The Big TV Meta Post

At the beginning of this summer, I wrote out a list of upcoming television and web series I intended on watching, along with their premiere dates, just to help myself keep track of them.  I ended up with a list of over a dozen shows, about one per week for the entire summer. And that's roughly about when I decided that I had to face up to the fundamental truth that my TV consumption was, despite my best efforts, really starting to rival my intake of feature films.

And this is not necessarily a bad thing.  It's become very clear over the last few years that commercial television is often just as strong as film in delivering quality entertainment.  In many cases it's a much more economically viable avenue to tell certain kinds of stories. And though there's still a cultural gap, the prestige of doing a really great piece of longform drama isn't all that different from doing a theatrical film.  The quality of the work produced by all the creatives involved is the same. We've seen this year with "Chernobyl" and "When They See Us" that they can have the same kind of artistic and social impact. So really, they ought to be treated the same - including on this blog.

In practicality, however, television is so much harder to consume and  write about, especially in aggregate. There's way too much of it for all but the most dedicated television critics to stay on top of.  I gave up trying to follow the Emmy races because watching so many nominated shows was just too much of a commitment. And with network television and cable losing ground to streaming services every day - and more streaming services still on their way - the landscape remains very unstable.  It's easy to talk about what's going on in the industry, but harder to track the specific implications and trends that result, especially as ratings metrics are harder to come by.  

This year, for example, we lost a bunch of good shows before their time, like "Counterpart," "Swamp Thing," and "The Tick," but unlike last year almost none were able to jump networks - "One Day at a Time" was the only major title that managed it.  However, the reasons for each cancellation are completely different. "Counterpart" was snuffed because Starz was acquired by Lionsgate, and was dumping shows they didn't produce. "The Tick" seems to have been a case of Amazon cutting back on expenses after several costly projects.  "Swamp Thing" had the most dramatic cancellation, due to a combination of economics and company politics that remain murky. Are those murky reasons the same as the ones that got all the Netflix Marvel shows cancelled? It's hard to say.

I feel bad about skipping a lot of chances to talk about TV lately.  Since cutting back on the number of posts I've been writing, I've stopped covering the fall network premieres, didn't write anything about the Upfronts or the corresponding programming shifts, and I've even dropped my Top Ten lists for older television content.  Because I haven't been able to be as comprehensive as I've wanted, I've just cut more topics. I have a couple of ideas for pieces about specific streaming services coming up, but nothing that's really focusing on the shows outside of my typical season reviews. And I'm going to stop apologizing for the TV content sometimes overwhelming the film content - that's just going to be inevitable some months.     

So, I've decided to add two or three new features into the rotation, ones I've been considering adding for a while.  The first is at least one "Trailers! Trailers!" post each year devoted to television series. This will probably be posted in the summer months, after Upfronts or Comic-Con when we tend to get new clips.  Another, which you're going to be seeing soon because the Emmys are upon us, will be a "What I Didn't See" post for television and web series to go with the one I usually write every year for movies. If I'm going to keep complaining about not having time to watch these shows, I should at least write about the shows themselves in some capacity.  There's also going to be a yearly television "Best of" or "Top Ten" list, but I haven't decided the format yet. 

What really prompted this was a few recent conversations I've had where it became apparent that there wasn't really a line between film stardom and television stardom anymore, and the implications of all that - but I'll save further discussion for its own post, coming shortly.  

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Well, They Remade "Dumbo"

The original 1941 "Dumbo" cartoon was one of my formative cinematic experiences.  I know every frame of animation, every note of the soundtrack, and every word of the script inside and out.  And to say I was not looking forward to the 2019 live action version is an understatement. However, I felt oddly duty-bound to see the new beast and report back on exactly how different the adaptation was from the original.  Also, I've seen every single Tim Burton feature to date, and I'm not stopping now.

And to my surprise, I didn't hate it.  I don't think it's a good film, or a good adaptation, but there are salvageable pieces here and there, a few interesting ideas and improvements.  It helps that the live-action "Dumbo" is very different from the cartoon "Dumbo," with the plot of the original only being the first act of the new version.  Only the very basic structure is still intact, and the characters of Dumbo and his mother, Mrs. Jumbo, are the only ones retained. There are a few references to helpful mice and pink elephants, but they're brief.  Instead, the story is mostly about human beings.  

