The Brakes on Human Development [Opinion] - Part #2

in #philosophy6 years ago

Hey everyone,

This is the continuation of the previously started series, for the disclaimer and the first post go here.

Brake Candidate #2 - Movie Industry


First of all, as previously, I don't think watching or producing movies is wrong in any general sense.

Money:

We have a cross revenue of 286 billion dollars [1] in 2015 with a prevision of 324 billion dollars in 2020.

Following [2] the top 30 actors in 2017 made a cross of almost 1 billion dollars.

While the top 30 actors seem to get more than the professional athletes the list declines way faster and even decently known actors often don't make more than 60-80k a year.

Therefore, the main problem here is not only the amount of money which goes into few pockets.

Time:

Following [3] the average time a US citizen spends in front of the television is over 5 hours a day which makes a cross of 77 full days spent in front of the television a year.

  • That's more than 1/5th of the year spent in front of the television;

  • If you'd spent this time working at minimum wage you'd get more than 13k $;

  • If you'd spend this time studying a language you could get fluent in a language within 2 years;

  • If you'd spend this time studying you could graduate almost any course in 8 years;

  • If you'd spend this time educating your children the chance of them becoming criminal would decrease significantly as [4] states that the relationship of the children to their parents has a significant impact on their future.

Besides that, watching this amount of television can have serious effects on your brain and body.

According to [4] television consumption times are linked to 8 of the leading causes of death in the US!

As with professional sports, moderate consume is the important part.
There is no problem to watch an hour of television a day before going to bed, not even 2 hours is a real problem, but when the average time in front of the television is 5h that means that half the people even watch more than that!

Quality:

While the factor time is already more important in this case than the money spent, way more important in my opinion is the quality and value of what is being watched.

For sure, there is educational television content.
But, for example, according to a study in 2008 [5] only 35% of all programs labeled as educational were rated at least minimally educational.
But this is a study from 2008 and it has been shown that this rate is declining [6].

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find good numbers about how much of the content on the television, in general, is educational, but I can guarantee you, it's not much. (I'd guess around under 3% if 10% of the content would be marked as educational and only 35% of that is at least minimally educational, we're at around 3%).

Besides that, we'd' think that in a world where #MeToo became a huge scandal and Hollywood rebelled strongly we would think that we're on a good way.

But, I doubt that strongly. Hollywood is one of the main drivers to sexualize and objectify men and women. Today, it is almost impossible to watch a movie or series without seeing men and women being objectified and our children grow up thinking that seeing a man or woman or even boy or girl as an object is perfectly normal (At television standards).

Hollywood started criticizing abuse last year, while this has been obvious for everyone for decades already.
It seems more like a reaction to the scandals than a real opinion.

For decades actors and actresses are "abused" and sold as objects to the masses and most people consume this "public degradation" without even giving it a second thought.

And, in my opinion, this is getting worse every year, at which point in history did we stop enjoying quality content and started going back the monkey line seeking more and more sexual content every other year.
We should ask ourselves more often where we are as a race and when we entered this vicious cycle and what we can do against this.

Why don't you show yourself naked or half/naked on television? Wouldn't you be embarrassed? Wouldn't you feel exposed? Wouldn't you feel like losing your integrity as a Person? at least partially?

Watching this, we not only degrade ourselves but also other people in the process.

Therefore, we should respect the integrity of each human being.

  • Independently of the gender.
  • Independently of the social situation.
  • Independently of the profession.
  • Independently of the place (Television, Newspaper, Real-life)

What can we do?

Fixing this would be extremely easy, the solution is as straightforward as it could be.

Stop consuming that shit!!!

Really!

Search yourself quality content, avoid tv shows and movies exploiting and abusing human beings.

If the viewers decrease of that content the industry has to react and will start producing less.

Start thinking of Actors/Actresses like people!!!

Actors are people too, and only because they earn well it doesn't mean that they deserve to lose their integrity as a person.
Why do you think there are so many issues with alcoholism and drugs in the movie business?

I hope I could influence the one or other to, at least, recapitulate about this topic so we can build a better society, a better world.

Sort:  

interesting article. I would like to add an element that goes hand in hand with TV and Holliwood: The musical genres (If that can be called music). The Regeton and the trap seem to be created with the purpose of stupidizing the youngest: meaningless letters, drugs, drug trafficking, mistreatment of women, in short, a series of stereotypes that inculcate young people. Maybe it would be good if you wrote about this my friend, I know you will have a good post. Greetings from Venezuela.

