The Hollywood writers and producers cannot understand why no one is interested in watching their sit-coms anymore on TV? Well, did it ever occur to them that some of this stuff isn’t all that funny anymore? The movie industry’s comedy films are also getting killed at the box office. Stand-up comedy is doing OK, but in the new PC world, comedy routines often turn off half of the audience during any given skit, throw in politics and yes, you get some headlines but comedians are divided and conquered. What happened? No, what really happened? Is Hollywood in denial?
Remember the audience is always correct, if they don’t like it, it just ain’t that good. And, ‘if and when’ they don’t like it, they sure as hell don’t want to pay for it, or spend their precious time listening or watching it on TV.
Now then, there was an interesting in article in the Wall Street Journal recently titled; “Comedy Slump Not a Laughing Matter,” by Ben Fritz published on June 26, 2018 which stated: “Last year’s most successful comedy, “Girl’s Trip,” took in $117 million in the US and Canada. The last time the year’s highest grossing comedy grossed so little was 1995, when ticket costs were 52% less on average.”
The article also stated: “Traditional comedies are struggling for oxygen at the box office, caught between superhero sequels that integrate laughs and a vast buffet of stand-up specials, sitcoms, amateur pranks and original films on digital services like Netflix and YouTube.”
What I, as a film critic writer, have noticed, is that every sit-com seems to brush up against the PC culture and then quickly back-away, and attack the politically expedient right-side of the equation. Perhaps, this is because the comedy writers all live and work in areas where most everyone has left-leaning political views, and they assume it’s funny to everyone, and that if anyone doesn’t like the jokes, then they are ignorant, or out of touch with reality.
Perhaps, it is this feedback loop which has now been labeled; the ‘Echo Chamber’ where conformational bias occurs. Indeed, it hardly matters what it’s called or why it keeps happening if no one in Hollywood, late-night comedy notices, because now that audiences have been split in half and every show is catering to the same half of the remaining market, no one is making any money, and audiences, yes, even on the left are getting bored with it all; it’s just not funny anymore. And despite popular belief in NYC, LA and DC, our president does not bathe in Cheetos dust. Just sayin’.
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