In the movie The Usual Suspects, one of the characters says, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” It is a clever line that gets to the heart of the human condition. When people have a clear understanding of right and wrong, most of life’s dangers are avoidable. In the context of the film, it turns out to be a perfect summary of what happens to the main characters. They are undone by their unwillingness to accept clear moral boundaries.
A similar thing can be said of this age. The greatest trick democracy ever pulled was convincing the world that the marketplace exists. Much of what ails the modern West is this naïve belief that the world is controlled by market forces. The invisible hand, guided by the desires of the majority, picks the winners and losers. Those who vex or offend the majority will eventually be laid low by the market. Those on the side of the majority will be raised up as the winner.
What is truly remarkable about this belief is not that people buy into the surface logic but that they keep believing it despite the results. To use another movie idea, this belief is the forever blue pill. Just when people begin to see reality, someone comes along with a handful of blue pills labeled “marketplace” and the people gobble them down to the cries of “go woke, go broke” or some other ridiculous claim about the beauty and majesty of the great god called the marketplace.
The power of this belief is best seen in the entrainment world, where people channel their passions into entertainment franchises. The popular YouTube movie critic, The Critical Drinker, has this bit about the Star Wars franchise. Despite being well aware of the politics motivating the people in Hollywood, a big part of his act is in identifying “the message” in films and television shows, he is baffled as to why the people behind this popular franchise are forcing their politics on their fans.
The underlying assumption of his critique is that the marketplace is a real thing and it will one day punish the people ruining his favorite franchise. Yet, by any objective standard, the franchise was ruined a long time ago. The second set of films was a clear cash grab and the politically charged nonsense that followed looks like a critical studies department at a fifth rate state college exploded on film. The franchise has been a two decade long, carny trash political sermon.
In those two decades, the franchise has grossed eight billion dollars for a rough profit of seven billion dollars. The most grotesquely political bits of the franchise, the last five films, has netted over four billion in profits. In other words, the more they jam their carny trash morality in the faces of the fans, the more money they make. The clear lesson here is it does not matter what they do. The next Star Wars could literally be Disney executives raping kids and it would make billions.
Another aspect of the false consciousness is the assumption that the people making entrainment product are motivated by money. Because money comes from the magic of the marketplace, the desire for money must lead to a desire to please as many customers as possible. If this is true, logic then says that the degenerate politics being pushed in these films pleases the marketplace. After all, replacing the normal stuff with abnormal stuff has been a boon to the franchise.
The believer in the marketplace cannot accept this so he remains baffled. The truth is the people making our entertainment product are motivated by money, but they know it does not come from magical market forces. It comes from the people who control society and impose their morality on the rest of us. Please the feminist orcs from HR and you get a fat paycheck. In other words, in a democratic society it is not the marketplace but the moral space that decides.
Entertainment has always been about public morality. Look back at the earliest days of filmmaking and this is clear. The very first films were efforts to undermine the prevailing morality in an effort to insert a new moral code. The communists and fascists were trailblazers in filmmaking, inventing things that are still with us today, because they saw the power of entertainment to shape public morality. Go back even further and the Greeks used theater to control public morality in Athens.
All of this points to the fact that the marketplace is a creation of man and like all of man’s creations, it is controlled by those with power. After all, the marketplace is simply a set of rules and those rules must be enforced. If the parties to a transaction have no fear of the rules, they have no reason to abide them. Enforcement of the rules must come from a party with power over both sides of the transaction. It is fear of that power which makes the marketplace possible.
The people making movies and television shows understand this because the people underwriting their projects remind them of it all the time. The near monopoly held by the big content makers is possible only because people with power have shaped the rules so that a small number of players control the industry. The movie makers fear and respect that power, so they always seek to please it. The reward is a lifestyle beyond anything normal people can imagine.
This clearly applies to democracy itself. The overwhelming majority of white people have been voting Republican for decades. In that time the Republican Party has moved steadily away from the interests of its voters. In fact, they have increasingly embraced policies explicitly at odds with the interests of their voters. They have now reached the point where they are mocking their idiot voters for trusting them. After all, what are you going to do? Vote libertarian?
Despite the obvious, people continue to vote in the belief that the marketplace will eventually punish these people. If a majority of voters elect people who hold the opinions and values of the voters, the government has to yield. People often say that Christianity has no future because people no longer accept the supernatural, but this November’s election will prove otherwise. People trust the supernatural more than ever, but they now call their god the marketplace.
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Z: “After all, replacing the normal stuff with abnormal stuff has been a boon to the franchise…” “In those two decades, the Star Wars franchise has grossed eight billion dollars… The most grotesquely political bits of the franchise, the last five films, has netted over four billion in profits. In other words, the more they jam their carny trash morality in the faces of the fans, the more money they make.” More likely the less money they make. That 8 billion should have been 20 billion. Also, with the more recent 2nd chance decade they had, the business goal was/should’ve… Read more »
They were given a machine to print money, and they took a sledgehammer to it.
Problem is the Star Woke franchise becomes like the WNBA – even if it loses money, it gets subsidized by other successful projects.
The company ive been with for a decade is on the rocks because woke white women were put in charge and decided to turn it into a friendly hangout with no sales focus. They thought customers dont like being sold to but like being preached to about gay politics.
But with big corpoorations with billions of dollars, their products will continue to sell because customers have few other choices. Good luck boycotting prctor and gamble, hollywood, the msm, major league, nba, nfl, and every other gay woke institution.
That’s why parallel societies are so important.
You Can boycott the NFL, NBA,MSM MLB, and Hollywood. I do . the great side effect is instead of the wife and I trying to decide” what to watch tonight” we decide ” who to visit” or ” what activity to do” .
it was odd at first, when we canceled the cable, we don’t stream either. We did it when our now grown kids were pre-teens.
we are much more involved with the church too. occasionally we do resort to reading .
and of course replace P and G with havamal soap works !!!
I get it wrt Proctor & Gamble – even if you did want to boycott them, your alternative is Unilever which is just as woke.
But NFL, NBA, MLB – those can be omitted from your life with little loss – heck, even a gain. Likewise Hollywood. And MSM? Who needs them with the internet?
As I await liberation from mod hell, I will add that Star Wars itself is generally held to be the single greatest movie of all time. It really did not need a sequel, much less a lot of them. But it was great. And it was great because it was the work of not just Lucas and Speilberg at their creative height, remembering all the Republic Serials they used to watch on TV in the 1950s, but dudes like John Milius, and Jonathon Demme. Lucas originally had a 10 minute crawl explaining things in the opener, and Demme rewrote it… Read more »
I still think best movie ever is wizard of oz
Best movie ever doesn’t really exist – there are too many different genres to really say “this one is the best ever”. Maybe for a particular genre, or certainly could say it was a milestone movie.
I feel like I’m the only one who knows anything about this topic but I’ve always found it interesting how the music industry was the closest thing to a free market as there ever was. If you go back to the beginning of the 50s there was a very tight controls on the market. You had maybe four major record labels (Capitol, RCA, Columbia and Decca) and two semi-major labels (MGM and Mercury). That was pretty much it. There was also tight controls on the content that came out too. Like you would have a song out and all the… Read more »
The music of the late 1940s and early 1950s was awful. Sinatra in particular was reduced to doing novelty songs about dogs barking, and he had been a big name before the War. Meanwhile the Big Band era had come to a close, tastes moved on, and electric guitars and other innovations including much better microphones for singers meant that the “crooner” style was becoming popular but as noted mired in silly novelties. Though Sinatra and Elvis hated each other, in some cool universe they would have performed together in Vegas in the 1950s as part of an alternate universe… Read more »
curious whiskey – are you of the silent generation that would have lived through that era – or did you learn about that type of music later?
Hate to break your bubble, it’s all manipulation. All of it, leading a horse to water, or sheep to pasture, all of it, bullshit and lies 911, Kennedy, the moon landings, Covid, complete and utter shit served up to retards sitting in front of a tv.
