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- [00:02]
Erin Ryan
Over the same old news cycle, Tune in to Hysteria, your weekly group chat with me, Erin Ryan, and my co host, Alyssa Mastromonico, where no topic is off limits. From politics to pop culture. We're bringing you brutally honest takes on the stories shaping our lives from powerhouse women like Elisa Slotkin to wellness trends in education.
- [00:18]
Akilah Hughes
No sugarcoating, no doom scrolling, just real talk, strong women and hope to keep moving forward. Catch Hysteria wherever you get your podcasts and tune into our YouTube channel for full episodes and our special series before
- [00:30]
we jump into, I guess, like, the landscape of film, do you think that movies are turning into the opera and ballet?
- [00:37]
Ryan Broderick
Yes. Well, thanks for having me.
- [00:42]
Akilah Hughes
It's over.
- [00:43]
This is Ryan Broderick. He's a journalist, the author of the Garbage Day newsletter, and host of the podcast Panic World. I wanted to talk with Ryan because he's been tracking Hollywood's waning influence as the Internet comes of age. And also we watched a lot of the Academy Award nominees together. I'm Akilah Hughes, and on this episode of How Is this Better? I wanted to know how a storied awards show that is moving to YouTube in just a few years really impacts culture and if there's anything to glean from the sometimes muddled messages of the films featured there.
- [01:21]
Ryan Broderick
I've written a bit about this, but I think the really outrageous reaction to Timothee Chalamet's quote about this is a bit of Hollywood telling on itself. It is clearly driven by people who are very anxious about that exact thing happening. And both my research team and the Garbage Day readers dug into who started the outrage. And it was started by a reporter who covers Hollywood. So it's like, I can't think of anything more precarious than that right now. Like, the whole industry is sort of freaked out about this. And, yeah. So I think it is very real.
- [01:59]
Akilah Hughes
I will say, as a person who lived in Los Angeles and chose to move back east, there is nothing but anxiety in the entertainment industry.
- [02:07]
And it is funny.
- [02:09]
I think, that Timothee Chalamet is so successful, and so he's pretty insulated, I think. Like, yeah, he has his next 10 projects lined up, but for everybody else, they're like, no one's coming to the theater, bud. Yeah, we didn't see Marty supreme in theaters.
- [02:24]
Ryan Broderick
No. I mean, we didn't watch almost any of the of the best picture noms in theaters. I think we watched two. I watched Sinners in theaters and I watched one Battle. I was looking. I was trying to look at the numbers to Actually see, like, okay, how bad are things? And it's a complicated picture because you do have great movies being made. I mean, there were so many great movies nominated for Oscars this year. But then you also have a complete hollowing out of the industry. And so my take is that this is quite similar to everything else, which is that the money that would be going towards people making more things, better quality things, just isn't trickling down. It never does. And so you are still getting a sinners one battle after another. You know, you're getting some streamers that are able to actually make something great like F1 or Netflix's train Dreams, but it's not enough to sustain an actual economy. And that is true across the entire economy right now.
- [03:18]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah. Something that I read online that I thought was just wild was that obviously every year the Vanity Fair after party is like the hottest ticket in town and Jeff Bezos and his wife walked the carpet, but there were no Washington Post reporters, you know, covering the Oscars because they all got laid off.
- [03:35]
And so I guess just back to
- [03:37]
your point about how this is like not just an entertainment industry thing, it's kind of happening everywhere in every direction.
- [03:44]
Feels true. And exactly what we're seeing across the board is consolidation, power in the hands of fewer and fewer players.
- [03:52]
You know, we're in the middle of a bunch of mergers in Hollywood, the biggest one being Paramount and Warner Brothers. And you know, David Zaslav is taking pictures with the cast of Sinners, trying to take credit for their success when he's cashing out. And they're almost certainly gonna lay off, you know, most of the people who worked there if that merger goes through. I think the Oscars always feels like a big send up of Hollywood. And you know, the In Memoriam had so many heavy hitters. It just felt like, oh, wow. Yeah, we all love the movies.
- [04:21]
Ryan Broderick
I love the movies.
