One party in the equation is a very powerful, profitable industry, the other is a huge but atomized group of people.
To assume that the only power dynamic at play is consumers making individual choices as fully rational, considerate actors is a vast oversimplification. Your equation isn’t more even, you’ve just flipped the one side, assuming that consumers have all the power and Hollywood is just haplessly following demand.
Yes, lowest common denominator viewers are the biggest purchasing group, and that’s the money that Hollywood is chasing. But that was true before. What changed isn’t the same consumers demanding more Avengers and less art films, but Hollywood setting their sights on the global audience, thus increasing the market for generic movies a hundred fold. Now the incentives are so skewed towards that group that the individual American consumer has next to zero power in influencing Hollywood’s direction with their dollars.
You also ignore the power of advertising and limited choice. Marketing can and does create an audience of consumers that didn’t exist before. It’s not about “here are my products, now you choose the best” it’s “here are my products and I will subtly convince you that you need them.” Consumers are not rational actors in a classical sense of going to a market for a specific need and picking the best product from a wide selection. Marketing is sufficiently advanced that the owner of a supply can also create demand for it.
Finally, Hollywood also controls the selection of choices. So as others have pointed out, people who would prefer smarter films have to forego movies altogether if they really want to “vote with their dollars.” So they might still choose a sub par movie if they like the theater and their friends want to go.
PS: I’m not advocating for a solution, so much as I am pointing out that there’s more to market forces than a simplistic libertarian view of the market can offer. I think in this case it’s inevitable and Hollywood movies are just gonna be like that now. But there’s more at play than “oh well, consumers chose it!”
To assume that the only power dynamic at play is consumers making individual choices as fully rational, considerate actors is a vast oversimplification. Your equation isn’t more even, you’ve just flipped the one side, assuming that consumers have all the power and Hollywood is just haplessly following demand.
Yes, lowest common denominator viewers are the biggest purchasing group, and that’s the money that Hollywood is chasing. But that was true before. What changed isn’t the same consumers demanding more Avengers and less art films, but Hollywood setting their sights on the global audience, thus increasing the market for generic movies a hundred fold. Now the incentives are so skewed towards that group that the individual American consumer has next to zero power in influencing Hollywood’s direction with their dollars.
You also ignore the power of advertising and limited choice. Marketing can and does create an audience of consumers that didn’t exist before. It’s not about “here are my products, now you choose the best” it’s “here are my products and I will subtly convince you that you need them.” Consumers are not rational actors in a classical sense of going to a market for a specific need and picking the best product from a wide selection. Marketing is sufficiently advanced that the owner of a supply can also create demand for it.
Finally, Hollywood also controls the selection of choices. So as others have pointed out, people who would prefer smarter films have to forego movies altogether if they really want to “vote with their dollars.” So they might still choose a sub par movie if they like the theater and their friends want to go.
PS: I’m not advocating for a solution, so much as I am pointing out that there’s more to market forces than a simplistic libertarian view of the market can offer. I think in this case it’s inevitable and Hollywood movies are just gonna be like that now. But there’s more at play than “oh well, consumers chose it!”