Former trick rider Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) comes home from the Great War to his children, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins), and the fading Medici Brothers circus, run by Max Medici (Danny DeVito).  Because Holt has lost an arm, and his wife and act partner has died, Holt is reassigned to the role of reluctant elephant keeper. The new baby elephant, Dumbo, who arrives with outlandish giant ears, is initially treated as a freak and a source of trouble.  However, he becomes a sensation when the children discover that he can fly. This attracts the attention of the sinister V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), an entrepreneur and impresario who wants Dumbo for his Dreamland park.

The retelling of Dumbo's origins and struggle to learn to fly is told very quickly and comes off pretty poorly.  The CGI elephants are not remotely as appealing or expressive as their cartoon counterparts. The cute kids are a poor substitute for Timothy Q. Mouse, especially as the performances they turn in are unbearably wooden and stilted - though I prefer to blame the director instead of the young actors.  There's an uneasy balancing act between seeing the elephants put in situations where they are exploited and abused, and keeping some of the human characters involved sympathetic. A new baddie named Rufus (Phil Zimmerman) is responsible for the most obvious acts of cruelty, but it's clear that the story doesn't work nearly as well when the elephants are no longer the primary protagonists.

However, once Dumbo learns to fly, we shift gears to an entirely new narrative and a new set of characters.  Suddenly Vandevere shows up as the real villain of the piece, with Michael Keaton playing an evil Walt Disney type, complete with his own gorgeously overdesigned Disneyland analogue.  Keaton is firmly in Ray Kroc territory with some extra smarm, and a joy to watch every minute he's on screen. I also got a kick out of Eva Green appearing as Vandevere's star aerialist, Colette, and Alan Arkin getting in a few scenes where he's supposed to be playing an investor, but is pretty much just playing himself.  It also allows for the Medici Circus crew to position themselves firmly as Dumbo's friends and protectors against this greater threat, and it becomes much easier to root for them.

The story eventually turns into another frantic action movie in the final act, but it's one that flows pretty well and features a surprisingly satisfying ending.  I also really like how this section of the movie looks, with the off-kilter amusement park imagery and some strong visual storytelling. "Dumbo" feels more like a Tim Burton movie than any Tim Burton movie I've seen in years.  And when it's good, it's good in ways I can't help loving as a Burton fan.  

And when it's not - well, it's not.  Ehren Kruger's script is passable, but has some awfully weak dialogue.  The cringey Disney "science girl" has officially become a stock type, and probably a counterproductive one.  Dumbo, despite the best efforts of his animators and effects team, never looked right when he was flying. I really, really didn't need an Arcade Fire cover of "Baby Mine."  Or the flabbergasting Michael Buffer cameo.         

A "Dumbo" remake is, of course, completely unnecessary, but all things considered it could have been worse.  At least is wasn't a slavish copycat like "Beauty and the Beast," or a soulless parade float like "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms."  "Dumbo" was wise enough to keep the heart of the story about Dumbo and his mother. It was not, however, wise enough to actually be a movie about Dumbo and his mother.   

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My Top Ten Films of 1975

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog.

The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

Love and Death -  Such a wonderfully weird picture, full of literary and film references that nobody gets anymore.  I think that's why I like it so much. It's Woody Allen experimenting and being a geek over obscure subject matter close to his heart, taking the heaviest themes he can find in the most somber contexts imaginable, and using them as the basis for wacky farce and a few moments of insightful self-examination.  In this way he's able to pay homage to his idols, notably Ingmar Bergman and the great Russian novelists, but also to indulge his penchant for the joyous and absurd.

Dog Day Afternoon - There are movies about bank robberies gone wrong and then there's "Dog Day Afternoon," where the crime turns into a tense standoff and hostage situation, and nobody knows how to end it.  This is the movie I will remember Al Pacino for, giving a livewire performance that it's impossible to take your eyes off of. His character, Sonny, becomes an anti-establishment and counter-culture hero, as he tries to keep the situation from spiralling out of control.  We sympathize with him, but we also sympathize with everyone else caught in this impossible situation.  

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - In a different era, Jack Nicholson's system-bucking Randall McMurphy might have been given more shades of gray, and Louse Fletcher's Nurse Ratchet might have been made more sympathetic.  Here, however, they serve as perfect stand-ins for the rebel and the cold authoritarian system in one of the great modern fables about individual freedom. With a supporting cast full of great character actors, and a simple production that nonetheless turned a hospital ward into a microcosm of human society, the story may be heavy-handed, but this is undeniably one of the greats.