- [04:23]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah, I love the movies. But then the reality setting in of like, there used to be a lot more people who got to do this. They got to have long careers. Michael B. Jordan has been acting since he was literally a child. And so seeing him get his Oscar in his late 30s is like very exciting. I don't know, I feel like these things are great, but also like, it is the end. Like, I don't know if I see it for Gen Z or even the prestige mattering.
- [04:49]
Ryan Broderick
Yeah. I mean, to the Michael B. Jordan point, I don't know how much to index like the choices of Oscar voters. I feel like if you could do a really Interesting story where you looked at all of them and kind of tried to figure out like, did they actually predict the like subsequent future of Hollywood, subsequent future of entertainment. But there is something interesting to me about Michael B. Jordan winning and Timothee Chalamet losing. And it doesn't have to do with the Oscars and ballet and opera and all that. What it to me sort of symbolizes is like the world of the Internet and the world of Hollywood are still like very uncomfortable connecting together. And you throw in what I think is an Oscar snub for Ava Victor's sorry baby. The complete total industry disregard for the youtuber markiplier is iron lung. The fact that Timothee Chalamet wrote ran like basically a brain rot Oscars campaign. Yeah, like there is something interesting there that the most traditional young actor, quote unquote, young actor Michael B. Jordan gets best actor, not Timothee Chalamet, who I. I can't say Marty supreme is like better than sinners, but I think Timothy Chalamet's career is probably closer to like what a future Korean Hollywood would look like, which is this four dimensional viral machine that just sometimes farts out movies.
- [06:13]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah, totally. But that's the thing.
- [06:15]
It's like, where is that valued social media very heavily. Right. I mean I watched the rap music video with Timmy like everybody did. But on, you know, does that matter to people who are like cinema? Like do they care?
- [06:27]
Ryan Broderick
Probably not.
- [06:28]
Akilah Hughes
No, not at all. And they probably didn't see it, which
- [06:31]
Ryan Broderick
proves that it's going the direction of opera and ballet. Like this is how it happens. This is right. We saw this with magazines in the 2000s and 2010s, the ones that like embraced the Internet and got a little silly and weird with it and evolved. They're doing great. I was just reading a great feature about Wired.com and sort of their evolution under the Trump administration the second time around. Whereas like a lot of magazines didn't survive. And so I think Hollywood, it will be probably a similar story.
- [06:56]
Akilah Hughes
I mean, okay, now I have to dig into that.
- [06:58]
Do you think that like evolving for the Internet is going to guarantee longevity or are we just in like an era of, of what the Internet is like? Do, do you think that like when we get older and when Gen Z gets older and Gen Alpha gets older, we're going to still be entertained by these sort of like brain rot things? Like is that the future of entertainment?
- [07:16]
Ryan Broderick
I don't think like we'll be, I mean we might be watching AI Brain rot on our deathbed sure. Which you know, due to the fear of nuclear war, could happen at any time. But what I, what I would say is like evolving with the sometimes mortifying like new standards of a, of a media type that come along. Do mean longevity. I mean there were people who thought books were dangerous, there were people who thought the radio would be dangerous. Hollywood itself was sort of birthed from a period of short form video. Nickelodeon's were basically like short form videos of garbage that people would watch at fairs. And some of they couldn't make something
- [08:02]
Akilah Hughes
better that was the best. Like at that time it wasn't considered garbage because no one was making that stuff.
- [08:07]
Ryan Broderick
But you could argue that like people are making garbage online actually, because like, so okay, I have a lot of thoughts about this. So like, so like algorithmic video platforms do serve a function which is that like video is very, very hard to browse on the Internet. Like there were, you know, there were whole decades where you would like go to a website and you would click play and it would load the little bar and then you'd be able to watch it. And that's how you found videos. Newgrounds.com Homestar Runner, Flash Sites. Right. Like they all lived on websites. But if you have too much video, it becomes like pretty difficult to like actually know what to watch. So algorithmic platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, like Serve a purpose. They sort of automate what would have been done by human beings on a TV station. Those algorithms are extremely basic. They know that we want to watch stuff that is like horny or visually interesting or racist. Lowest, lowest human impulses. Right, sure. So you could argue that the reason short form video is still so bad and junky and not all of it, but most of it is junky, is because we haven't figured out a way to automate better standards. The question is, should we? Do we want to? Do the people in charge want to. But you could say that like it is held back by technology the same way Nickelodeon's were. It's just a different kind of technology we're talking about.
