The photo above is of Tina Fey, one of the most successful Saturday Night Live alumni ever, and the first woman to rise to the position of head writer for that show. Below is the text that accompanies the photo, now circulating on Facebook:
Below is Tina’s page as produced by Geni.Com:
In other words, I am calling bullshit. I have never thought that Ms. Fey possessed an inordinate amount of talent. I thought her good looks, maybe there in youthful flower, were later a stagecraft illusion. I never for a second considered that she conceived of 30 Rock, a very funny TV series that also included Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jack McBrower and Jane Krakowski, among others. That show had very good comedic writers, and was filmed in single camera mode. That fast-pace technique allowed each actor to do the best comedic take for any situation, offering multiple opportunities to get it right. It is a good tool for sitcoms.
Notice that Tina’s genealogy is scrubbed, and managed by the gatekeeper Erica Howton, whose own genes carry back centuries. Is Erica the one that the MM people refer to as the “dominatrix?” Did I get that right? Otherwise set me straight, as I am too lazy to go searching.
I suggest that Tina came from wealth and privilege. Doors open before such people at every turn in their careers. Check out this post about Carol Burnett, and marvel with me at the anonymous benefactors that paved her way. She and Tina would be supported by truly talented (but nameless and faceless) people in writing, wardrobe, lighting, casting, and all other production matters.
The Facebook entry wants us to believe that all the people listed above, including Ophra, Tina, Martha Stewart, Harrison Ford and the rest are rags-to-riches, Lana Turner discovered-at-a-soda-fountain-type stories. I do not believe a word of it, nor do I believe that they survive on talent alone. Bloodlines matter most.
Here’s a comment from TimR that puts it better than I have managed, my underline added:
“All that lazy acting goes to the MM idea that these glamorous jobs are handed out to cousins with pretty faces. The lighting, cinematography, set design, etc… These are filled by hardworking craftspeople who can make almost any actor passably good enough. One director I saw called them “the aristocracy of the proletariat,” these hardworking artisans. But with the actors all being in the family, it seems Hollywood is really just highly polished home movies, a sort of photo album shared with the rest of us. And if they accidentally produce a decent one among all the duds, they fire up the PR machine to shout its brilliance to the hills.“
Piece of Mindful 
You could write a rags to riches celeb blood liner expose everyday there are so many of them. Like Tina’s most of the spouses seem well to do, at least no factory workers. Haven’t seen a new MM since July 1. Thought he’d be all over the Epstein/Walmart events.
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We are all wondering.
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Could it be that MM& JE share more in common than being a a male US citizen?
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Well, one of the listed residences of Jeffrey Epstein is in Stanley knew Mexico, a mere 111 miles south of Miles, who is said to be in Taos. The last Post on Miles Mathis site was July 1st, 2019 and Jeffrey Epstein was supposedly arrested July 6th, 2019 and allegedly died August 10th at the age of 66.
UPDATE: I think I found out what happened to Miles Mathis! Other wise known as “MathisderMaler”, who seems to have been blocked from internet access in Toas, knew Mexico!
https://cuttingthroughthefog.com/2018/05/08/defending-miles-mathis/#comments
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Found this:
MathisderMaler said: August 13, 2019 at 6:44 pm
‘I am still writing papers, BTW. I have about ten new papers and updates. I plan to put them on a disk and upload from a friend’s computer soon.’
Liked by 11 people (and posted 11 days ago)
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Thanks for digging!
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Miss Fey’s genealogy –
https://ethnicelebs.com/tina-fey
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There isn’t much difference between a head writer on a show and a head writer on a news broadcast. The fact that she was comedic version of both suggests that if her face hadn’t been damaged as a little kid, she would have been an actual anchor woman. Anchors edit copy but they don’t write it. Over the years she appears to have become a very good editor.
The scuttlebutt is that in real life she treats everyone as servants. The peer name Ritchie in her tree jumped out at me.
