtube.

Getting way off target.

The Oscars is an outdated pageant for self-serving liars who think that they create art. They refuse to believe that they are reliant on us low-brow plebians, without who, they are nobodies who spend way to much on booze and botox.