The latest casualty of America’s culture wars? The Oscars …
A record low 26.5 million viewers tuned into the 90th annual awards ceremony earlier this week, down 19 percent from last year’s 32.9 million audience (and down 39 percent from 2014’s record of 43.7 million viewers).
Since 2001, the television audience for the Oscars eclipsed the 40 million threshold on eight separate occasions … and prior to this week, it had never dipped below 32 million.
Clearly the times they are-a-changing …
It’s not just the Oscars, either. The Grammys lost a quarter of its audience this year (well, 24 percent to be precise), while the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards saw its viewership plunge by 30 percent.
What gives?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but a large chunk of America is simply sick and tired of Hollywood. Its uber-liberalism. Its hypocrisy (ahem). Its smugness.
“For decades, Hollywood has had the audacity to lecture Americans on a host of ideological and political matters,” we wrote last fall. “Frankly, we’re glad America is finally beginning to see the sort of people who have been telling them how to think all these years.”
This revelation is gaining speed … and clarity.
Obviously a big part of this dynamic is Hollywood’s reflexive hate toward U.S. president Donald Trump, but let’s be honest … it’s bigger than that. There is an elemental, expanding disconnect between entertainers and their audiences … not to mention a fundamental confusion on the part of the entertainment industry as to its raison d’être.
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We’ll remind them …
People consume entertainment because they want to be entertained. Or escape. Or just relax. They don’t want to be lectured or berated or indoctrinated or guilt-tripped. They simply want to take a break from the stress, strain and monotony of their daily lives and watch something funny … or dramatic … or uplifting … or shocking (depending on their tastes).
Sure there are people who consume entertainment as a means of exercising their brains … but that’s usually more about determining “whodunit” or predicting a twist ending than it is about educating themselves socially, ideologically or politically.
Again, it’s decompression.
It’s sort of like the reason people watch … err, watched … the National Football League (NFL).
Hollywood used to understand this dynamic, but during the years of Barack Obama it was transformed (like the mainstream media) into a thought-policing purveyor of liberal “herd-think.”
(Well, with the notable exceptions of James Woods and Stacey Dash … two Hollywood stars who remain unabashedly conservative).
Unfortunately for the leftist elites, though, the herd is resisting …
Good. Let’s hope they continue. In fact, let’s see if we can drive the audience for the Oscars down to zero.
Or at least just two: Harvey Weinstein and Meryl Streep.
Bottom line? Nothing gives us more satisfaction than to see corrupt, hypocritical institutions being held accountable by the marketplace. It restores our faith in humanity, and reminds us that government’s nefarious education-industrial complex – another purveyor of liberal “herd-think” – hasn’t succeeded in completely dumbing down this country.
Yet …
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WANNA SOUND OFF?
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