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Vaughan and Cowan (Cohen) jumped out at me. The Vaughans are Barons of Fethard and Earls of Lisburne. Ex-POTUS Jimmy Carter has Cowans in his genealogy.
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I saw that too, Ritchie. Speaking of comedians/news anchors:
Bryan Williams, a gifted comedian, became a news anchor. Straight wanted to place him in a Dutch rock band, faking his death, and it was eerily close. I saw an interview with him one time, and he made himself the writer of the news, often editing on breaks with new flashes. He made it sound like the news was not scripted and that he really was on top of it all, not just a pretty face.
One if his funnier lines, being interviewed by Jon Stewart and speaking of Cronkite, saying something like “Yes, we in the news business aspire to be like Cronkite, just as in your business you might look up to Carrot Top.”
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I’m really not trying to be contrarian and am probably just coming from a place of disenchantment after slogging through so many sloppy, rambling, intellectually lazy genealogy papers on the MM site, but I really don’t understand the preoccupation with linking celebrities to the peerage or pointing out that they were born with silver spoons in their mouths and lie about it in their PR. As a general rule, it seems to be true that celebrities who reach a certain level of uber-fame were probably born into it, but I know for a fact that not all actors who make a career in movies and TV started out rich and many of them actually aren’t rich even if they have worked enough to be recognizable on the street. Moreover, just because a famous person has relatives or ancestors who were behind an agenda doesn’t mean that person him or herself is behind the agenda. I think we can all agree that it’s possible to hold different views from your family members, whether they are your parents or, for God’s sake, your second-cousin-twice-removed’s great-great-grandfather by marriage. I’ve seen a lot of people who are a lot more intelligent and informed than I am get really into this exercise and I’m always open to the possibility that I’m missing something (I usually am), but I sometimes feel like it’s just a paint-by-numbers game meant to indulge confirmation bias. “Oh, have I already said the game is rigged and all famous people are linked to the peerage three hundred gazillion times? Well, see, the reason I’m saying it again is because look what I found out about Ricky Schroeder…” (I should reiterate, I’m talking more about MM than anything else. I don’t see a lot of it here and this post isn’t an example of how ridiculous it can get. Not trying to attack you or anyone here, Mark, it’s just something I guess I had to get off my chest.)
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Good thoughts. I do agree that it is sloppy over there and I don’t do it because I am not good at it – said this many times, that it takes hard work and good sideways vision to make those links stick. It is not something to do as a hobby. I think we really stumbled on something here with Madonna/Eva Peron, with outside help of course, and find work like that fascinating. I look at Madonna (speaking of the Ritchie name), and just don’t see a lot of talent or even personality, and looked at Eva and everything about her death said “fake!” It took an outside friend of the blog to put two and two together. I would not have been able.
I chose Fey because she is being highlighted in rags to riches fashion on Facebook right now, and I know she is not overly talented, and that she did not start out with nothing. At least in part she is being boosted as women are everywhere in every professions, so elevation to head writer probably had that in mind, not that she could not do the job which is, as Ty said, just editing. It was time for a woman.
Here’s one I know of for sure, the actress Stockard Channing, who played Rizzo in Grease and had her own TV show (that I never saw), who was said to have comedic chops like Lucy. She fizzled. She is the daughter of Mary Alice Stockard Fortin, and was born into wealth. I used to work for Mary Alice, and asked someone who knew her (like a banker, I think) how such a talent as Stockard Channing (not her real first or last name) came from an untalented person like Mary Alice and her business tycoon father (think Stockard Shipyard Terminals in Philadelphia). I was in my 30s and assumed that Stockard had made it on her own chops, as that is how the world works, right? I was told that all Stockard had to do growing up was prepare to be famous, study acting and even music. Her ‘making it’ though even on a small level was no accident. She is B List, but from wealth.