Z-man, I’d say you are overlooking two critical aspects of the Marketplace and Woke, Broke. 1. Managers care about getting paid and advancing, not organizational profit. 2. The destruction of the heroes of White men and (per Drinker) the trashing of their childhood emotions and memories is the most radicalizing aspect (along with the removal of White men from heroic roles) of this age. Item 1: the bad old moguls like Louis B. Mayer (people went to his funeral to confirm he was really dead), and Jack Warner owned everything. They sought to maximize their own profits and power, and… Read more »
Is this really happening? Tom cruise, robert downey jr, chris evans, liam neeson, chris helmsworth, chris pratt, daniel craig, the dr strange guy, etc are all still blockbuster stars who hollywood cant replace. Mark wahlberg is clearly taking advantage of his jewish ancestry and overplaying his card. Dwayne johnson is in two dumb movies per month. Will smiths movies dont sell anymore. Michael b jordan movies only draw a black audience now. The wakanda guy is dead. Ill concede tv commercials have replaced us, and maybe a gay franchise like star wars, but the big ticket sales are from white… Read more »
Mark Wahlberg is not Jewish. Not all -bergs are. It’s also a Swedish name ending and that’s the case here.
I knew I was far gone on the dissident side the day I started viewing the CriticalDrinker’s videos as “normie.”
OT: Sometimes it’s just too easy. Comments on a thread somewhere: Poster 1: “All joking aside, there’s a mindset, unaligned with any particular philosophical school, which holds that everything that is simple is a delusion” Vizzini: “Anyone who tries to get you to believe that is either selling you something or trying to swindle you out of something.” Poster 2: “did you ever hear the accusation, ‘you are missing the nuance.’? Unfortunately, Hagmaier’s comment is true, as I can attest to from almost seventy years of talmudic study and teaching. The argument goes back hundreds of years, in the everlasting… Read more »
what exactly is going on here? Like I feel like i’m in some sort of psychedelic trance. If you read stuff from liberals in the media – the vibe I get is that we are being run by some demaistre or franco type supreme court (go to @davidoatkins as an example). however if you are a liberal who is blackpilled, then going to the conservative twittersphere account like @julie_kelly2 – you will be detoxed. She seems equally as blackpilled about how America is being run by a bolshevik cabal at the DOJ who want to deny fourth, sixth and eighth… Read more »
What’s going on is pretty simple: American democracy functions by building coalitions. The coalitions currently in place don’t make anyone happy because getting elected is a function of finding a wedge issue and using it to splinter your opposition’s coalition. Consequently, each side needs to deliver token results to it’s activist based on order to maintain their coalition. Ironically, this leads to a fractionalized society that actually shares a lot of common values and a ruling class that shares a lot of common values (graft and deviancy) but has to make bureaucrats carry out contradictory policies because each side is… Read more »
I kind of wonder if I am being made crazy by the media. I have historically been of the left but I do think there are a lot of bad things with the democratic party such as high gas prices and perversion in schools/libraries. But I kind of feel there are real bad guys out there and that if I don’t have to worry about them anymore – then I can finally criticize the democratic party. I had always felt that there was real bad guys out there and I historically felt that the democratic party was there to dispose… Read more »
You are struggling with the slow realization that all the positions you were told and internalized as true are complete lies. As many on the so-called right are also struggling with.
Yet still you maintain some beliefs as to good intentions from people who lie, lie, then lie some more for the sole purpose of manipulating the public to destructive ends and their own benefit.
Perhaps at some point you will internalize this.
don’t be silly . it’s all run by the folks who own the central banks through their hired henchmen at the WEF
“The overwhelming majority of white people have been voting Republican for decades.” That’s where I have a bone to pick. If that were true the northeast states would at least be swing states, being majority white. That hasn’t happened. (Apart from the fact that the “R’s” haven’t served up anybody worth voting for.)
Different types of White people are not evenly geographically distributed through the country.
Look at the braindead’s from the lamestream walk back their Holy VAXX a year and a half later, after all their hysteria:https://www.keyc.com/2022/06/22/natural-immunity-offers-greater-covid-protection-than-vaccines-study-finds/ Saying the VAXX can’t measure up to one’s natural God-Given immune system. It makes me wonder what’s their next plan, what’s the stoyak behind this. A CYA for sure, but for what end? Clown world rolls on unabated. Speaking of walk backs ZMAN, I’d love to hear you walk back that comment you made to a question on your podcast a year back or so about how you’d VAXX if forced for travel. That really made me do… Read more »
I took it under coercion to provide for my family. We aren’t back to frontier times yet. To many, this seemed like a calculated risk. I personally believe the shots are more or less harmless. Surely there are side effects in a non-insignificant percentage of people.
The real blow in being forced to take the shot was not physical, it’s the mental toll you take knowing you’ve been put in your place.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’d take it your not one of the assholes who demanded it on everyone else. I know a few of those. My wife was locked out of employment in her field because of her refusal. It’s put all the weight of providing on my back, but I’m self employed and I’ll do what I have to do. It boils my blood these brainless, soulless, shitlib gouls forced so many to sacrifice their dignity to Moloch. Same with the mask. My wife is expecting in the next few weeks. I’ll die hard on that mask hill… Read more »
We had a baby during all of this. Poor thing has to grow up in this world. I owe her an apology when she’s older.
I didn’t wear one at the hospital, no one said anything. On the bright side, they limited visitors.
Let me tell you my friend, children are the perfect connection to our creator. Batting next is the number seven slot for us, and knowing the blessing of life the creator has bestowed unto me in the twilight of my youth is what keeps me going.
Don’t apologize, she just may be our Joan of Arc!
https://covidmythbuster.substack.com/p/can-vaccines-be-dangerous-to-pregnant a great article on the dangers of vaxing the preg
One of the most striking events was that when Trump was President, rushing the vaccine past all normal tests, people like Kamala said that she would never take Trump’s poison. Similarly, the people who worshipped Trump were exulting their great leader’s medical acumen.
A few days after Biden won, everyone switched sides.
Loyalty is a hell of a drug
All Trump’s VAXX bluster tells me he is another actor in on the take. Trump can go fuck himself sideways with a rusty rake. If I ever run into him, I’d love to ask him how that Platn’um plan worked out! He must feel real big watching his shiksa daughter toss him under the bus for those Kushner sheklels. What a big talk no walk loser. Sad really, I was 100% in his corner back at the county primaries in 2016.
Someone on here, please toss me a whitepill!
White Pill / Clear Pill
He pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.
And more importantly, did not surrender the US into the Trans Pacific Partnership.
You’re still very loyal to President Kushner.
Nope not loyal to them. Especially not to the Kush. Loyal to my extended national family.
A clear pill is to see things as they are.
The TPP was a bad thing. It would have subordinated US to an international tribunal.
Trump said he would not approve it, he did not, and that’s a good thing.
Trump was a mixed bag, perhaps mostly odorous. Signal processing allows separating the complicated into constituent parts for independent analysis.
I get the TPP was toilet paper as well as the Paris CA. But when has the US ever abided by a treaty when it no longer felt like it? Great that he pulled out, but there is really no such thing as a binding treaty with the US. Honestly, I don’t think there is such a thing with any country that has the wherewithal to just say FU.
The biggest white pill, I think, is the fact that Trump’s presidency forced the elite to drop their masks. Their hatred of regular people has never been so obvious, which only encourages regular people to hate them back.
It’s true that Trump delivered on very few of his promises, but he was great for accelerationism.
he exposed almost everything we know about the deep state and the uniparty system . I agree with Z in that he was the mule that exposed the system.
In a strange way , he was totally ineffective , but essential . the last 2 supreme court rulings made all the work I did for his campaign wort it too.
> As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
> I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
> Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
> And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all…
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm
I was hoping someone would link to this poem. It captures the sense of today’s post in verse.