Nashville - There's a good case to be made that this is Robert Altman's masterpiece.  Considered prescient at the time of release, it's become a canny snapshot of its era. The ensemble is vast and talented, the stories are wonderfully woven together, and I even like the musical performances.  It is by turns hilarious, infuriating, moving, joyous, and deeply sad. The satirical elements made the film unpopular among the real musical community of Nashville, but I can't think of a better representation of the media circus that accompanies political and entertainment events like the one we see in the film.     

Deep Red - The lurid imagery, the heightened atmosphere, and the maniacal women are all hallmarks of a Dario Argento film, and this is one of his most successful.  I love the gruesome fairy tale nature of the flashbacks, the themes of spiritualism and trauma, and especially the eerie score from the Goblins. The violence is still jarring and the first-person camera still puts the viewer uncomfortably close to the horror.  The use of children's toys and drawings in particular has been influential on so much subsequent horror media. It's a B movie through and through, but offers thrills as only a great B movie could.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles - Chantal Akerman's most famous feature could be classified as an experimental film, because it defies conventional film structure almost entirely.  It's over three hours in length, full of long static shots, and concerned with documenting the daily routine of a housewife played by Delphine Seyrig. The film forces the viewer to pay attention to oft ignored domestic drudgery and eventually uses it as a storytelling tool.  The length and style can make this a challenging watch, but the experience is a uniquely absorbing one, and the payoff is worth the wait.     

Fox and His Friends - I still cringe thinking about some of the scenes in this film, about a mentally challenged young gay man who comes into a fortune, and subsequently comes to ruin.  Rainer Werner Fassbender gives himself a rare starring role as poor Franz Biberkopf, who is easily flattered and easily duped. Fassbender cuts such a pathetic figure, and Franz's trajectory is so clear from so early on.  What really sells the tragedy, however, is spartan, rough style of production. It highlights how the hallmarks of economic success and social status are all very surface level things - and ultimately ephemeral.  

Dersu Uzala - A curious entry in Akira Kurosawa's filmmography is this Russian language film about the exploration of the Russian frontier.  It was the only film he ever made outside of Japan. Examining the friendship between an explorer and his native guide, it quietly explores themes of culture clash, coexistence with the natural world, and the destructive power of civilization.  The imagery, however, is what I remember best. Kurosawa turns the wilderness into a place of great danger and great beauty. The use of color is bold and striking, especially in the sequence with the midnight sun.    

Picnic at Hanging Rock - An unsettling, dreamlike film about a mysterious disappearance, this was Peter Weir's breakthough feature, and something of a breakthrough for Australian cinema in general.  There's an intense psychological element to the story, often tied to features of the Australian landscape, and the stifling girls' school that the film depicts. This invite all sorts of speculation about the film's themes and messages.  However, what makes it such a fascinating watch is its ambiguity and its break from traditional structure. It's a mystery with no solution, no release from tension, and no apparent end.  

Jaws - I've come to appreciate the film more for the performances and the filmmaking over the years.  The terror I associated with it as a young child has mostly faded, though hearing the score still makes me nervous.  Instead, these days it's all about Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw drunkenly swapping stories. It's about the murky underwater POV shots, and that magical moment when we learn that the heroes are going to need a bigger boat.  I didn't think of this as a horror film for the longest time, though it has all the earmarks of one. In my mind. "Jaws" was always in a class by itself.    

Honorable Mention:

Barry Lyndon

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Wham, Bam, "Shazam!"

"Shazam" feels like a throwback to 90s and 2000s era kids movies.  Maybe it's because the references to DC heroes feel more appropriate to a time where Superman and Batman were the reigning caped crusaders.  Maybe it's because of the use of slightly outdated tropes like sadistic bullies and D&D style monsters. Maybe it's just because there's been a drought of really kid-centric live action movies for a while, and the last time I can remember seeing this kind of superhero story involving kid heroes was fifteen years ago with "Sky High" and "Spy Kids."

"Shazam" is a couple of degrees darker and more serious than those movies, however.  Teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) is a foster kid who is frequently running away from his placements and getting into trouble.  He's never gotten over being separated from his mother, and keeps searching for her while resisting the efforts of anyone else to bond with him.  His latest faster parents are Rosa and Victor Vasquez (Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews), who run a group home. Billy has a passel of new foster siblings, including Freddie (Dylan Jack Grazer), who is obsessed with superheroes.  Freddie proves to be very helpful when a Wizard (Djimon Honsou) gives Billy superpowers, turning him into the adult superhero Shazam (Zachary Levi).

