Originally, I hoped to finish an assignment on time. Well, that failed dreadfully. That said, here's my open letter to Hollywood suits.
Dear Hollywood,
Thank you for your creativity and willingness to entertain the world. The way you portray stories both fictional and nonfictional with such emotion and honesty is great. Your actors and actresses are brave enough to transform themselves emotionally and physically simply for our enjoyment. Directors stake their reputation on casting a vision of a script they see on the page. Producers... well... risk obscene amounts of money to make something great... and make an even more obscene amount of money (let's be honest). Kudos!
But you've gone too far. Jumped the shark as the cliche in your world goes. There's too much of every bad thing - sex, violence, drugs, cursing - all for the sake of being "real". Guess what? Most people use your product as a way to escape reality, mundane or otherwise. The world is twisted enough as it is. We have the news to keep it real, to keep it 100. Feel me? Entertain us. That's what you do best.
Obviously show business is still business. It costs money to produce entertainment, and you want as a big as a return as possible. If people buy or consume what is being produced regardless of content, it will continued to be produced. Understood. But what's frustrating is the lack of "clean" alternatives. Napoleon Dynamite was a smash hit. Downton Abbey currently is. Who knew a dork and a bunch of stuck-up English folk could be so entertaining. But it is! YOU made it happen. Just do something like that again, then again, then again, etc.
And one more thing. Don't get self-righteous on us. We know what's going on in the world. We know there are travesties. Your home of Los Angeles and New York aren't exactly the Bastions of Reality. If you want to use your platform and shine a light on a cause dear to you, fine. Just don't act like you're Humanity's link to The Cure. You look dumb accepting an award for a playing a role as a transvestite while speaking out against conflicts in the Ukraine and Venezuela (looking at you, Leto). And be coherent. You need to reign in McConaughey. I mean seriously, his hero is him 10 years from now, in perpetuity? What was that? That makes zero sense. It's just dumb.
In closing, I'd like to end on a positive note. Again, your creativity is excellent. I'm all in on a Cold War era spy show (The Americans), a Jersey-based mafia show (The Sopranos), or a teacher-turned-drug-dealer show (Breaking Bad). I consume the edgy shows you flaunt and tout, making me an enormous hypocrite. But I think those same shows could be delivered with less violence, less sex, and less language without losing anything. Being real isn't what draws folks to your product. It's your great imagination.
Yours truly,
Joe
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