Also, I just went through one of those People Magazine-type lists of 26 of Hollywood types who are set to inherit millions, if not billions. Chevy Chase is there, alogn with Jake and Maggie Gyllenhal and Patty Hearst … I’ll have to find it again, as I recognized every single name. The premise of the article was that the parents of these people were American success stories, not that they were peerage. I doubt it.
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Found it – I was wrong. I do not recognize all the names, just most. Even little old Edward Norton, B actor, is juiced.
https://www.thedelite.com/celebs-who-have-inherited-millions/24/
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ScottRC- good points. As far as my comment, I know it’s very broadbrush, reality is much more complicated. Just bouncing off Mark’s comments on the mediocre acting skills of (some of) these superstars.
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On a more positive note, as someone who has worked in theater off and on and (as I mentioned in a comment on another post) has gotten some life-changing training in the performing arts, I have seen and experienced how training and immersion in the arts can change people for the better. I am friends or acquaintances with working actors, directors, choreographers, and other behind-the-scenes artisans who mostly work in obscurity and struggling to make ends meet, but sometimes get jobs working with the big name celebrities of the type who get geneaology papers written about them. Call me a naive romantic, but I believe working in the arts–working with people who have gone through a level of training that can lead to spiritual growth, and sometimes undergoing that training themselves–can change people for the better, no matter how easily their worldly success may have come to them because of family connections. Lady Gaga, for just one example, strikes me as someone who came from enormous privelege, but she has also worked her ass off to become a first rate artist, and I think the kinds of assumptions that might be made about her based on her family background would simply be dead wrong. Obviously, not all or even most celebrities take their art as seriously as she manifestly does, but I would rather hold out hope for the priveleged beautiful people whose jobs put them in regular contact with people who do not have priveleged backgrounds and have done the kind of deep soul-searching work that it takes to be truly successful in the arts.
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I don’t mean to be contrarian, either, but “Lady” Gags is a tool following orders. Her level of vulgarity has been designed by top mind-benders to further the androgyny/homosexual agenda that has helped shrink to extinction (soon enough) the middle class and has encouraged young girls that ‘stripper’ is a career worthy of admiration and capable of inspiring an artistic aesthetic.
Further, that disgusting, and I dare say, tuneless, act has promoted the notion that callous, indiscreet sexual abandon is somehow a form of progress in the war against the presumed male hegemony over culture and commerce; and that this “maleness” is a social disease requiring legislation to suppress, and I dare say, in time to eradicate altogether.
Praise the Lord!!
(Kind of kidding but not really. “She” is repulsive but one is still at liberty to imbibe as a consenting “adult” so knock yourself out, little monsters-)
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That came off a lot more smug and Pollyanna-ish than I intended, lol. I see the value in calling bullshit on the way powerful people present themselves if it doesn’t add up. Just trying to bring another dimension to it.
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Also, the only two performances of Gaga’s I have paid attention to were her Julie Andrews tribute on some awards show and her work on the Star Is Born movie. I get a bad vibe about her pop music and believe she absolutely being used by people with a sick agenda. That, I think, is worth talking about, and it is fair to make assumptions about her based on how she has allowed herself to be used. But she has also demonstrated a level of artistry that, imo, deserves consideration as well. Positive or negative, you and I are now talking about what she has actually done, not who her great-great uncle’s second wife’s mother’s last name is. You see what I’m saying.
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Your comments about how Lady Gaga has “worked her ass off” to become a good performer rang a little hollow to me. I happen to love certain aspects of classical music, and get chills when I watch (on a DVD we own) Leonard Bernstein overseeing several hundred people performing Beethoven’s Ninth in Berlin in 1989 upon removal of the Wall. It was a staged event (the Wall part one of the great mysteries), but as I look upon those people playing their instruments and singing their parts, I realized that each individual there worked his or her ass off to get there. That is real talent resulting from real ass sweat. Yet, Bernstein is the only name I can name.
