You're An Idiot

According to Hollywood, you're an idiot. A bumbling, barely literate buffoon. In an article from The TimesOnline in the UK, Kevin Maher wonders:

"How can a moronic sword’n’sandals romp such as 300 make $400 million at the box office, while a smart cine-literate action parody such as Grindhouse completely dies?"

He then goes on to call the movies 300 an Ghost Rider "dumb audience-friendly movies".

The article came out amidst the movie industry shock that Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse movie only made twelve million dollars it's first weekend out. The overarching, condescending theme seems to be that we're just too dumb to appreciate this piece of brilliant film making.

Instead, we'd rather watch "dumb" pictures that better fit our diminutive mental stature. It's really difficult to tell if this article is written tongue in cheek or not, but regardless its sentiment is very real in Hollywood.

It's an example of how completely out of touch they are with folks like you and me who make up the real America. Let's put aside a discussion of whether or not Grindhouse is a great movie (it's not) and whether or not Tarantino is the most brilliant film maker ever (he's not even close) and look at the attitude.

There is no other successful industry that treats its customers like idiots. No one else says, "Let's keep giving them what they don't want until they're smart enough to want it." I just wonder how many 100 million dollar movies have to tank before the studios get the picture so to speak.