Tuning in to culture and relevance

For other movies, such as relevant stories, the target moves constantly. The market is huge for relevant stories. As you look through the ages, movies reflected our interests of the moment. For example, our cultural change as we moved beyond the "romantic era" in vogue before the 1970s where people swooned over each other and put heroes on pedestals, was reflected in the movies with people swooning over each other.

Romance is still with us, and we still want our heroes, but our reactions are different. Generation X (Baby Boomers after WWII) admired the heroic, felt liberated as the sexual revolution was in full bloom, and became disillusioned by the Vietnam War and Watergate. Yet Generation X still characteristically got married right out of high school or college, and definitely got jobs right away. Sexual freedom led to pregnancy and early marriage. Movies of that era idealized youth and sex in the "beach party" movies, while Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and Platoon reflected our disillusionment about war. Movies reflected the questions we had about ourselves.

Just as people stopped falling for the illusion of romance and war, they passed on to Generation Y their disillusionment, helping produce the "Me" generation of the 1980s, with its narcissism, irresponsibility, and lack of ideals and civic mindedness. The acceptance of divorce and having children outside of marriage, and the narcissism inherent in the era, influenced people to avoid deep and lasting marriage commitments, and to postpone marriage and career until later in life. By 2010, the average age of marriage had moved from age 20-22 to age 26-28. Many "kids" are still living at home with jobs that won't support them at 27. It's more desirable for many to play video games, have fun, have casual sex, and postpone starting families and careers. The ever increasing longevity and quality of life have enabled them. Movies have reflected most of these attitudes. Examples: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Wedding Singer, Sex and the City, and Failure to Launch.

At the same time, military technological advancements raised pride in the US ability to precisely target and bomb with few civilian casualties and troops on the ground - an instantaneous "clean hands" hammer to be used against enemies. Anger at Hussein in Iraq, and at Al Qaida's attack on Sept. 11, 2001, swung attitudes about war toward a feverous passion. Most Westerners approved the attack on Iraq... but once again the realities of the real cost of war in civilian casualties, troop casualties, escallation, high impact on the budget, and foreign ungratefulness and rejection, brought disillusionment. Movies have reflected these attitudes as they changed. They have reflected us. Examples: BlackHawk Down, Green Zone, In The Valley of Elah, No End In Sight, The Hurt Locker, Taxi to the Dark Side, The Messenger, The Kingdom, and Three Kings (compare the attitude in Three Kings to the 1961 Catch 22 story after WWII/Vietnam). A difference between attitudes in 1980 and less caustic ones and better portrayal about the Iraq war now, is the US won in Iraq. Confounding the movie reflection was the hesitance of many to avoid criticism that might be reflected as not supporting the troops or the mission.

A very interesting and radical change in movie genre interest occurred since 2000. People of the culture change produced by government failures to protect in events like Hurricane Katrina and the Al Qaida attack on Sept. 11, 2001, and multiple economic crises, have become a wide audience for reality shows that don't shovel unreality and smiley endings at us in a continuous stream. Children of today even like "Lemony Snicket" in his "series of unfortunate events." Yet dark fiction hasn't become wildly popular. It isn't darkness that people are after, but something closer to reality. And the difficulty many find with TV reality programs is that while they are not scripted, the people in them are paid to create drama, which is artificial. An increasingly sophisticated audience is likely to slowly drift away from many of the current reality programs toward something more relevant and "real."

Next page: Getting there - finding the trend.

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