CNN, et al, may not be profitable in and off themselves. The profit is made elsewhere. Media creates the story and controls the framing. Media establishes the meaning of events. The profits are reaped elsewhere, such as banking, military providers, etc.
A market is the rules and the referee. Media frames that too. And their spotlight colors that way in which Washington makes sausage.
One may think that WWI was a horrible loss. But to some it was a joyous achievement.. The Ottomen coughed up the Guacamoly Land into British hands and on into RothChildren laps.
Pretty good Curtis post on this from theme last year, “Big tech has no power at all” particularly to the CNN point which channel actually doesn’t pull in a lot of viewers, infamously.
Anyone who’s been unfortunate to spend much time around academia — Hollywood for nerds — knows that people will reliably chase after prestige before settling on chasing money.
CNN (and many others) are dependent on the big cable/broadband monopolies for much of their revenue. I’ve mentioned it before, but in our town à la carte broadband costs more than the cheapest cable/phone/broadband package. It ties in to Z’s points about markets. What we have is a system of rent-seeking monopolies and regulatory capture.
“System” is the key word. There is someone in each of the value control points to protect all the other points. Banks, Intelligence agencies, media, mobsters … all interlinked.
Comcast is a family business of Brian Roberts, son of founder, Ralph J. Roberts. He is of “Russian” ancestry.
Creditable people have written that Comcast VP David Cohen is topmost influential in American politics.
I knew sooner or later I would get to link this video. As funny as the Critical Drinker is, and he is hilarious, there are some other hot takes on pop culture, movies, games, etc. out there and when it comes to Disney shoveling sh1t (literally in this case) and people eating it up this video cartoon parody rules them all from Flashgitz–
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7iQlMDnyT4
These guys also make high quality product with piss takes on various things but this is like Z just channeled the essence of this short video into essay format.
Back in the day when people bought music a friend of mine was checking out with a half dozen CDs when she noticed the clerk separating them into 2 stacks after scanning them into the register. He used another device to scan one stack twice and the other one not at all. When she asked what he was doing he said they were paid to jack up the reported purchases of one artist at the expense of another. While no one goes broke underestimating the taste and discernment of the general public, this is something to keep in mind when… Read more »
Payola started in the 30s and 40s with the rise of popular radio:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
And thanks, Zman, I been so dreary and negatory, the Critical Drinker lit my happy ass right up. Star Wars, fk yeah!
” The next Star Wars could literally be Disney executives raping kids and it would make billions.”
Seems like a reasonable guess. I, for one, would buy a movie ticket for the first time in 20 years to see that.
(I mean, of course, assuming that “no children were harmed in the making of this film”)
What the fuck dude?
One of several posters on this blog who is best ignored.
I don’t think it would make billions. Spielberg for one has predicted for years that a major studio would fail due to some tentpole move flopping big time like John Carter or Waterworld or the Postman or Heaven’s Gate. Studios used to have the cushion of: A. Amusement parks, B. Video purchase/rentals, C. Streaming. But high inflation makes going to Disney World a non-starter (and they want your kids gay, a major turn-off for most parents). Once you have 20-30 DVDs or Blue Ray do you need more? And streaming is in free-fall: Netflix laid off another 300 people and… Read more »
Reading the comments I can see the libertarian priors are strong in this one. And that one. And another one.
Much work to do we have.
Hey buddy, have a little compassion on us Libertarians. We know it’s a dirty word, and we have the party and losers to live up to it, but it was all we had sandwiched between the two shitbags, dubya and the magic negro.
Even though I’ve come to figure out that Libertarians are worthless and lame, freaks and potheads, I’ll still always value the Individual over the collective. As for free markets, I see as much validity in the existence of those as I do man driving dune buggies on the moon.
“Does the market serve the people or do the people serve the market?”
This is one of the most clarifying questions that one can ponder. If you believe that the market should serve the people then you almost certainly must support tariffs, restricted immigration, reasonable worker’s rights, and some government intervention in the economy.
Surely the question sis which market?
Is the market you?, or is it the politcal legislation?, or someone like Blackrock’s ESG requirements?, or someone else that is not so visible?
Until you know which market is the master for the product it can be very confusing to try and see why the product is produced at all?
I think that we agree. The conservative-libertarian impulse to support the market is surrender to the elites.
Only when we have elites who care about the people can the market serve the people. To the best of my knowledge, this has only happened a few times in modern times and we aren’t allowed to discuss the most successful example.
“. . .and some government intervention in the economy.” preferably on-shoring critical manufacturing alongside a heavy dose of trust-busting.
I agree and I disagree with Z’s main point. I agree insofar as the phenomenon he illumines, both in democracy and Hollywood, accurately describes the present. Because of the–it must be said–stupidity of the white masses, Republicans can continue pushing the anti-white agenda of their Democratic confreres, and Hollywood can continue doing the same. The other chief factor abetting the anti-white agenda in these areas is that the federal government and Hollywood are central nodes of the Power Structure. There is no competing power source, so the exponents of the Power Structure are free to do as they please, and… Read more »
“chatoyant”: having a changeable luster or color with an undulating narrow band of white light
Ostei: Have to disagree somewhat. While pre-1970s films might not have been as openly ideological, watch almost anything made in America during any era and certain beliefs and themes leap out to the alert dissident. Perhaps not as overt or heavy-handed, but the magic, misunderstood minority, the plucky little guy versus the powerful businessman, the warm-hearted immigrant versus the cold-hearted heritage Americans appear from the earliest ‘talkies’ onward. And how can ‘market forces’ have had an effect on movie content during the pre-television age, when movies were the whole of visual news and entertainment (barring Broadway run by the same… Read more »
My ex-wife and I searched for traditional entertainment. I’ve seen every Andy Griffith and most Little House on the Prairies.
One of the most recurrent themes is the misunderstood stranger. A stranger shows up who has suspicious qualities. The townsfolk are initially standoffish and then judgmental.
Some sort of the crisis occurs to the town and the stranger saves the day. The judgmental townsfolk are shamed for their discrimination and learn a value lesson about tolerance.
Who does this narrative serve?
Line: Excellent point. I’ve noticed the same in countless old movies and even children’s books. Even the theoretically ‘subtle’ use of shaming the natural distrust of the stranger or prejudging anyone is clearly aimed at softening and fertilizing the ground for the pernicious seed that followed.
There is an agatha christie book where one character mentions in an aside that in their youth new arrivals in a village usually had to come with an introduction letter and provide some personal connection to the place in order to move in.
I wonder if that was common in many parts of the anglo sphere early on and that was partially the purpose to change those sort of views in media of the time.
Line – The more I think about it, the more insightful your comment really is Think about all the old children’s rhymes or fairy tales or old village songs – everything taught one to be wary of the stranger, to not get taken in by trusting too easily. It was hard lesson learned by people who passed that on in folk wisdom. Certain people who predominated in Hollywood and all forms of modern media turned that on its head – to instead always welcome the stranger because he was both the same as you and simultaneously better. Both equal and… Read more »
You correctly note certain fairly mild Lefty themes in older films. However, those were almost always countered by others such as patriotism (a good enough thing when America was actually America), distinct sex roles with the man typically in the ascendant, white masculinity, “family values,” pride in Western/Christian history and heritage, etc. As I noted, Leftist films existed, but so did many others, and this is symptomatic of market forces. Note that if the masses were offended by the films, they could simply have stayed at home, read their books and listened to their radios. Likewise, the could have and… Read more »
Ostei: The masses weren’t offended by the films because – at least initially – the subversive themes were quite subtle and incremental. And yes, people demonstrated their preferences by the obvious popularity of the Western genre. But their choices were circumscribed by the movie makers – recall the literally international uproar about “Birth of a Nation.” And the ‘picture show’ was the only game in town for a nation living through a dreary and difficult depression. That’s not the magic ‘free market’ in action.