- [09:27]
Akilah Hughes
Sure. I mean, I think also just in
- [09:29]
that same vein, like are we moving towards a world where there is no prestige at all, where it's like everyone has to get in the muck, has to be an influencer, has to be selling themselves and something else. And you know, art is more of a like I guess only upper crust thing or just doesn't exist anymore.
- [09:46]
Ryan Broderick
So you and I were talking about this recently and I hinted at an idea in my newsletter. The Other day that got some interest from people where I said that you could probably fix Hollywood almost immediately by allowing people to film live theater with their phones. And the reason I believe that is because what most video platforms have done is, is just like turned any random person into a cameraman. And most art forms have like a pretty good connection between how you would perform it live. You can open up your phone and you can play a guitar into it. Now the microphone is good enough, you can sing a song into it. And a lot of musicians that are getting popular right now clearly, you know, started on TikTok and sometimes they're really great. Actually, I think vocals have kind of come back because of the post Covid acapella boom.
- [10:36]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [10:37]
Ryan Broderick
So you could, you could argue that Hollywood is in this really weird spot where actors, you know, the superstars of the future aren't actually getting discovered because, well, their self tape, you know, their self tape auditions are going to human beings that are never released. Sometimes, sometimes you can't, you can't. Like if you were an aspiring actor right now, okay, you, you basically have to self tape interviews. Maybe you do some theater, they go to a casting director and maybe you get in a movie and maybe people watch it. If you're an aspiring musician right now, you could turn on your camera and you could play a song into it and you could upload it to TikTok, YouTube and like see what happens. You can do that with comedy because comedy, I think is very easy to make people laugh on the Internet. But if you wanted to like recite, I don't know, a monologue or like, you know, do a dramatic sort of reading, that's really weird. But if you did it in front of an audience and you could film the audience's reaction, then there's sort of like, there's something to hang on to. There's something interesting there. And so that is why I do think that like the pipeline for specifically actors is broken right now because the entire world is moving towards you do it live, you do it in front of people, you film it, you catch the reaction, you see what happens, you bubble your way up. But that's not happening with acting. Like every other art form is going through this transition except for acting.
- [11:51]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah. And I mean they're probably also the ones kicking and screaming the most about having to like, I think like a
- [11:58]
Ryan Broderick
podcast is not going to launch your dramatic acting career.
- [12:01]
Akilah Hughes
I mean, but think about this, like I would say just socially, you know, between the industries, you know, I don't hear a lot of musicians complaining that someone playing a guitar on YouTube is not a musician.
- [12:12]
But I do hear a lot of
- [12:14]
delineation between people who act on the Internet and people who get to act on television and movies.
- [12:19]
And so I do think that there
- [12:21]
is, like, for them, a concerted. Like a true. I don't know, not just impulse, but, like, for them, it's like some sort of self preservation to make. Like, acting is one thing and it can't be, you know, on the Internet, like, it cannot exist. And I think that, like, that is part of the reluctance is that, like, it kills the pipeline. But also, like, if it isn't something that is considered higher than better than outside of, then what do they have? What is the value? I think that, like, actors like to think, and Hollywood likes to think that this is, like, you know, only some people are good enough to do this, and most people can't even learn. Whereas, like, with music, I think people are like, well, if you practice, you could probably be a guitarist.
- [13:01]
Celsius Energy Drink Spokesperson
Sure.
- [13:02]
Ryan Broderick
But to loop it back to the Oscars, like in Hamnet, the final scene is, you know, people have thoughts about whether it's too schmaltzy or not. But it worked on me. I cried.
- [13:10]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah, I cried.