There's also a requisite villain, Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong), who is after the powers of Shazam, and marshalls the forces of the evil embodiments of the seven deadly sins to do it.  However, this is not nearly as interesting as watching Billy and Freddie fooling around with the Shazam powers, and Billy abusing the ability to turn into a musclebound, twenty-something version of himself in a goofy costume.  I wonder if the film would have been better if it had just embraced being a straight comedy, since Levi is so much fun pretending to be a teenager in the body of an adult. The trouble, however, is that he's a little too good at playing immature, to the point where Billy seems more level-headed when he's a kid.  Of course, that could just be because he looks like a kid during most of the film's big, emotional moments.   

As a superhero spectacular, there's not much new here.  We get a few smart observations and a few send-ups of common superhero behavior, but the usual good guy v. bad guy dynamics are very simple and familiar.  All the business with the wizard and the evil beasties is very silly - which the movie points out itself. However, tying the kid's power fantasy aspect of Shazam directly to Billy Batson's struggles as a foster kid is handled very well.  I appreciate the film so much for letting Billy confront some uncomfortable truths about himself and his situation. The portrayal of the group home as loving and supportive is also a rare and welcome thing to see.        

I'm a little concerned that the filmmakers let some aspects of the film get a wee bit too dark, considering the likely audience.  There's a fairly upsetting massacre scene with Sivana, assorted grievous injuries, and a handful of off-color jokes. These can be at odds with the parts of the movie where a stuffed tiger toy plays a big role in Billy's development, and Freddie collects superhero paraphernalia.  The film is set at Christmastime, and there's a heavy emphasis on wholesome family togetherness. I'd say the film is for preteens and older, but at the same time it's so kid-centric that I'd have a hard time recommending it to adults. 

As part of the wider DC universe, "Shazam" mostly keeps to itself.  There are plenty of references for those who enjoy such things, but this feels like a mostly self-contained universe that isn't quite the same as the one "Justice League" where happened.  The imagery is brighter and more stylized, to good effect, and the tone is much sweeter, even if it does come with a (perhaps misguided) edge. There's also a welcome specificity to the setting, with the story taking place in and around Philadelphia.  There are nearly as many references to Rocky Balboa as there are to Batman.  

The execution is shaky at times, but the filmmakers got the fundamentals right.  The kids are great. The humor is right. The messages are strong without feeling sappy.  It's a perfect movie for certain kids of a certain age - and they really don't make enough of them anymore.

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Instagrammable

I don't use a lot of social media these days.  After wrestling with the decision for months, I decided to keep Facebook and tamp down on my privacy settings.  I still have a Twitter account but almost never use it. Ditto Linkedin and Nextdoor. Pinterest is mostly being used to amass a giant collection of movie poster images.  Reddit is the only site I use too much, mostly to chat about movies in obscure subreddits. I have Skype, but no other chat or messaging apps.

Then there's Instagram, which I admit that I created an account for just to score a couple of extra freebies for Disney Emoji Blitz.  Initially, I expected to have no use for it. It's a heavily graphics oriented system, meant for sharing pictures and videos. Instagram reminds me a lot of Pinterest or Tumblr in the way it sort of emulates a digital photo album or scrapbook, but the emphasis is on original content instead of grabbing existing images and videos from elsewhere on the web.  I definitely understand the appeal. You can follow celebrities like Adam Savage or The Rock, who mostly promote the things that they work on, but also offer glimpses of their personal lives. And there's something far more immediate and intimate about photos and videos than written text, like tweets.

Instagram isn't really suited to my needs or interests.  My blogging is primarily text based and I've always been wary of sharing too much online.  I'm always paranoid of any photos I post on Facebook showing too much. Instagram has also developed a rather unfortunate reputation these days because of the "influencer" culture that has developed there.  "Instagram models" can become rich and famous if they present the right image and attract enough followers. The popular Instagram photo filters can help to transform anyone into an unreal fantasy version of themselves.  There's a whole Reddit community devoted to skewering the most egregious examples.

And the result of this has been a significant chunk of the user base that is running afoul of a toxic digital environment full of impossible standards and raging narcissism.  Mental health professionals have warned that Instagram can wreak havoc on a person's well-being and happiness due to the constant exposure to only the most perfectly curated and touched-up moments from other people's lives.  As with Facebook, people only put the version of themselves online that they want other people to see, but on Instagram the impulse is even worse because of the cults of celebrity that aggressively push and exploit these images.  Kylie Jenner and Beyonce Knowles have the most followed accounts, and they make millions off of sponsored posts. It boggles the mind.