There may not have been many visual entertainment options in the 30s, but the films of that era were hardly in the class of Get Out or the Star Wars flicks, consequently there is not much of an argument to be made in favor of ideology overriding the market. The anti-white ideological monopoly simply didn’t exist at that time. Not even close.
The Hollywood POZ was alive and well in the 1960’s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_American_Style
And Dick Van Dyke of all people sold his soul for their message. Who do you trust when even whitey’s a sellout?
Tribal priming of society right there. Amazing how they’re always two steps ahead. Don’t worry, with enough votes we’ll catch up maybe a step!
Our “free market” is nothing but one big tax farm, 1865 and the 13th just moved whitey on to the plantation. The civil rights act and all shit since is just to hammer it home on whitey.
When you live on the move, with your kids at school and your parents in another state, without even a tribe like a Bedouin, what’s constant is the screen. I haven’t fleshed out that idea, but I’m certain it’s true because of all the boomers I see staring at the TV, young people staring at their phones. These are people looking for connection, belonging, themselves. And that’s where they receive the Word. I wonder how many people mocking the Sky Father have a Baby Yoda sticker on the Subaru. Hipsters would claim self-awareness and irony. They know how fake it… Read more »
The New York Stock Exchange is going to be so disappointed to find out the marketplace doesn’t really exist.
Of all of the alleged “markets,” the “stock market” is the one that exists the least. Is there any reason whatsoever to believe “the market” is worth 5 times what it was worth in the 2009 lows?
Could it be that the dollar is worth one-fifth of its 2009 buying power?
The New York Stock Exchange is a “marketplace” in the same way that a rigged casino is a “marketplace”. You have TPTB that know which direction the market is going because they own all the leverage that determines which way it goes. Then you have the people that know people that know TPTB that get in on insider info and clean up. Then you have the regular smoes that are betting the gods will favor them and the market will go in the direction they are betting. They may read some mass publications that all spell out the same strategies,… Read more »
Maybe it has something to to with the Fed printing money and handing it off to Blackrock, Chase, etc., who in turn funnel it to companies like (but not exclusively) Boeing, who in turn use it for stock buybacks. Maybe it has something to do with that? Maybe the whole thing is a Casino?
Nobody voted for a Casino.
This post is over the target on the market part. America was supposed to be a place where market interactions, not government and political engagement, would be the primary means of negotiating life. Of course, a moral and virtuous citizenry was necessary. They addressed the moral dimension of civilization too. If government is small, then the market forces individuals to be disciplined and virtuous because the reality of success and failure without recourse to your fellow citizens via the legalized theft of democracy is the ultimate incentive. This is not a marketplace in any sense of the word or intention.… Read more »
“Art” is even more corrupted than the “market” When the cleaning lady accidentally throws out the “art,” mistaking it for rubbish, is it art in any real sense?
Art is supposed to uplift the spirit and to inspire men to greatness. Much, if not the outright majority of art produced today makes people depressed and possibly suicidal. Some of the “art” being produced today is so bad that I have to think they are just trolling us.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/mar/30/tracey-emins-messy-bed-displayed-tate-britain-first-time-in-15-years
Its been a primary money laundering market for a very long time.
Yeah its mostly a scam, I agree with TT above the majority of it is just garbage. I assumed all the art critics were in on the scam but one night I saw a documentary by Robert Hughes, he called modern art, A cruddy game. and did a very good job of making wankers of the art world look like idiots, he interviews one clown who owns 800 Warhol “paintings” it turns out that this guy has to bid on almost any Warhol “painting” that ends up being auctioned, he needs to prop up the price to support his investment… Read more »
I call it “sorta” art,,,Some Old Rusty Things Added—
I can confirm that, yes, you’re being trolled. If you want proof, read an artist’s statement.
Calling something art and calling someone an artist does not make that think art nor that person is an artist. In the degenerate phase of progressivism superlatives and self annoinment is rampant. I suffered through several conservatories where the modern music and the modern art that accompanied it was garbage. Its only value as time moves on will be as a chronicle of the decadence, degenerracy and mental illness celebrated in the progressive era. That said, there are artists out here making art. It is just getting it surfaced is difficult in an era of mass imitation where what is… Read more »
Read the leaks about what that happened to that girl Heather Michelle O’Rourke. You will know Disney execs already do that.
“In other words, in a democratic society it is not the marketplace but the moral space that decides.” – And this is why, in democratic societies, all art becomes base and stunted. The only art created in a moral space must be reverent and an adornment of the moral space itself and the set of morals derived. If democracy is the moral space, then what is democracy at its core? The elevation of inferiors to power. People who, had nature run its course, never would have had a political voice, many of whom are unfit for survival in. a brutal… Read more »
> The near monopoly held by the big content makers is possible only because people with power have shaped the rules so that a small number of players control the industry.
Are we not allowed to discuss what the “people with power” and the “small number of players” have in common besides ideology?
Great essay, Mr. Z. Don’t take investment advice from your invisible friend Moe from the Internet, but “the market” does exist. It is like gravity and a rocket/ airplane/ sky-diving: you can avoid it for a while, you can enjoy the rush, but eventually you have to return to earth. In the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, it was understood on Wall Street that every few years there would be a correction and 20-30% of a banks staff would be laid off, a few firms wouldn’t make it and a few insiders would become gonzo rich. Since the collapse in ’08, for… Read more »
One of my old stunt buddies got hired to work on a Sony Production recently. They told him he had to go to a specific lab for a COVID test on the first day he was going to work. The lab was an hour from his home-when he got there the lab said they don’t have a Sony account. He called the production office and they told him that he had to pay for the test. He called the producer who hired him and told him to fck off.
I don’t know if Disney is doing so well these days. They had an attempted coup on their CEO by the Pixar people, whose newest movie is likely to lose $200 million or more since they turned into a culture war thing and not the kids’ movie it’s supposed to be. I’ve heard anecdotally from friends of mine who’ve gone to Disney parks that customer service has gone to hell with tons of temp visa foreigners now making up the work staff and that lines are long and food prices are even more sky-high than usual. ESPN is a sucking… Read more »
Speaking of the F-14, former RIO (radar intercept officer) Ward Carroll has a great video up about the proposed F-21 Super Tomcat:
https://youtu.be/CpXyYgL4jPI
An F-21 with modern avionics, electronics, engines, and materials coupled with a similarly updated AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missile would be a peerless fleet air defense and long-range interceptor.
One has to wonder if the Navy is eyeballing the longevity and major updates the Air Force is doing on the F-15 because its fundamental design was so good.
Why do you want the regime having more effective weapons? Who will they target with them but restive gentiles (eg Russia).
“I don’t know if Disney is doing so well these days. They had an attempted coup on their CEO by the Pixar people, whose newest movie is likely to lose $200 million or more since they turned into a culture war thing and not the kids’ movie it’s supposed to be.” I know that’s the common “wisdom” of the internet, but is it true? After they’ve screened it in the US and Europe, it will make its way to the rest of the world, with the lesbo scene cut. It will be watched on streaming services. Toys will still be… Read more »
Disney’s stock price is half of what it was a year ago. The theme park business has been amazingly resilient considering how much it costs and what an awful experience it has turned into. They opened a Star Wars themed hotel and charged outrageous rates for overgrown children to stay there and play pretend. It has been ripped as a terrible experience, but the Star Wars suckers are still going to go. I see their problems as more long term, if they can’t indoctrinate the next generation into stupid levels of fandom like they have with a lot of 25-40… Read more »
Reminds me of muscle cars. No market for them after boomers die off. Maybe SW loses its profitability when X’ers kick the bucket.
Anonymous White Male: That it took until the Florida grooming controversy to wake up so many parents to the reality of modern Disney is a scandal in itself. They’ve been anti-Christian morality and inserting open sexual innuendo in movies for decades. Even the original Buzz Lightyear movie, which my younger son loved, very deliberately featured a family with NO visible father . . . ever. And plenty of both my sons’ Christian schoolmates’ parents thought anything Disney – movies and merchandise – was ‘family friendly.’ People are idiots.