- [13:11]
Ryan Broderick
And I was also sort of taken with the fact that. That it is. It is really like an ode to the way theater used to work. You know, you would. You'd be standing on sawdust floors and, like, you'd be touching the actors and throwing things at them and booing. And it. It was almost closer to, like, a WWE match. And it makes me wonder, like, the rise of sort of WWE stars into Hollywood. The John Cena is the. Dave Batiste is the Rock. That's because they can act in front of an audience and it can get filmed, and they can sort of, like, there's a connection there. There's like a. There's a. There's a real pipeline. And, like, you can create that pipeline again. You could go and just do a production of Hamlet out in the park and have, you know, phones galore and see. See what happens. I don't know. I have these visions that someone's gonna figure out how to, like, write a play and then stage it and let people film it, and scenes will go viral, and then those actors are gonna be talked about. And, like, once it. Once that dam breaks, I think everything changes. I really do.
- [14:12]
Akilah Hughes
Until then, I wanted to bring Ryan back to present day and talk about this year's nominees and what, if anything, they have in common in what they're trying to say about our present. We'll be right back.
- [14:29]
Brian Reed
I'm Brian Reed. When I created s town, I looked at how secrets lies and the stories we tell shape a small rural town. Now on my podcast question everything, I'm going bigger. Hi. This message is for senator Lindsey Graham. I head to Washington to take on a law that gives tech companies sweeping immunity.
- [14:48]
Evan Osnos
Is how these companies have gotten rich.
- [14:52]
Brian Reed
Join me as I go after big tech on question everything from placement theory and KCRW out Thursdays, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [14:59]
Celsius Energy Drink Spokesperson
My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink, then straight to the gym, pre K pickup back home to meal prep. Time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius. Gotta keep the lights on when the three alarm hits. I'm ready. Celsius live fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com
- [15:22]
Akilah Hughes
all
- [15:23]
Ryan Broderick
of the best picture noms do sort of say some interesting stuff about our world. I mean, you have Begonia and One Battle After Another and Secret Agent and even parts of Sentimental Value. Sort of directly talking about authoritarianism and fascism and what that means. You have, well, F1, it would be the odd man out there, but you have Frankenstein, you have hamnet, and you have sinners. All kind of engaging with what I would call like a post Covid fascination with body horror and pestilence and sort of like, how do you move on from that? Marty supreme and Train Dreams are very much about like a man not realizing the world is changing around him. These were all like very male focused movies as well.
- [16:09]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [16:10]
Ryan Broderick
They very much tie into, I think, the conversation right now about like our men. Okay. What is met? What is the men's role in the
- [16:17]
Akilah Hughes
changing world like, and how do men affect women? I think that, like, that is a big question.
- [16:23]
Ryan Broderick
Pay attention.
- [16:25]
Akilah Hughes
Well, then you didn't see him that.
- [16:27]
Ryan Broderick
Yeah, I just was like, give me more William Shakespeare. Let me see what he's up to.
- [16:32]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah, like, oh, boring, boring. Yeah, if I had legs, I'd kick you all of these. Yeah. I do think that, like, we. We're just focusing on sort of on like a changing dynamic in an old world that does seem to be dying in how we move forward. I don't know.
- [16:49]
I do want to talk a little
- [16:50]
bit more about Eddington, which wasn't nominated and one battle after another and what they're getting right and what they're getting wrong.
- [16:57]
Ryan Broderick
Yeah. I've seen someone call these, like American Fourth Reich films. On Panic World. We've been calling them like American weirdness films. But so, yeah, like Begonia, Eddington, weapons to an extent, sinners to an extent, the secret agent in a weird way, but, like, kind of like a mirror image, one battle after another. All of these films are trying to process what's happening to America or what's happening to the world in the case of Secret Agent in and package it into the form of, like, popular entertainment. And some of them do it better than others. I think Eddington kind of whiffs the ending in a way. You actually showed me the Film Network and that movie actually, I think does the ending that Eddington should have done better. It's like more, it's more just sort of like blunt. And I think if Eddington had been made in the 70s, it would have had a more kind of traditional nihilistic ending where Eddington, I think, whiffs it a bit. One battle after another, I think, is also quite clumsy because it is using the politics of right now to tell what I believe is a quite personal story for Paul Thomas Anderson. Like it. You and I have talked at length about how, like, its depiction, particularly of like, black revolutionaries, is like, really all over the place and weird. And, and I, I, I just think you could fix that whole movie by putting Perfidia in the main role and having Leo be the turn coat. But, like, and then Bergonia, I think, also whiffs the A way which, which I think is the major issue with these movies is that, like, they are not either because they're trying to document the moment that we're in as it's happening, or because they know that the natural sort of conclusion that you would write that kind of movie to would be so unsatisfying that they're not willing to do it. But, like, Begonia should end with her not being an alien and, and she just gets away.