However, there are plenty of Instagram users that don't have anything to do with the influencers.  I have several artist friends with accounts, and found myself adding them to help boost their profiles.   I like seeing the new projects they're working on, often following in-progress pictures day by day. A couple of local organizations and businesses are active there too, and their accounts are another way to keep an eye out for events and sales.  My kid's daycare doesn't have a Facebook page, but it has an Instagram feed. Mindful of the kids' privacy, the photos are mostly of class art projects. And as a media junkie, I like being able to look at all the photos from events like this year's Met Gala or Comic-Con without having to wade through the ad-heavy sites of the usual gossip press.  

So put this down as another case of social media being what you make of it.  For every report of Instagram models behaving like brats for more subscribers, there's somebody using it to share art or to promote a good cause.  Currently the most liked post on Instagram - or on any social media - is the infamous egg picture posted in January, which was eventually revealed to be part of a mental health awareness campaign.  Some characterized its viral triumph as a win against celebrities and consumerism. I think it was just the latest bandwagon that everybody jumped on.

Instagram is big enough that I find it difficult to ignore. I still don't use it very much, but I've found it worth keeping an eye on.  For now.

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The Harrowing "High Life"

Moderate spoilers ahead.

I'm having difficulty parsing Claire Denis's "High Life."  I understood going in that this is an art film, as well as being the acclaimed French director's first genre film.  I've seen five of her other films to date, and have had mixed reactions to them. However, that didn't prepare me for the sheer incongruousness of "High Life" with just about every other piece of media set in space that I've ever seen.

First, we're introduced to Monte (Robert Pattinson), the last astronaut left alive aboard a spacecraft that is traveling toward a black hole.  He cares for a tiny baby girl, Willow, and ineffectually tries to make repairs to the ship. He sends progress reports back to Earth, but no one appears to be listening.  Through flashbacks, we learn how he got to this point. Originally the ship had a full crew of convict volunteers who were tricked into the mission. These include a young woman, Boyse (Mia Goth), a man obsessed with the ship's garden, Tcherny (Andre Benjamin), and the sinister Dr. Dibs (Juliette Binoche).  Dibs, the only apparent authority on the ship, uses the rest of the crew to carry out reproductive experiments, obsessed with producing a child.

Sex is the subject matter of a good chunk of the film, as Dr. Dibs manipulates the crew members and continually tries to proposition a reluctant Monte.  However, none of this is portrayed as remotely sexy or appealing. Contact and intimacy are wholly missing from the equation, as exemplified by "The Box," a chamber that serves as a sinister masturbation aid.  There's a vaguely disturbing, queasy feeling that accompanies images of oozing breastmilk and spilled semen. Nobody aside from Dr. Dibs seems to have any particular interest in continuing the species. When an attempted rape occurs, the goal is clearly violence rather than pleasure.  

There's an overwhelming sense of nihilism throughout most of the film, as we watch the characters die off one by one.  Some are killed by accident, some through acts of violence and malice. Many are suicidal. At one point the movie begins to feel like a catalog of different ways to die, each death causing little fuss and evoking little reaction among the dwindling survivors.  Most of them are heavily drugged and emotionally disturbed, growing more and more alienated as time goes on. It's a terribly numbing thing to watch, and the briefly hopeful ending didn't really help to assuage this.

"High Life" does have scenes involving space walks and shuttle flights, and other familiar tropes of the space adventure genre.  There are a few lovely shots of star fields and the black hole that is Monte's destination. However, the movie is certainly not an adventure film in the traditional sense.  Nor is it one of the popular breed of scrappy, cerebral space thrillers that occasionally come out of independent film. I've seen it called a melodrama, horror, and even a mystery film, none of which really get to the spiritual moroseness of the story.  I'd be tempted to compare it to the existential science-fiction films of Andrei Tarkovsky, except that all the crude sexuality and dehumanizing violence makes it feel a lot more like something Gaspar Noe or Michael Haneke might have dreamed up.