On the primary/secondary education front things could get interesting after the recent Supreme Court decision that education vouchers, i.e. tax funds, can be spent (without discrimination against them) on non-public schools assuming that basic standards are in place. This gives a green light for parents to ditch the pervert grooming in the public schools, and to elect to spend their taxes elsewhere. This is potentially a big blow against the CRT/groomer program currently in place.
So if you don’t qualify for vouchers, you will be paying taxes for other people’s kids to go to private schools you can’t afford while your own are stuck in public school hell? Heck of a deal.
JerseyJeffersonian: And just who determines those ‘basic standards’? Even before I pulled my younger son out of Christian school, they were all happily advertising their teachers were fully credentialed by the state and had all been molded by the same state-approved teachers colleges. And they were quick to change their academic and sports calendar to correspond with every new public school and non-Christian religious holiday. And they changed the curriculum to be more inclusive. Christian schools are generally a massive lobby today and they’re really nothing more than a parallel of the public schools with a helping of “Jesus loves… Read more »
Well, maybe getting some control over money taken from you by the taxing authorities could count as a bit of a plus. People have been fighting for vouchering for educational purposes for quite a while. Access to vouchers may not be uniform, but access to “good schools” isn’t either, and parents pay attention to that in determining where they live. Of course, you could home school, in which case all of your school taxes remains with the State’s preferred recipient, the public schools. So maybe take what you can get, and try to find some, even if marginally, better place… Read more »
N.B.: My 4:22 comment was meant for c matt… 3g4me, Don’t know what to tell you. Maybe read my comment to c matt for starters. I still think that this SC decision has some possible utility, but if you are going to automatically throw up your hands and not even consider that the fight over “appropriate standards” must also then be joined so that these “standards” should be limited to objective, pragmatic matters, such as does a student progress in knowledge of whatever subject matter to some level of attainment, and “standards” not be construed to brainwashing toward acceptance of… Read more »
I haven’t read the decision, so I should probably stop now. But does this mean that the money follows the child? There are rural places where a town has too few residents to justify building schools, so they send the kids to the nearest school, and if it’s a private school the town strikes a deal with them. That’s not exactly choice, but it’s been happening in New England since forever. https://tinyurl.com/3hxdfnsz
“There’s no way to break this monopoly, just like with the automakers, except with the favored EVs of course” Interesting that you mentioned auto makers. We used to let car manufacturers go bankrupt. Seen a new Stutz, Duesenberg, Auburn, or Cord dealership lately? The Great Depression killed off a lot of excess capacity. Some “Independents” (aka not GM, Ford, or Chrysler) survived with defense contract money in WW2 only to fold post war. Interestingly enough the last true bankruptcy was Studebaker-Packard in the mid/late 1960s. American Motors lashed together the rest of the independents and hobbled along until the late… Read more »
Entertainment? Teenagers go to movies to grope one another in the dark. Adults don’t go to movies. They watch the ball games because the vicarious violence is the most action they’re going to get in milquetoast world. A drunk NFL hoodlum in a traffic accident gets more attention than the star of any new movie. It’s also a reality that the average Yankee doesn’t have the patience to sit through an hour and a half movie without checking their smart phone for messages a dozen times. There just isn’t enough sensory stimulus. That’s what computer generated stuff is all about.… Read more »
Spot on! Beware the degeneracy and idiocy of the elite’s children who are going to the top colleges. I see it first hand. Infants with zero ability to think. They also have an arrogance that they know technology. Yet, they don’t know that it is the mathematics of 100+ years ago and the CS of the 40s – 70s and the people who implemented it that are the technologists. What a spot on post. The consolation is the rude awakenings that await these fools who donated their stimulus checks to BLM, “invest” in Gamestop, sport their BLM bumper stickers. Unfortunately,… Read more »
yes even my own adult children are dimwits, they think the word enchanting is a new hiphop tune. I see it all the time, there is no wit, people are still polite and friendly but god they’re dumb, their sense of irony and sarcasm is just gone, maybe that was an unintended side effect of the vaccine?
If you think your kids are worthless you should really take it up with the parents who raised them to be that way.
this is a little bit off topic but is there a precedent for a society collapsing without high rates of violence. Let’s not forget that violence is still at historically low levels. What you see now is a population drugged and addicted to video games porn and high fructose corn syrup. I’m not sure if there is a precedent for this and how a collapse would happen.
Nonsense. Of course the marketplace exists. And it is working as it always has. Here is YOUR red pill: you aren’t the intended market for Star Wars. Or for most of Hollywood’s “product”. There’s a couple market forces at work here, and unless you understand them, you can’t understand the marketplace. First: the freak/pervert demographic outnumbers the intelligent dissident demographic by at least 3:1. Star Wars is aimed at a multiethnic young audience that has been indoctrinated and steeped in faggotry, Marxism and chitlib virtues from a very young age. The first trannies will start showing up in the next… Read more »
Never underestimate how deeply, and how many, truly believe “the message.”.
“In many ways, nonsense is a more effective organizing tool than the truth. Anyone can believe in the truth. To believe nonsense is an unforgettable demonstration of loyalty. It serves as a political uniform.
And if you have a uniform, you have an army.” C. Yarvin.
Moldbug’s idea is close, but you don’t have believe ‘whatever’ to wear a uniform, all that is necessary is to want to belong to the club. Those folks don’t hold up well when their army starts getting shot at: far fewer true believers than there are camp followers.
The Critical Drinker has the outrage niche down, where there are a huge contingent of people who grew up loving many franchises who can’t quite let go and want to hear rants about what garbage they have become. It also helps he’s a very funny guy. Overall he does a service, as he gives a good summary of the latest content in a way where viewers can get the gist without spending their money on it. It also helps make watching modern trite woke trash very uncool Overall, he probably ensures thousands of people who would have watched something not… Read more »
Absolutely! He’s awesome. Excellent point.
Where our esteemed blog host goes off the rails is when he says ‘the marketplace doesn’t exist…’
At any given time, several marketplaces may exist and even occupy the same space, as in the case of the Critical Thinker. Players can compete in one or several at any one time.
Maybe the disconnect is that the marketplace always exists but the transactional currency is often not traditional “money”.
Agreed. I’m sure the Drinker isn’t actually “baffled” as to why Disney keeps pumping out Woke bullshit. He knows but can’t really explain the full story without losing his Youtube gig.
He’s about as based as you can get while still staying monetized.
Red letter media does this well too, I was able to just watch them review Picard without actually having to sit through Borg lives matter with crying old man.
The Critical Drinker, Dave Cullen and others are looking pathetic like the jock sniffers are. They can’t give up their childhood addictions to older cape and fantasy movies.
Cullen will still watch the newest Star Trek woke vomit and complain about the wokeness decline. If they give the white guy a bit of heroism he about wets himself in the hope that goodness is returning. It’s all too much with that generation. Even if you don’t see their faces, you’ll know them by their old timey game or Star Wars t-shirts.
Thank goodness I was too young when all the rage was “Trial at Nuremburg” and “To Kill A Mockingbird.”
I watched “To kill a mockingbird” some years ago to find out what the fiss was about.
I was bored to pieces but I recommend everybody to watch it. It clearly shows the progressive unconscious.
The black people as good children with a heart of gold that need protection from the deplorable hillbillies without teeth. The progressive like the smug white knights providing this protection with moral superiority
When the lawyer gets out of the courtroom and the black people stand up and aplaud, this is the progressive wet dream
Cullen did great work on the coof and he showed his name and face while doing it. Are you really crapping on him for doing (critical) reviews of star trek stuff?