- [18:46]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah. Or like the, she writes a book about the experience and then like, that becomes her new brand.
- [18:51]
Ryan Broderick
Right. Yeah, she gets, she goes, she gets, she goes on Dua Lipa's like book club. Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. One battle after another. Yeah. I think that point of view is kind of all over the place, Eddington. That entire sort of last section where even though I think it's very evocative imagery, the, the moment where Joaquin Phoenix's sheriff character is like, filming himself shooting antifa super soldiers who are paid agitators brought in by a tech company, all of it is just like so much that you're like, yeah, the movie for me kind of peaks with the, The Katy Perry showdown at the, at the COVID party with the mayor. And like, that to me is like, where it's hitting and then it sort of falls off. I don't think it has the teeth. It doesn't have the courage to really say, like, frankly, what Secret Agent says. And so that makes me think that maybe it's a time thing. Maybe, like in 20 years we'll get, like a decent Trump to move.
- [19:39]
Akilah Hughes
Right, right. I think that, that. I mean, yeah, just to your point, I think that, like, they're having a hard time predicting the future, and so it kind of always goes gonzo at the end where they're like, well, it's aliens.
- [19:50]
Ryan Broderick
It's aliens. It's. It's. It's paid antifa super soldiers. It's like a father and daughter drive off into the sunset and nothing bad happens and they're all fine and.
- [20:03]
Akilah Hughes
Exactly. Like they killed. Yeah, they killed a military person.
- [20:08]
Ryan Broderick
Right, right. Exactly. Like, they write like they've committed, like, dozens of crimes and like, they're fine.
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Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [20:15]
Ryan Broderick
And they're like known entities by this, like, totalitarian.
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Akilah Hughes
But no one's chasing them anymore. They're free.
- [20:20]
Ryan Broderick
Yeah, they're free. So all of the. Yeah. Whereas Secret Agent. And to a weird degree, that surprised me, Sentimental value. Both, once again, I think, because they have the benefit of looking back 40, 50, 60 years onto the subject matter. Both movies are basically saying this period will end and it is, like, very possible that it means nothing and that the heartbreak and the chaos and the confusion that you're feeling in that moment might not even survive to the, like, the next generation of your family. They might have to find out about what you went through in a records depot in the basement of the library or in Brazil.
- [20:56]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [20:56]
Ryan Broderick
Or by happen, chance, because, like, a college student reaches out to you, like, doing a project about your dad, and you don't even know anything. Like, there's something. There's something, I think very brutal and very un American about that idea, which
- [21:09]
Akilah Hughes
is why I think those movies aren't being celebrated quite as much.
- [21:13]
Ryan Broderick
Yes. I, I think Americans are not really ready to hear that. Like, their Robert Mueller coloring book from 2016 is, like, not going to matter to your grandkid when you tell them how hard you posted during the second Trump regime.
- [21:26]
Akilah Hughes
So if we're too close to the moment for the art to really hit the mark, what about when the artists
- [21:32]
get the mic to sound off in real time?
- [21:34]
Let's talk a little bit about what
- [21:35]
we saw on stage on Sunday. I want to talk about this lack of political courage from speeches and also some of the bright spots that we did see on that front. So obviously we have Javier Bardem opening and he's just presenting, opening his presentership with no to War and Free Palestine, which, you know, I think tepid applause from the audience. No one else said anything really to that end. And then.
- [22:03]
Ryan Broderick
Wait, wait, you're missing an important piece to hear to this.