What really unnerves me, however, is that "High Life" is such an ugly film, perhaps on purpose.  Space flight is never treated as spectacle, but as something full of danger and discomfort. The ship itself is reportedly very true to life, all functional and no frills.  The segments with the crew slowly disintegrating are claustrophobic and murky. Several of the actors are very attractive, including the luminous Juliette Binoche, but frequently framed and positioned in ways that make them look monstrous. If "High Life" is meant to be a counterpoint to all the glossy space movies produced by Hollywood, it certainly succeeds.         

  

In the end, I have to call "High Life" an impressive work, but like many of Claire Denis' films it's a hard one to love.  There's such an an unrelenting bleakness to much of it, and such a blunt handling of sensitive material, I found myself disconnecting emotionally just to get through it.  More hardened art house lovers may not have the same issues, however. I certainly suggest going into this only if you have a tough skin and a sound mind.

 

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Marketing Movie and TV Diversity

This is a tough post to write, because it involves so much sensitive content, and the culture wars, and the way that Hollywood works these days, which everybody has a different opinion on.  I make no secret that I am progressive, and all in for better representation, social justice causes, and avoiding bad practices like erasure, whitewashing, and cultural appropriation. However, I'm not really talking about any of that today.  I'm talking about marketing.

Not so long ago, Hollywood casting practices generally always defaulted to straight white actors with the most star power to lead movies and television shows, no matter if the role was actually appropriate for them or not.  You might remember "Prince of Persia" with Jake Gyllenhaal and Scarlett Johansson in "Ghost in the Shell." The biggest excuse was always marketability. People wouldn't see a blockbuster starring a brown nobody! There weren't any actors of the correct ethnicities/sexualites with enough star wattage to sell the picture!  And that kind of rhetoric has thankfully diminished over the past decade as the culture has shifted and representation has gotten better.

There is, however, still the marketing issue.  These days it feels like the trade off for having any representation in a piece of media is that the representation often becomes a talking point.  The new "Aladdin" has a cast full of Middle Eastern and Indian actors? The casting search becomes a story, bolstered by puff pieces in "Entertainment Weekly."  "Wonder Woman" is the first female lead superhero film in a decade? She's quickly elevated to female empowerment icon by the press. Much was made of a rewritten LeFou being the first gay character in a major Disney film, the live action "Beauty and the Beast," and Joe Russo playing the first gay character in a Marvel film in the latest "Avengers."  Context matters, of course. Obscure animated horror movie "Paranorman" has a gay character and nobody bats an eye. The PBS kids' show "Arthur" has a gay character, and nobody can stop talking about it.

Personally, I don't take too much issue with this.  Hollywood has been selling films based on their social conscientiousness for ages, especially around awards time.  However, there have been a lot of cases lately where the representation hasn't lived up to the press. The gay characters in "Beauty and the Beast" and "Avengers," for instance, were onscreen very briefly, and the implication that they were gay was easily obscurable, in case foreign markets like Russia or China would object.  It's easy to become cynical that the studios are just collecting "woke points," praising themselves for perfunctory inclusivity without taking any real risks. And make no mistake that giving major roles to women/minorities/LGBT/disabled folks can still be a sizable risk.

I can understand the benefits of the approach too.  It's an easy way to get more attention and more press, bad or good.  We've been seeing several films like "Black Panther" and "Crazy Rich Asians" being rewarded for catering to underserved audiences.  Suddenly, this is a valid strategy for selling big blockbuster films instead of only niche films. If having a gay character in a Disney movie attracts a gay audience looking to see itself onscreen, why not try to draw them in by talking up the inclusion?  It might be pandering, but the audience is out there, and it's become increasingly clear that these tactics work.

We're also still in the #Metoo era, in the Black Lives Matter era, and the critics of problematic media can be fierce.  With social media part of the equation now, and many recent films bombarded with criticism over representation issues - see "Green Book" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" - it makes sense to try and get ahead of the cultural conversation and work to control the narrative from the get go.  A film or television show flaunting their progressive bona fides can help to deflect or stave off criticism. And occasionally it backfires. See "Ghostbusters."

One of the reasons I started writing this blog was that back in 2010, "The Last Airbender" decided to initially cast all the roles with white kids, and I needed somewhere to vent about it.  I've been keeping a closer eye on diversity efforts in Hollywood ever since, and I'm thrilled that movies like "Love, Simon" and "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" are now seen as profitable ventures.  The recent trends in media marketing strike me as phony and insincere too much of the time, but honestly all media marketing is phony and insincere.

It's best to remember, the art is the art, and the marketing is just trying to sell you something.

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