I came of age in Ronald Reagan’s America. The Hays Code had loosened its grip on movies throughout the 60s and 70s. Hollywood felt threatened enough by television to give audiences what they couldn’t get anywhere else, graphic violence and explicit sex.

But by the 1980s, a new Conservativism had taken hold and with it, a “greed is good” mentality that helped Hollywood abandon quality for blockbuster entertainment.

Hollywood couldn’t afford to alienate a large swath of the American public and still be a thriving business. So movies had to be for everyone, or at least the mostly white, mostly heterosexual, mostly Christian majority. It was always a fine line studios had to walk to ensure the big numbers.

This was much easier when branding came into play after movies like Jaws, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the Lord of the Rings franchises built Hollywood’s empire, the one that is now collapsing.

//

Get full access to Hollywood Woketopia at www.hollywoodwoketopia.com/subscribe