- [22:07]
Akilah Hughes
Okay.
- [22:07]
Ryan Broderick
Which is that Javier Bardem said Free Palestine next to Priyanka Chopra, who is a vocal supporter of the Hindu nationalist right wing ruling party in India, the bjp. And so on Twitter, she earned the name Dal Godot.
- [22:23]
Akilah Hughes
Oh, yeah. So this was like, to say it in front of her and like, without it being in the prompter. So she just had to sort of
- [22:30]
Ryan Broderick
stand there and eat it or Mike Myers moment.
- [22:31]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah, she really did. She just, yeah, just shook her head. Yes. Like, okay, I'm gonna keep reading. Totally. And then we have the documentarians who obviously aren't flinching. You know, like, generally these are journalists who are doing sorts of films. And the subject matter was one was about, you know, the fallout of a school shooting and what the bedrooms look like when they're sort of trapped in time of these kids who are lost to gun violence, you know, and, you know, the guy who won for Mr. Nobody against Putin about, you know, Russia, a person who stood up to Putin talking about how you lose your country. So are you surprised that there was a lack of courage this year? I mean, I noted pretty quickly upon seeing the red carpet that everybody was wearing black and white, which felt like a sort of bow to fascism. Everything felt a little buttoned up, a little scared of this Trump era, afraid of backlash for it. So were you surprised that everybody just sort of thanked their mom and God and got off the stage?
- [23:30]
Ryan Broderick
It's funny, I didn't even really think about it until people started complaining about it on the Internet because, like, I don't. To me, it wasn't like, a lack of courage. I just, like, don't think Hollywood is in a position. It's like, it's like, oh, that sick dog, like, didn't run around the yard anymore. Like, like, I, it's not. I. I just. Hollywood is clearly facing such an existential threat on an industry level that, like, those people were, like, just grateful to, like, have a free dinner if they get one. I think, like, I mean, the half of the speeches were like, I am so lucky I get to do this. It is so. I mean, and then all the bits Were like, I mean, there's a whole one about Will Arnett and Chan T, like, not being able to find work and having to, like, become voiceover artists. Like, I, I, I, I found the whole thing to be so depressing that, like, I didn't even think about whether or not someone should say free Palestine on stage. They should be saying, like, can you. I think they were just trying to say, can you hire me?
- [24:30]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah. Like, they should bring their headshots and be like, here's my run. Thank you so much.
- [24:35]
Ryan Broderick
Yeah, I mean, even, even the poor ladies from the casting award were just like, wow, it is so great to, like, work in this industry all my life and finally get to, like, be recognized for it. And, you know, I, I would love a world where the Oscars could be this great monocultural political place for that kind of thing to be done. But right now, like, we're talking about, like, people who, like, we're, like, on the verge of tears up there because, like, their jobs are going away.
- [25:06]
Akilah Hughes
They're like, this is. And also, like, you know, there was a great video from Bloomberg about what's happening in Hollywood, but it's like, there
- [25:14]
are people who've won baftas and Oscars
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who are now doing doordash because, like, there is no next thing.
- [25:19]
And so I think you're right to clock that.
- [25:22]
Like, if I'm singing for my meal on stage in this moment, I'm probably not thinking about the outside world, but the rest of us watching don't really have that luxury or a platform quite so big. And so I felt like our country is currently at war. At least Conan did mention the Epstein file.
- [25:41]
Ryan Broderick
Yeah, I, And I do wonder if, like, part of his, like, part of that, like, math actually was if we face it head on right now, it won't come up in the speeches. Yeah, Like, I, I sort of wonder if they're like, okay, if we do a big Epstein joke, like, no one is gonna go off script to, you know, or whatever. I also think, you know, there were there's these viral moments with this, like, one influencer. I think his name is Jake something. He's like, a little, A little annoying man. And he kept asking dumb questions on the red carpet. And everyone, everyone would be, like, very mad at this little man and be like, why are you asking me? Dumb, stupid bullshit. And I think, yeah, and I think there is a, There is something there as well where it's, like, by, like, most Internet creators, influencers, wherever you want to call them, have sort of worked their way into Hollywood in that capacity. And so you're not getting like serious conversations or meaningful conversations in any way with any of. On the red carpet or at the after party. And then like the real journalists get to ask like one or two questions, you know, afterwards. That's where they got the answer from Paul Thomas Anderson about like his. His depiction of black women.
