Short Takes on the News

From Entertainment to Politics

I’m trying out something for this Substack, to fill the gaps between the longer pieces, and you can let me know if you like it. It might be a daily, or every few days.

They Can’t Quit Trump

Deadline, an entertainment site, has had Maggie Haberman’s Trump book on its front page for two days running. To them, Trump-hating IS entertainment. Considering how bland everything in Hollywood is, Trump might be their only entertainment. They just keep squeezing juice out of the lemon.

Hollywood Makes the New McCarthyism Official

A story way down at the bottom of the Hollywood Reporter, which has nonstop coverage of #metoo 5 years later, reports on moral clauses written into contracts that say “public disrepute, humiliation, contempt, scandal or ridicule” can be cause for immediate firing. The problem: writers and directors still echo the days of Old Hollywood when the Left stood by its artists rather than threw them under the bus. Big studios want them, but creatives don’t. It could lead to a big fight. This is silly. They need to learn how to ignore Twitter. We all do.

You Can’t Say ‘White Lives Matter’

On TikTok, they say Kanye West is “cycling,” meaning he’s off his meds and headed once again for a public breakdown, which would explain his massive troll with the “White Lives Matter” t-shirts he wore with Candace Owens. But she explains it differently, pointing out the irony of a culture that brands itself with “Black Lives Matter” but seems to ignore the many deaths from crime, heart disease, poor education, and other ways she believes the American Left holds back the Black community:

The Red Wave

If the red wave does make landfall, this might be one reason why”

This piece explains it further.

But speaking of Twitter, the machine has once again mobilized to protect Democrats heading into the midterms.

Why Bros Bombed

As someone who has covered entertainment for 20 years, I can tell you that the denial is not only thick, it’s so deeply embedded there is no way out of it. It isn’t just Bros, though. It isn’t that America is “homophobic.” It’s that they are putting out films they think people SHOULD want to see rather than films they DO want to see.

That has made Hollywood movies a tough sell across the board. You have to crawl out of the bubble to get it, though. Most of my friends and colleagues really don’t. Journalists won’t talk about it. No one wants to be called out or lose their job so they stay silent.

Top Gun’s success sent a clear message to the studios that this was what audiences wanted. An action movie that delivered without working in a hidden agenda somewhere. Even the most liberal people I know are sick of the hidden or not-so-hidden agendas at play in Hollywood movies. That isn’t why people go to them. They are inundated with politics almost everywhere. They’re certainly not going to go to the effort to drive to a movie theater and pay money for more of it.

What they wanted with Bros, as with everything else from sexless Charlie’s Angels, etc. is to “fix” society, to “normalize” marginalized groups. They want the real world to match the internet where marginalized voices reign supreme. But the box office comes down to cold, hard cash and that is where they run into a problem. Bros would have done very well on Netflix.

The more Hollywood tries to “fix” people in America; the less America will pay to see their films. Does anyone like to be in a relationship with someone who wants to “fix” them? Well, neither do audiences.

I Recommend

Early America and Frontier Patriot - The first is cooking, and the second is eating. They sometimes do roleplay videos and always give a little history lesson. The production value is top notch, better than most.

Steven Spielberg’s new movie about his childhood is a very good, non-woke film by one of the greatest directors of all time:

I’m working on a longer piece about Jordan Peterson, but this is a great interview between Megyn Kelly and Gad Saad:

The weekly chit-chat between Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn is one of my favorite things ever. Definitely check it out. Drops every Friday.

Cable news shows Fox still dominates:

That’s it for today. If you like this daily or frequent update email feature, let me know in the comments. A piece on Herschel Walker is coming up a bit later.