Did the Art of Cinema Jump the Shark?

During the summer of 1975, Steven Spielberg redefined the concept of the blockbuster by releasing “Jaws” (Spielberg, 1975). Soon after, George Lucas would release the first film in the “Star Wars” franchise. The directors would soon be accused of destroying cinema. Before the release of “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” films were not as widely distributed. The marketing campaign and plot structure created a market for films aimed at everyone. While allowing films to be more accessible to massive audiences, it made it so film distribution no longer required the film to be good. The introduction of merchandising also introduced a certain level of censorship to the industry by encouraging movies to maintain a PG-13 rating in order to sell more product. It’s difficult not to pinpoint this point of cinematic history as the moment when the art jumped the shark.


Big blockbuster franchises like “Marvel” have slowly started to wear down audiences. It seems we're pushing for a blockbuster break. However, blockbuster films like “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” not only dominated but saved the box office. The blockbuster films have been dominating this award season. Yet, an upcoming Mattel universe has everyone nervous. While studios have mastered the formula, the plot has potentially become too predictable for audiences.

 

Did the mass production of the blockbuster ruin the art of cinema, or did it perfect film too much? 

 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Tale as Old as Time

Image
"Everybody's got an angle," said Bing Crosby's character in White Christmas , the holiday classic movie. That phrase can be true on so many levels. Though the movie goes on to show that not everybody has an angle, that doesn't mean all people are like Bob Wallace. There is always an angle when watching a film or listening to music. The writers or directors are attempting to influence people's perspective of the social class system. Either they want you to think that the class system is not there or that it is very distinct. This neo-Marxist perspective also says that any story throughout history, in essence, has been about class distinction. I'm inclined to agree.  While looking back at various movies, commercials, and stories, they all can have the neo-Marxist perspective applied to them. I even went back to the oldest story discovered, Beowulf. Even that story shows that if we are subservient to the upper class eventually we will be given riches and roya...
Read more

Analyzing Different forms of Feminism in How to Get Away with Murder

Image
The hit show How to Get Away with Murder aired in 2014, nearly one decade ago. The six seasons included a variety of characters, new adventures, and one storyline that kept the audience coming back for more.  This series takes numerous hegemony stances and reinforces a message that ties in with Sellnow’s Feminist Perspectives. The main character - Annalise Keating - is a black, highly educated, single woman.  Throughout the series, Annalise Keating defies typical gender roles and strengthens her role as a successful woman. She deals with hardship, loss, and sexism, yet perseveres into a stronger educator. All of these attributes seem to contribute to the series’ success. While this is just one example of one series that takes these positions, this leads into the main question - are more shows likely to take this storyline position? Sellnow (2022) points out the sites of struggle when it comes to taking a feminist perspective. She also states that oppositional readings may inc...
Read more

Newsflash: Your Social Feed is Pushing Ideologies. Yes, that Includes Grandma's Facebook Post.

Image
In this module, the theory of Marxism is introduced to describe how pop culture and media push forward ideologies, whether hegemonic, occluded, or oppositional. Through the video examples including Titanic, Good Will Hunting , Pretty Woman , The Matrix , and many more, these texts describe how the world might be seen by the average person.  As I was watching these videos, I wanted to take the chance to reflect on how my feeds were pushing any of these Marxism concepts. With movies, they are bound to have themes, issues, or ideologies demonstrated. They have to be spotted in a movie, or else why are we even watching them?  It's obvious that much of the content we see online has some sort of view, ideology, or stance, but I was interested in the "average Joe" content or content that doesn't seem to have a reading on it - but alas, it does.  In recent years, as TikTok has pushed forward content with its thousands of new users a week, these Marxism themes have appeared i...
Read more