- [26:57]
Akilah Hughes
Yeah.
- [26:57]
Ryan Broderick
And like, okay, so you're going to get like unlimited access with like the dumbest people from the algorithm. And then like, you are going to get a couple of journalists after that are just going to ask you about stuff that they saw on Twitter because that's easier shorthand than like doing a real question. So the whole thing has been cannibalized by like, stupid bullshit that like, would choke the life out of anything meaningful. Like talking about the war in Iran. That's my take on that.
- [27:23]
Akilah Hughes
I think that that's right. I do think that, like, influencers on the carpet have sort of ruined the vibe because also, like, they have no crossover with Hollywood. It doesn't make any, like, I think that there has been this weird flattening. You know, that guy that you're mentioning has a podcast on Netflix, which doesn't
- [27:40]
Ryan Broderick
make any podcast on Netflix. What are we talking about?
- [27:43]
Akilah Hughes
What are we we talking about? Do words mean anything anymore?
- [27:46]
Ryan Broderick
Dude, we are like four. Four years. The minute the, the minute the Oscars hit YouTube, there's going to be a best podcast award. You actually, there'll be a fight over like, is it going to be the
- [27:57]
Akilah Hughes
Oscars podcast a movie?
- [28:02]
Well, I guess just to bring it home.
- [28:04]
Like you wrote that tech moguls are more interested now in building slot machines than trying to create large scale mass appeal entertainment. Are they going to be successful? What are we going to lose?
- [28:15]
Ryan Broderick
So if you compare what's happening right now to the rise of the studio system, which was like extremely abusive and monopolistic, it really didn't die out and give way to like what we would call New Hollywood. Until the federal government intervened. There was. I don't have them on the top of my head, but like, there were laws that were passed that basically took away some of the power from these studios that were becoming monopolistic. Yeah, until that happens, we are stuck in this holding pattern. But this kind of holding pattern doesn't last forever. And it doesn't also mean that good stuff can't happen. I already talked about Ava Victor's film Sorry Baby and Markiplier's movie Iron Lung. But we also went to a screening the other day of Nirvana, the Band the show, the movie, which was basically financed by the Canadian government and, you know, didn't have to make more than $2 million to break even. And it's now like one of the highest grossing live action films in Canadian, Canadian history. There are, there are good stories to point to right now. And, and I, and, and, and I would say that, like, anyone who gets like, really doomerish about this stuff is doing themselves a disservice because in moments like this, you're going to see people figuring out what the future looks like. And this was true during the height of the studio system, which eventually gave way to new Hollywood, where you, you started to see, you know, I think it was you and I watching another YouTube video about like the, the acting school that produced like Rock Hudson and Robert De Niro. And so that work was being done while the studio system was still happening and there were people pushing it. So, you know, you can, you can say that Timothee Chalamet is probably a little too early for what he is trying to do, which is kind of break down the walls between the Internet and Hollywood. It's all happening right now. It's.
- [30:02]
Akilah Hughes
But I see him as doing. I think he's actually just too late for what he really aspires to do
- [30:08]
because, like, he is like, his campaign
- [30:09]
was very online, right?
- [30:11]
But like, he's been very vocal about wanting to follow in Leonardo DiCaprio's footsteps.
- [30:15]
He wants to be one of the
- [30:16]
greats, which is like an untouchable role. Like, Leonardo DiCaprio is not on the Internet. Brad Pitt does not post.
- [30:23]
And so I think his real.
- [30:25]
Like, to me, the tragedy of Timmy is that, like, if he came along in the 90s, he could have been a DiCaprio. He could have been Ethan Hawke, you know what I mean? But like, in a time where I
- [30:35]
Ryan Broderick
could have been as well. I agree.
- [30:37]
Akilah Hughes
I too could have been Ethan Hawke.
