Why Do Progressive Films Repeatedly Fail?

Look, it is what it is. I'm going to call a spade a spade here and make a cultural observation, if you don't mind. Hollywood is dominated by elites who tend to lean to the left of the political spectrum, so naturally, a lot of films that come out of Hollywood are going to have left-leaning perspectives on life and life's many nuances. And there is nothing inherently horrible or evil about having political convictions. There is nothing wrong with wanting to promote an idea you deem to be noble. However, over and over again, I've seen films featuring progressive viewpoints, especially those related to gender ideology, fail narratively in the most miserable fashion. A spade is a spade, and for lack of a better term, a bad "woke" film is a bad "woke" film. But why can't these kinds of films succeed? Obviously, movies featuring gay characters, i.e., "Brokeback Mountain" (which I don't consider to be "woke"), have performed well in the past without stirring up a culture war between two bitterly divided parties and without giving narrative filmmaking a bad name. So, what is it about this trend of progressive filmmaking that is so destructive and bad for narrative integrity?

For the record, before I get into this tangent, I think I should let you know that I am not a very political person, at least not anymore, so before you shout "bias!" know that doing so wouldn't really be fair or accurate. Frankly, I'd rather be directly talking about movies right now instead of glorified wartime propaganda films. However, this is an issue that is directly threatening the integrity of something I hold very near and dear: stories, especially because this trend is going mainstream. So naturally, I'm under obligation to write an article addressing and critiquing it. It is what it is.

I could rattle off a whole list of reasons why progressive films don't perform well narratively. I could steamroll you with evidence and pound the opposition into the ground so thoroughly with such a tidal wave of reason that they wouldn't have any hope of ever being able to stand up and give another argument in favor of their point again. However, I want to cut straight to the heart of the issue instead of rattling off a checklist. At the heart of this issue lies a crucial design flaw with progressive filmmaking: it cares about the message of the film too much and doesn't care about the design and construction of the film enough. Their attitude is one of "Our message is all that you need to walk away with; narrative integrity be spurned." The people making these movies ultimately don't care about how good their film is as long as their desired message is sent, and why would they? They have an entire army of liberal journalists and outlets who will run to the defense of their endless, spewing firehose of content, no matter how, to put it nicely, lacking in substance it may be. We live in a society of people that is too afraid to call out any flaw, no matter how small, in our political and social viewpoints, and this attitude breeds apathy, which eventually gives birth to low-quality products once flawed ideas infiltrate the realm of filmmaking. To give some examples of, to one degree or another, progressive critical, financial, and/or audience reception-oriented failures, I need look no further than, to name a few, Lightyear, the live-action Little Mermaid, Eternals, the Cowboy Bebop reboot, Wonder Woman 1984, Terminator Genisys, Batwoman, and last/worst of all, an absolute turd of a film called "They/Them," which is pretty much a bad horror film with an even worse sense of characterization. All of these films fail to understand two very important facts about filmmaking: one - an idea is only as good as how you can execute it, and two - if you make a film targeting a specific demographic that also happens to alienate around 50% of your audience, then you're losing around 50% of your critical and financial prospects. The ideas that these films and shows portray are simply not as popular as bubble-dwelling studio executives would like to believe they are, and because these kinds of people care more about an ultimately unpopular message than they do about objective aspects of a film's quality, they end up alienating more politically-neutral film critics as well.

Now, this is not an issue endemic to this sub-category of filmmaking. Another polar opposite category that fails in many of the same ways is Christian filmmaking, and as a Christian, I'm not ashamed to admit that a lot of Christian films are just really, really bad. And as of now, I'm planning to write an article discussing that particular issue as well. But today, it was progressivism's turn to get critically shot full of holes. "Woke" films would do well to learn from the mistakes they've been making. And perhaps, if they learn to use a little bit more restraint as well as a little bit more nuance, maybe they'll get better. But for now, they suck. Enough said.

Romans 1:26-27