You touch on the ultimate problem with modern marketplace dynamics: it’s the sellers who are tightly controlled, not the buyers. From economies of scale to lockstep media Narratives, it all tries to reduce the consumer into one-size-fits-all. How do you buy a physical book if not from Amazon or a couple other outlets? How do you buy food if not from a supermarket chain? How do you fuel your car if not from a very small number of oil companies? It’s still possible, of course, but much harder than one would expect until he actually tries. I know just from… Read more »
Very good essay. Morality and the supposed feedback loop of the marketplace make me consider last night. Yesterday evening, I attended a forum here in Lagos that was held by a new media outlet, centered around a new poll that was taken in the city. Overwhelmingly, and not surprisingly, the populace wanted lower crime, more punishment for violent offenders, etc. This was given to a cross-section of the city that mirrored the population (68% black, etc.) The audience, and the reporters on stage, however, were overwhelmingly white, bespectacled millennials and women of a certain age (librarian-ish), and a very few… Read more »
Interesting topic Z. Just a few comments with respect to “go woke, go broke” and the Star Wars franchise in particular. You correctly pointed out that Disney has banked several Billion dollars off of their 4 Billion and something investment with Lucas. Thing is, with the built in fan base, that property should have made them tens of Billions to date. It would be like buying a 40 acre tract of land and only raising a plot of food the size of a garage. You still have food to eat! Also, you correctly pointed out that the entire franchise is/was… Read more »
Yes, as inflation roars and the economy declines, people will get anxious and worried about the future, and this leads to a general sense of hopelessness and despair. That Hollywood is a cesspool of degeneracy and toxic propaganda is old news. And expecting normie to wise up to the Uniparty grift is a pipe dream. Bad, bad, bad; everything is bad these days and getting worse. But the pressure cooker will eventually blow its lid and people will strike out at whatever is conveniently close by and vulnerable. This is why you don’t want to be in a big city… Read more »
Archetypal feminist orc from HR to please in order to get a fat paycheck
That lady is a subversive genius. She deserves a Dissident statue.
Yes she is superb
Zman this is an excellent article, but like The Critical Drinker you also have this blind spot. You both fail to see that Liberalism is the problem. The philosophy that rules our life’s and that is in power throughout the West. The protector and promoter of the marketplace. that you quite rightly attack. Yet you can never seem to name it as the enemy. The enemy that you write about is always faceless and nameless. It seems that there are things that you learnt in the 1980’s that you have not unlearnt. You accept that Conservatives are useless, you accept… Read more »
The Motion Picture Production Code, 1934-68, enforced by a pledge Catholics used to take on Sunday, kept Hollywood mostly in line. As always, the censorship also forced the artists to be creative. After Vatican II, it was ditched and smut took over. From Wikipedia: Thomas Doherty, Professor of American studies at Brandeis University, has defined the code as “no mere list of Thou-Shalt-Nots, but a homily that sought to yoke Catholic doctrine to Hollywood formula. The guilty are punished, the virtuous rewarded, the authority of church and state is legitimate, and the bonds of matrimony are sacred.” What resulted has… Read more »
One immediate effect of the scrapping of the “code” was the blurring between bad guy and good, the removal of consequences of evil behavior and the rise of the “anti-hero”. I submit that the entertainment industry—especially motion pictures—has long been the primary degenerate influence in America. Our institutions of “lower” learning (college/university) at that time still only reached 20-25% of the youth cohort, whereas everyone went to the movies on a regular basis. Within two generations we had confused our major cohort of future citizens as to their expected behavior in society. It’s no surprise to me that the professor… Read more »
Just compare Cape Fear from 1962, when the code still was on, to its remake in 1991.
Good and evil were well defined in the earlier version. Instead in the remake the antagonist DeNiro, the psychopath ex-convict is lionized while Nick Nolte, the husband protecting his family, is a pathetic figure that gets no respect from his wife and daughter.
Although the poz really started much earlier, dating back from Rebel without a cause at least.
Way off topic but does anyone know if that Hartiste guy is still around on the web? Link?
You mean Roosh?
https://www.rooshv.com/
no, roosh is a different person. Heartiste guy’s name was “Roissy”.
He is only on Gab now: https://gab.com/kingofallnads/
Heartiste is on gab.com, under “King of all Nads.” He writes there a lot. Great stuff.
He’s on Gab (I think). If it’s the same writer, now he’s mostly just enraged about right wing political stuff. Nowhere near as funny or original as his women insights.
Fascination with chasing women ebbs with age and experience. The guys still chasing the v to distraction past a certain age are pretty sad.
I think Heartiste’s current insights are about as good as there is. Since there’s plenty of crossover in women’s nature and political issues, he comes up with some very good analysis.
I learned a lot about women from his blog, and I don’t know if there’s much more for him to share, so moving on to the current issues is logical and useful.
On Gab as King of All Nads
Current political tidbits, but it’s not the magnificent Chateau.
Egads
Spoke too soon
Yup, ever day I vow to say nothing, and then…
The dam breaks again
Sorry
1 hour sleep
Tryin to wake up, my bad
The current United States is not unlike the former Soviet Union. There is no real marketplace, and like the Soviets, our conditions will continue until one day we wake up and it all completely falls apart. The warning signs are blasting like a firehouse siren, but still most don’t heed the warnings. Most people will be in shock when this occurs, but people such as myself will just go Meh! People still get mad at me when I point out the problems that cannot go on, so I suppose real life experience will have to teach them this. Supposedly a… Read more »
Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) is an additive required for all diesel engines after 2010. Flying J truck stops are the largest truck refueler chain in the nation; they are being cut back to less than 50 percent of normal delivery.
DEF shortages are already here: local truckers having difficulties getting it.
The DEF news has better sourcing than the diesel oil news for now, but the supply chains are so effed up it won’t surprise me if the oil rumors prove out.
The one good thing about DEF is that it is possible to bypass or delete the DEF sensor and cripple code in the ECU.
On the other hand, I’m sure there are plenty of road pirates out there just waiting to bust truckers for hacking their DEF system.
Wait, did you say “bypass”? Is it on youtube?
That’s it, I’m moving to Missouri
Nah, but shore might come in right handy
Alz-
Here’s a field-expedient hack on a Cummins engine so you can drive to the nearest repair shop:
https://youtu.be/TeQfNFZT9Lw
Omg. There used to be “oil” and “coolant” and now the newest, hottest, hippest upgrade means there are a dizzying variety of subgrades of oil and coolant, and you betta pick the right one.
Is this the new new motor oil for the gov- pushed new new motors? As if 10-30 is too goshdam hard to make? “But the climate demands it!”
These tiny, critical bottlenecks keep popping up. For the want of a nail, etc.
Supposedly there’s only 2 companies that make the additives that go into diesel engine oil, and both are having major problems right now. Supposedly they’re so severe that they’re saying there will be no such oil until well into 2023.
I do believe that is called a monopoly, and all monopolies eventually fall apart. Perhaps that is a good text book example of the failure of monopolies as all such concerns eventually fail due to lack of competition.
Thanks, gents,for the heads up
Shop just warned me about critical parts shortage, oh goody
BTW, anyone that thinks Disney ruined the Star Wars franchise, or that the 2nd group of sequels did; should go back and rewatch the original series, especially ESB and ROTJ.
Both those movies sucked. And were pozzed as hell.
The original Star Wars was decent, maybe really good for its time. But the appeal was as much the visual special effects, which were completely new at the time, and the simplified story of good vs evil.
This. The Star Wars franchise is the genius of marketing and product development. It was a feature length ad for toys. You can probably point to it as the turn for the worst in movie making. Because it was so successful, despite the boilerplate plot and wooden dialogue, everyone shifted resources to special effects and marketing. It also introduced the accounting gimmick of the franchise, which allows for the capitalization of development costs.
Mel Brook’s Spaceballs comes to mind.
Yogurt : Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower.
[turns it on]
Dink , Dink , Dink , Dink , Dink , Dink : Ooooh!
