David,
When I say that you write like a critic and not an investor, I mean it as a compliment. I am perfectly willing to concede that many money-making movies, books, and television shows are meretricious trash, constituting a level of obscenity that a nice straightforward porno film cannot match. But let me be the zillionth person to point out that it is not show art, it is not show friends, it is show business and that publicly held companies are in the business of making money for their shareholders. If companies were paid on the basis of their reviews (and if we could find a way to subtract the “reviewers” who provide blurb-o-matic raves just to get their names in the ads) then you’d probably have fewer but better movies, but right now they are paid on the basis of box office returns. (And video sales and Lion King toothbrushes and lunch boxes, etc.) The suits are there to make sure that they sell a lot. I am even willing to concede that the indie companies make something of a Faustian bargain when they sell themselves to the big, bad corporations. But guess what, like Faust, they had free will, and they probably had an even better idea than Faust did that they were dealing with some really bad guys. So, let them take their big fat checks and start up new indie companies again. That’s what I love about the unquenchable creative (and the entrepreneurial) spirit. When the Sundance festival becomes too mainstream, the fringe types come up with Slamdance, and when that gets too mainstream, something else will come along.
One good thing about being a capitalist tool is that the unforgiving marketplace (Adam Smith’s invisible foot) comes along and kicks you in the butt if you get too sedentary. As a result, capitalists have to be more revolutionary and open minded than the faded flower children and the counterculture elitists who still mournfully recite the old saws about middle class taste. Not every successful artist is a Salieri. Shakespeare and Rembrandt did not want for an audience in their day. Happiness might not find a broad-based audience among the simple suburban peasants who patronize Blockbuster or among the “gutless” owners you want to feel a more obligation to educate the palate of their customers, but it will find its audience. That’s what the marketplace of ideas is all about.
Speaking of tired old saws, let’s put another one to rest. As the Movie Mom, I often hear “I’d rather my child see sex on the screen than violence,” and in some situations I agree. But sex can be as abusive as violence.
Children who are bitten by a dog or hit by a car might bleed a great deal and still be better off than a child who is molested or who witnesses sexual acts. The scars from being molested may be invisible, but they last much longer, even for generations, and they twist growth in ways that make you long for a good, clean bullet wound. There’s a reason for the latency period. Most kids don’t want to deal with the hypersexuality of movie images that well-meaning adults foist on them out of misguided liberalism. Furthermore, most children will not actually have to deal with violence. All of them will eventually have to deal with sex. And many movies send children and adolescents dangerous messages that, without the context that we have as adults, they perceive as societal norms. That is particularly true–oh new father of a daughter–for girls. Sex can be well done. Violence can be well done. You can’t assume that one is less harmful than the other.
Meanwhile, it appears that CNN reads “The Breakfast Table,” as I’ve just come back from taping some soundbites about the fired CEO at Cendant for tonight’s Moneyline.
One thing I added to what I wrote this morning is this telling fact: last year, the audit committee (including two out of four members with economic ties to the company and apparently none with any accounting expertise) met twice last year, while the compensation committee (which was working out this lulu of a severance package) met eight times. Now that’s obscene.