Yeah, it's also on my list =D

Or the giving admiring respect and money to the like of Bieber who has been know to spit on his fans...

I've got a personal issue with YouTube and the "kid channels" that are just about kids opening presents and playing with them. It brings on the want disease, badly. I have banned youtube at my home because of them. We use it sparingly and for specific purposes, not just for entertainment.

I totally understand this. Guess what? Between the ages of 5 and 14, I wasted 9000 hours playing video games, 1400 hours watching porn (this started around 13 years old, cuz 5 year olds doing that is weird lol), 700 hours watching TV, 300 hours on social media, and probably some more time wasted on other stuff that I didn't count. I know this because my dad installed a screen time monitor on my computer but he never checked it which is why I still could get away with this.

So lesson learned: Start doing something productive instead of wasting your life

Even if I watch 30 minutes of TV a day, I will have watched almost 18000 hours of TV after 50 years. You don't want to look back at your life in retirement and say, "Fuck, I wasted 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 hours watchin TV, playin video games, and jerking off to porn". Rather, you would want to say, "I had an awesome life and I spent lots of time with my family and I learned 6 languages and am super healthy cuz I went to the gym instead of watching TV"

And the worst part in this is that you're:
a) Destroying your own life doing this.
b) Destroying lives around you (Your family)
c) Helping to bring down our society by financing those businesses.

I mean, it's utopic to never watch television, play video games or spend time on social media.
Hell, we need some time out sometimes and we need interaction.
But, what really matters is the amount of time we spend there and the quality of what we consume.

Thanks for your comments. As someone who spent decades in Hollywood and ten more years in Asia making movies and working with music and TV talent, I can tell you that this is not an easy topic. The entertainment industry always has a light shined on it and as a result all of its issues get magnified. I can assure you that these same issues are at least as prevalent in the construction or food industries it is just there are no cameras or stars around. You can see now how companies like Uber are being called out and Silicon Valley in general has been shown to treat women terribly.

It is just that people who gain power tend to act badly. But back to Hollywood.

People look up to celebrities. Sometimes this is unwarrented because htey do not deserve it and as you say if someone is spending more time with soap operas than their kids, they really have their priorities messed up, but in the end we all have to take some personal repsonsiblity for ourselves and how we act. Hollywood provides us with a meaningful part of the human life, entertainment. We need it for a release and to get away form the daily grind. At its est it can inspire us and also make us feel proud and even appreciate amazing things like love. We can use it as a escape or as a motivator and it gives voices and views to people who might never have gotten the chance to be heard. For this it becomes vital.

But again we must be aware that it also can cause us to isolate ourselves and serve images that are negative and hurtful. When this occurs we need to turn away or demand better from them. I always say that actors and actresses are often too much like prostitutes, you pay them and they will do what you ask. Their goal is to work all the time and feed their families. Most cannot pick and choose, only hope they get hired. For this reason, blaming them is not really right. In terms of the industry, the bottom line is that if no one watches they change. And if we demand higher quality they will deliver it and gladly. But we have to take the responsibility not expect that they will. Thanks.

"...issues are at least as prevalent in the construction of food industries..."

If we stop consuming the principles of treating people in movies like trash, then it will be easier to spot when we see it in person. By bringing attention to what we are willingly bringing into our home, we make all the people on our home community more aware, and the awareness can only spread.

Hollywood is not to blame for all of our society's problems, but its a good place to start the self examination. Do I have to go to the movies? Do I need netflix? Could I spend the night playing card games and reading or coloring/crafting instead of entertaining my kids with the television?

We are never going to stop people from going to the movies. It is a powerful release for people and this is why they go. But we can influence what Hollywood makes. Look at Black Panther as an example of what Hollywood pushed looks like. It is not a perfect film but the images are powerful and uplifting rather than condescending. Rather than backing away from those industries that we have built with our financial support, we need to dictate to them what they create. It works. Just my humble opinion.

It’s not about getting people to stop going to the movies.

It’s about examining ourselves.

But that's mostly what I am talking about, the issue is not that there are actors "willing to sell their integrity" the problem is that there are people willing to buy it because there are too many people enjoying to watch that.

This is very true. In the end the public determines what places like Hollywood produce. We have to do better and demand better. Thanks,

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Stop watching that shit. Remember that the people on the screen are people.

Ive heard it time and time again. They aren't real people. At least they get paid. That's what they get. Etc Etc. Im with you, let's humanize the people on the screen, even if they are "just" being characters.

Im really enjoying your series. Are you going to put it on Dbooks?

When I end up with enough pages I might consider it =P

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