Let's talk about Hollywood

Not this guy's fault for once

Pop quiz: What's the largest racist, sexist, and just generally slimy organization in America?

If you guessed the KKK, YOU'RE WRONG!

That's right, it's Hollywood.

Hollywood is a giant stagnant cesspool stuck in old conventions in a rapidly changing modern today, and they don't look like they're going to be embracing the future anytime soon.

How Hollywood hates women

Pictured: important to the plot.

This shouldn't be a hard one to figure out. Let's play a little game first, though. I want you to think of, say, your top 10 favorite movies. You got them in your head? Ok, now tell me how many of them involve two female characters that have a conversation that does not involve a man. How many of your favorite movies passed the Bechdel test, a simple test to see if a movie is feminist friendly or not? Well that's not fair, some of you might argue, the main character is male, of course the conversation is going to revolve around him, because the plot revolves around him. Well then, I guess the question becomes, why are there so many movies with male leads? Even movies with female leads can fail this test (the first two movies starring female leads that comes to my mind are Underworld and Tomb Raider (so sue me, I'm a guy), both of which I actually think only HAD one female in them). This is of course, without addressing the rampart hyper-sexualization of women in movies, or the damsel in distress archetypes that even purported "strong" female characters seem to fall into. Take Disney's recent Princess and the Frog, for example. Tiana is touted as an allegory for the modern day women, she is supposed to be independent, intelligent, and a role model for girls everywhere. What's the problem here? Right off her need to work hard to get what she wants is portrayed in a negative light, with her blowing off friends. She then progresses throughout the movie to end up grabbing a prince, who shows her how to appreciate the little things in life, and also gets that restaurant that she was unable to get by herself. So what happened at the end? A man stepped in and made everything in her life better. THAT'S the supposed role model for young girls of today?

How Hollywood hates minorities

But wait! You're saying. Hollywood can't be racist! Look at all the prolific African-American actors there are! Well, yes and no. More on that later. First I'd like to direct your attention to the fact that there are more minorities in American than simply black people.


Hollywood has a looooooooong history of discrimination, but the one that really broke it open for me was The Last Airbender, a 2010 film directed by Shamalyan, adapted from the Nickelodeon television show (Avatar, the Last Airbender). Here's a quick video to get you caught up:

A show that the creators took painstaking care to make authentically Asian (to the point of hiring a calligrapher to make sure the Chinese writing was accurate- which was detailed to the point that the style would vary depending on theoretically who wrote it, ie high born, low born, in a rush, etc). All of this was ELIMINATED in the movie, because, face it, audiences just can't "connect" to people who aren't white.

If anyone wants to defend this monstrosity of a film, feel free to comment below. I'd be more than happy to show you why you're wrong :)

"I...uh...I don't read so good"

You might have noticed in that video that the movie 21 was shown briefly. You might be wondering why. Well, as it turns out, that movie "based on a true story" was based on a true story...about a team of most Asian-American MIT students counting cards. That's like if the movie The Blindside had cast Dwayne Johnson to play Micheal Oher.

I'll admit, being Asian, this probably gets me angrier than if it had been about another race. But don't worry, while Hollywood may be done blackfacing, they're still running strong on racial stereotypes to make their audiences laugh.

Remember how I said I would get back to those prolific black actors?

But wait! You're saying. Hollywood can't be racist! Look at all the prolific African-American actors there are! Well, yes and no. More on that later.

See? I told you I said that. </crappyAustinPowersjoke>
Well, it's true that there are a lot of very famous, very good black actors. But this article brings forth some disturbing questions on Hollywood's- and society's- preferences.

Hollywood is full of scumbags

Ok, this blog post has gotten a lot longer than I had anticipated, so I'll make this brief. This article details 6 veeeeeeery unsavory things Hollywood does to earn a buck. I'll sum it up for you because I've already asked you to read a lot (but if you're interested in this kind of thing, I really recommend it).

Essentially:
1. Hollywood manipulates the numbers in their books to avoid paying people.
2. Hollywood gives grossly unfair deals with theaters, taking most of the earnings for themselves (this is the reason you pay $6 for popcorn).
3. Hollywood manipulates (when they aren't just outright making up) reviews to make their bad movies look good.
4. Hollywood smothers new material by lobbying for longer copyrights (remember McLuhan?).
5. Hollywood tries it's damndest to resist new technology (Netflix, Hulu), thus hurting the consumer to further their own profit.
6. Stealing scripts to avoid having to pay the writer.

What are your thoughts?

What do you guys think of this? I want to know! Am I being crazy and over-analytical and just a general douchebag, or is Hollywood pure evil? Is it a mix? Is it neither? Leave your comments below!