Yogurt : [reacts to dinks] The kids love this one.
[a dink hands him a doll that looks likes Yogurt]
Yogurt : And last but not least, Spaceballs the doll, me.
[pulls string]
Doll : May the schwartz be with you!
Yogurt : [kisses the doll] Adorable.
“Silent Running” with Bruce Dern and those so cute little droids, especially the one who got his little shoe stuck in the outside rail and got swept away when he couldn’t free himself–great film..and Joan Baez songs
Whatever it’s deficits, the original Star Wars trilogy had a lot of charm. Was much of the dialogue hokey? That was part of its charm. Was the acting frequently hammy? Also part of its charm. There was something magical in the franchise at that time quite beyond the innovative special effects and endless product tie-ins. None of that is to deny the overall negative effect Star Wars had on filmmaking in general. Why create anything thought-provoking or edgy (genuinely edgy — not “woke” bullshit) when empty, crowd-pleasing fare is so much more likely to succeed big? Of course, that phenomenon… Read more »
If you look at it as a kid’s movie, it’s perfectly fine. The problem is the infestation of “Disney Adults” who want to remain in perpetual adolescence. It’s one of the creepiest modern phenomena, and has the same roots as teachers grooming trans kids and other weirdness. We’re surrounded by people who hit puberty but never became adults.
Luke was beyond lame, and Carrie fisher wasn’t hot
Harrison ford and the wookie saved those movies along with my favorite, r2d2. He was the best
The Girl In The Titanium Thong wasn’t the hottest smokin’ babe on the planet?!!
I challenge you to a lightsaber duel
The planet was only Tatooine. Low bar.
The importance of the Han Solo character is difficult to overstate as he provided a grounded, normal frame of reference that the audience could anchor itself to as the fantastical events transpired.
And 3CPO, yeesh, even as a kid he almost made the movies unwatchable.
I loved the first one as a kid. I probably liked the others, but I barely remember them. I watched the prequels and laughed myself silly. The fight scene between the puppet and the bad guy was hilarious.
Rewatching these sorts of movies as an adult I think the Lord of the Rings trilogy has the greatest staying power. 90s and earlier Disney animated stuff is also surprisingly watchable.
I cheered whenever an Eewok died.
Yeah, I hated those little bastards for ridiculously implausibly beating up stormtroopers.
Irony being, that the studio didn’t see the possibility for toys at the time. Lucas (I believe) slipped the merch clause into the contract without objection. The rest is history.
That’s all it was to me, a giant feature for cool toys. I remember as a kid really wanting those toys, the neighbor kid had a bunch and his place was the place to go. I really liked those armored walking camel things that got tied up in a rope in one of the movies. I was doing a job a year or so back and the person I was working for was clearing out a bunch of stuff from their parents estate. Low and behold they had one of the original armored camels out of the box but in… Read more »
Zman: I saw the original Star Wars in the theater soon after it opened, because the parents of the charge I was nannying that summer wanted him to see the movie. I suppose the kid enjoyed it, but I didn’t find it all that entertaining (and I was far less detached from popular culture then, as a college student, than I am now). I’ve since seen various sequels, on t.v./video, and even tolerated younger son’s fascination with them for a period. Never got what the hype was all about.
I was ten when it hit theaters. The special effects were the coolest thing. I remember little of the story as I have not seen it in thirty years. The one thing that stuck with me from seeing it in the theater was my father snoring. He was not alone. Adults found it boring.
I’ll disagree. The story is the archetype of the hero’s quest. Absolutely epic for a young boy.
Luke was training to be a spiritual warrior in an obviously righteous battle. The Force is a mystical power that has observable impact in the world, unlike all contemporary religions.
We are about the same age. The original Star Wars changed my young life even if I wasn’t an obvious fanboy.
I never understood the rage. I was a kid and I collected Star Wars stamps and knew and loved the music but my parents never took me to the movie theater. When I watched it in my 30s, I found it boring. I never understood middle-aged guys raving about it 40 years later By contrast, my teacher made us watch Excalibur. There is a lot of things for a teenage to love: the sex, the knights, the Middle Ages…But a mature guy finds a lot too: order vs chaos, paganism vs Christianity, the fate, the decadence, the tight script, the… Read more »
I have never watched a single Star Wars movie. I quit watching space cartoon ” message movies” after the initial release of “Forbidden Planet.”
I thought starship troopers was pretty good in its brutality I think that is the only sci movie I have watched twice Did anyone ever figure out what was the deal with the mashed potato’s in close encounters? It had a jewy Dreyfus vibe to it like Jaws did I noticed when I had gotten older, so I figured the mashed potatoes were just some NYU students trying to scam young people into thinking there was some important message in the potato’s. Pretentious nonsense like the movie rumble fish which was black and white except for the scene of the… Read more »
I think that’s when Dreyfus started having visions of Devils Tower, and he was starting to try to recreate it at the supper table.
Yeah something like that but it all went waaaaay over my head. I don’t know who ever liked that movie but apparently it was a major hit.
But this was the time of Spielberg casting his bagel spell over America. We haven’t been the same since. His success was an inflection point in the trajectory the culture would take.
If you read Heinlein’s book, the movie translation was poor (IMO). They turned a philosophical tome into a bug movie. Indeed, when I first saw it, I thought the movie more of a parody, than a translation of Heinlein’s writing to screen representation.
Whoops, must be a “senior moment”, I thought Falcone had mentioned Starship Troopers.
Sorry, never mind. 😉
Somebody did. Never having read the book, I loved the movie…it was a WWll recruiting film!
Read the book, and wasn’t terribly impressed. A huge part of the story was “my time in Army training but with everything now given sci-fi names”, *groan*.
I don’t get humble-bragging over having not watched something that’s pretty benign.
I never liked it. I was carpooling with a guy at the time all he did was draw pictures of tie fighters in the back of his mom’s station wagon, I think I was in 5th grade and he was in 6th. And he was a midwestern transplant or something because he’d say it real obnoxiously like Tyie Feiters My favorite movie of that era was The Deep. Even as a young man I was repulsed by space movies and their lack of nature, and the only Star Wars movie I ever remember having some attraction to was the second… Read more »
I worked in tech for decades. I can’t count the number of adult men who had Star Wars figurines in their cubes or offices. Painfully embarassing.
The Force is Star Wars functions as a substitute religion for lots of people. It’s Buddism for westerners.
I spent 10 years as a young man exploring eastern religions and I believe seeing the original Star Wars at a young age was a strong motivator for that.
+1 on seeing IT dudes with Star Wars stuff in their cubes. I remember a guy who had a two or three foot long LEGO Star Destroyer perched atop the cabinets on his cube. You could see that bad boy 100 feet away. A good thing about being a contractor/consultant? You travel light because you’ll be rolling off some day and want a quick getaway. Of course I can’t throw too many stones. I toured a Star Wars exhibit at The Field Museum in the early 2000s with a gal I was dating at the time. While she was looking… Read more »
george lucas was always more interested in the technology of making movies, than in making good movies. the major tech innovation in Star Wars was to make the models static (i.e. non-moving) and to move the camera around them (using micro-computer control). this allowed true 360 degrees of movement in all axis, visually. before Star Wars, all shot involving moving models had the latter going in a straight line (because they were on a string/wire). go look at 2001 A Space Odyssey to see what I mean. the action scenes in the original SW movie don’t seem so special now,… Read more »
Skywalker Sound was Lucas’ greatest innovation out of the STAR WARS franchise (which sucked even back then). I had a fairly good job offer with Lucasfilms, LTD, in the early Nineties in a niche area to monitor and protect Skywalker Sound’s intellectual property rights, which I turned down because it appeared the primary product was about to be supplanted with radically superior technologies. Lucas did bring in new people to his compound on his family’s ranch in San Luis Obispo and adapted quite well to the changes and remains cutting edge to this day.