- [30:39]
Ryan Broderick
You could have been Ethan Hawke.
- [30:41]
Akilah Hughes
But I think that, like, he is in an era that is so undefined and is competing against the Internet and the prestige people.
- [30:50]
And I wonder if there's a place
- [30:52]
for his generation, Gen Z, to rise in that way. Like, once it goes to YouTube, what's to say some YouTuber is not going to be the next thing and he's just going to have, he'll be like a relic of the past.
- [31:05]
Ryan Broderick
My assumption is that Timothee Chalamet, probably with some advice from Kylie Jenner, has a makeup taken that has taken that advice from Leo and tried to apply it to the 21st century. And so instead of being completely off the Internet, what Timothy Chalamet has been doing for the last, like, year or so basically has been being on the Internet via other people's posts and other people's footage. It's this thing that I keep kind of banging the drum about that I've been calling, like, pre D platforming. This idea that, like, what is going to become increasingly cool is not posting social media of yourself, but to do things that require other people, inspire other people to post social media of you. So that way that you're. And what we've seen, though, with this idea is that it kind of seems to have backfired against Timothy Chalamet because it is a bit of an uncontrollable beast. And so if you're gonna play that game, you have to be way more in control of not what you're posting, but, like, where you are and what you're doing and who you're with, which is, I. I think probably brain breaking. Yeah, you're playing with the Panopticon, and in a weird way there. But I do think that, like, someone will figure out, maybe it will even be him, will figure out how to make that work. And that's the thing that I keep going back to, is that in these fallow cultural periods, they're not actually fallow. They're kind of exciting because it's the moment where you have space to, like, figure out what the future will look like. And that's what is so interesting to me about this year's Oscars. It is. You're watching an industry. You're watching a creative community really say to itself, like, okay, what is the future of a Hollywood movie?
- [32:55]
Akilah Hughes
There's no way of putting it gently. Hollywood is in strugg mode. And while the Oscars was a nice reprieve, giving accolades to auteurs and proving their investment in original storytelling, it also may simply be too late. Every other piece of society has had to adapt for the rise of the Internet, and yet Hollywood's best effort is. Is putting a Gen Z podcaster on a red carpet to ask artists about how annoying a character in a movie was. Give me a break. Really. Like, there will always be film, but the questions are, will they always be abundant? Will they always be shot here? And will the workers at every level still have a chance to make it a legitimate career? So far, the outlook is grim, which
- [33:40]
is to say, not better.
- [33:43]
Evan Osnos
Foreign.
- [33:49]
Akilah Hughes
Thanks for listening to or watching. How is this better? Make sure you're following or subscribing on your platform of choice, including our very own YouTube page@YouTube.com How is this better? And if you can leave a rating and review or comment on the episodes because all of it is super helpful in spreading the read to the show and we appreciate How Is this Better? Is written and hosted by me, Akilah Hughes. It's produced by Devin Maroney, video editing is by Shane Verkus, Kevin Dreyfus is Courier's National Managing Director and Executive producer, RC Demezzo is their VP of Brand and Social and Charlotte Robertson is the Deputy Director of Brand and Social, Samantha Hollows is the YouTube and podcast growth marketer and Marianne Kuga is the Director of Marketing. Tracy Kaplan is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution, and if you're interested in advertising or sponsoring, you can reach her@advertiseuriernewsroom.com show artwork is by Danielle Deplato and original theme music is by Used People.
- [35:05]
Evan Osnos
Right now, news and politics are moving awfully fast. It can feel overwhelming, to say the least. I'm Evan Osnos, a staff writer for the New Yorker on the Political Scene podcast, we slow things down to understand how power really operates in Washington, D.C. and what it means for you. My co hosts Jane Mayer and Susan Glasser and I have decades of reporting experience, and every Friday we have conversations with insiders and experts to understand the forces remaking America. Join us Fridays for the Washington Roundtable from the Political Scene. On Mondays and Wednesdays, you can also hear insightful episodes from our New Yorker colleagues David Remnick and Tyler Foggitt. Available wherever you get your podcasts.