I’d rate the THX quality standards for audio and visual reproduction in theaters as one of Lucas’ better innovations.
They were worthwhile enough that people eventually adapted them to many other A/V mediums.
I really enjoyed some of the Expanded Universe stuff, like Timothy Zahn’s “Admiral Thrawn” series. As long as there wasn’t any contradiction or conflict with the OT, Lucas didn’t seem to care what people came up with. I wasn’t expecting Disney to draw off that well, but it was disappointing to see them to render the EU irrelevant altogether.
I remember liking the Zahn sequel novels in middle school, but I thought the Dark Empire sequel comics were better.
They actually ripped off major ideas about the Emperor from Dark Empire for the last SW film.
One gent told me those novels saved him from alcoholism.
Those who have the power call the shots. This is not news. By “marketplace” you must mean some kind of forum or fairgrounds where willing buyers and sellers, under no compulsion to buy or sell (goods, services, political candidates, policies, ideologies, spiritual beliefs,) negotiate a price at arms length. This marketplace, as you point out, has never existed. This, too, is not news. Most everyone whose eyes are even partially open knows this. So what, actually, is your beef? That corruption has taken over the marketplace. Because why? The people in the market, under all sorts of constraint, with all… Read more »
truth gets you downvotes. sad, eh? so i’ll give you an upvote. and add: ALL markets will have someone setting the rules- and most often getting a cut.
I guess downvotes are because people want the marketplace to be real because it gives an illusion of freedom.
But the marketplace is like democracy, communism, libertarianism, etc. – only in theory does it work as advertised.
Well, there’s a big, fat black pill to kick off the day – well written and with great perspective, but pretty discouraging. The more you think we can’t sink any lower, the more you realize, oh hell yeah we can. All the folks still blathering about “my sportsball team will win it all next year” or “we’ll really get’em next election” or “I can hardly wait to see the new 60 year old Tom Cruise super hero action movie”, whatever – and you see it through all age groups. Or, why are all these young people suddenly dying in their… Read more »
how is this a black pill? if the marketplace were real, it would not be any better a world than it is now, just slightly different.
There’s no invisible hand, there’s two small hands rubbing together.
I often thought Smith was having an insider joke with the invisible hand thing.
He knew full well there was a hidden hand manipulating the markets and his reference appears to be an ambiguous acknowledgement that somehow has become defined to mean that there is none.
” by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention”
There’s a bit of truth in what you write, but it’s way over the top.
The phrase throwing the baby out with the bath water comes to mind.
Can you discuss why the belief that the market is largely controlled by elites is “way over the top?”
I doubt that any reader here wants a Soviet-style controlled economy, but we want to observe the world accurately.
Christians would love to see Christian movies and this would obviously make lots of money. Why are there almost no such movies?
There are, but they suffer from the same cringe as the woke movies – too overt. Also, big distributers won’t touch them. Better ones like LOTR are not overtly Christian, but utilize Christian and universal themes (self-sacrifice for the greater good, loyalty, a sense that there is a greater purpose). Even movies that don’t intend too, like High Plains Drifter, end up displaying some of these themes – in particular, the sin-punishment-redemption arc. But if you do it too in your face, it becomes a bit cringe.
And those universal themes and obscure niches are what made Star Wars a great religion.
Including the Force; that was something that sparked a thrill of recognition in everyone who heard it.
Mel Gibson made two mega hit Christian films – PotC and Apocalypto. So maybe part of the problem is that most explicitly Christian movies just aren’t very good – technically.
Plus, being less overt gets you past the censors in the form of big distributors.
Can you discuss why the belief that the market is largely controlled by elites is “way over the top?” Z-s stated position is that “the market” is a fantasy, presumably to obfuscate an actual command economy (or something similar). That’s over the top. It’s the mirror image of the libertarian nuts that claim the free market is unstoppable and always correct. You’r statement that the market is controlled by elites is accurate imo. But that still leaves room for individual discretion in participation. Markets do not spring from the mind of Zeus or whatever. They are constructed by people –… Read more »
Why the meme “Go woke-go broke” is still used is because there are instances where there are clear failures because of a woke agenda. The latest Lightyear movie is looking to be a flop, and an example in another corporation is the infamous Gillette commercial that did hit their bottom line. The issue is the corporations are so huge they can easily eat these costs, so it’s like winning a skirmish while tanks roll over another one of your cities. With regards to Star Wars, when one looks at the prequels, they weren’t great, but you could at least see… Read more »
One of the problems with the celebratory Woke-Broke is that it fails to account for the fact that White America resides in the wake of the broke part. IE The collateral upon which the lies are leveraged in GloboCorp is White male productivity. And given that the cult hates White Men above all else, the casualties of economic wokentropy will be outsized losses for White Men and their families – or worse, future families. Elon may be able to hang onto his White engineers for a while because he has photos of beltway faggots on pedo island, but every other… Read more »
With regards to Star Wars, when one looks at the prequels, they weren’t great, but you could at least see a cohesive universe and worldview within that universe. Yes, it’s amazing how Disney managed to get Star Wars fans to love the prequels. It’s no Lord of the Rings or Dune with regards to mythos, but passable enough The very first movie was a minor masterpiece, schlocky dialogue and all: There’s a Peasant Boy setting out on an adventure with his Wise Mentor in order to become a Knight. He joins up with a Rogue, sneaks into a Dark Castle… Read more »
The Empire Strikes Back is the better film
Chet, I was going to write a post like yours but you said it all so well.
“Why the meme ‘Go woke-go broke’ is still used is because there are instances where there are clear failures because of a woke agenda.”
All I can add is that the few instances where “Go woke, go broke” succeeds is analagous to the civilized and intelligent blacks that one occassionally meets: They are extreme outliers that one can pretend are representative of reality.
Go woke go broke sometimes works on the smaller guys. The big boys can take the loss which usually bounces back in a quarter or two.
I run into film shoots all the time in LA, blocks of trailers, pop up organic restaurant tents, Porto Johns, and bypocs with glasses and nubby blonde hair extensions wearing horn- rimed glasses without any prescription glass in them. I usually roll down my window and ask the the white guy with the radio if it’s a union shoot. Hell yeah! Next question, is the tv show or movie another white hating episode of ( fill in the blank ) they smile , sort of ,and respond, hell yeah! And then claim that they don’t watch this crap and wink.… Read more »
Those union electricians at one shoot told me this joke:
“How do you know which kid is the union kid?
He’s the one on the side of the playground watching the other kids play.”
“People trust the supernatural more than ever, but they now call their god the marketplace.”
Very well put.
It’s just that real capitalism has never been tried.
sure it has, the robber baron age was about as pure capitalism as is possible.
This is rich! 😀
The No True Capitalist theory
“People often say that Christianity has no future because people no longer accept the supernatural, but this November’s election will prove otherwise.” Great line. The irony about the entertainment industry is that it no longer is controlled by monopolies yet the folks who operate, say, Disney realize the sheep will go there to graze on its toxic pasture even still. The rams and ewes with the lambs in tow could go elsewhere more easily than anywhere in the past or simply stay home. Covid had dramatically more effect on the old theatre system more than kiddie porn disguised as children’s… Read more »
According to the internet, “As of September 2021, the so-called “Big Five” – Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. – held about 81 percent of the movie market in the U.S. and Canada.” The Pareto principle holds. These studios are probably twenty percent of the studios with access to the broad market. Interestingly, the collapse of the studio system has brought the big players closer as they now share talent. In the old days, actors and directors were tied to a studio. That put the studios into competition for young talent. Today they can share resources so they have… Read more »
” The Pareto principle holds.”
Almost exact numerically. And, yeah, the trusts sharing talent has made for far worse movies than the studio systems.
OT and completely stupid: the song playing over the closing credits of the new Beavis and Butt-head movie is the same as the one Z-Man has very often used in the podcast intro.
“Bob, I think they’re on to us…”