I see “Paul” McCartney banging out chords on a piano when he performs, and realized he worked his ass off to become a mediocre (at best) piano player, and his rewards are immense.
Who ever said that all of this mediocrity around us is not the result of hard work? The point is that those of the privileged class will have doors open before them for their work, others of equal or greater talent will drive Ubers and play bars and company picnics.
I know a man at our local gym who was in musical sales in Los Angeles ‘back in the day’, 60s to maybe 2000 … he told me that his company was among the first to allow aspiring guitarists (mostly) to make demo tapes (using the company’s equipment) at home. They would submit the final product and hope for a break. I suggested to him that he must have had to listen to a whole lotta crap to find an occasional diamond. He said no, there was a lot of talent out there, but it never breaks through. It takes luck, and it helps to know someone.
It’s not that Gaga (or Stockard Channing or Tina Fey) didn’t sweat it out it to make good. It is this: even if they are mediocrities (I cannot use that word with certainty with Gaga but can with the other two) they had the time to blossom and were given keys to the kingdom. They didn’t have to wait tables all day and learn their trade at night. And this is solely because of their privileged position as members of elite families. Ordinary people, even though possessing more talent and having worked as hard or harder, need not apply.
Tina Fey working at the YMCA, hoping for a break, Harrison Ford a carpenter … this is nothing but publicity agents writing back stories.
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I can easily cede all of what you say. I rarely listen to any pop music–or, for that matter, any music at all–unless I’m with people who are. I was indifferent to it even before I began to “wake up,” maybe because I intuitively sensed the rot within it than you and Tyrone are talking about. People have told me it’s bizarre that I’m capable of driving ten hours straight without even thinking about turning on the radio or putting in a CD if I’m by myself. It’s not an intellectual stance, not something I’m proud or ashamed of, its just the way I’ve always been. I respect and admire the passion with which you and Tyrone rail against the poisoning of music even though I don’t share that passion. And if you can watch Gaga’s performance at the 2015 Oscars and dismiss it as mediocre, that’s fine, I was probably just impressed that she appeared to give more of a shit than all the other pop puppets who just make me want to cover my ears. I think my point that all of this is far more interesting to discuss than the genealogies of the rich and famous still stands.
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If I remember the plot correctly, sum where near the beg-inning of the movie “Ass star is born”, Laddy Gayga, is singing in a “Drag Queen Club” and she mentions how “THEY” (gay men who sometimes dress as women ) have allowed her to perform for people. Gotta love it when the hole truth is on display about how this/shit whirled really goes round & round!
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I think the tragedy of it all is that these mediocrities get promoted and lauded way beyond their capabilities AT THE EXPENSE of real talent who don’t belong to the mafia network.
Dumbing down in action.
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That dumbing down is in effect in all areas of our culture and society, not just music and the arts, not just science, everything. Would it be useful to trace the genealogies of wealthy and successful scientists too? I love great storytelling and great novels and I think John Grisham sucks. Would tracing his genealogy make me understand his suckiness better? The greater tragedy, to me, is that we have been conditioned to expect the wealthy to provide us with great culture and to pay our great artists and scientists to advance our culture. They are no more going to do that than they are going to pay serious journalists to investigate them and expose the truth of what they are doing. Ultimately, being a great artist or a great scientist has absolutely nothing to do with money and worldly success. I find great books even though most of what the big publishers pay for, and most of what the masses read on their Amazon Kindles, is illiterate garbage. It’s actually not their job to make our culture great again, it’s ours, you know? We’re just used to letting them handle it for us, and if we can all agree their doing a shitty job, I think that’s a great starting point.
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There are no bromides for a system that is built around the premise that access to the public stage is not left to random chance. Music, for instance, is far too important to be allowed to go its own way. Science as well. But I accept and share your frustrations.
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I’m not sure I understand what you mean, Mark. Could you clarify that?
Are you saying it sounds like what I advocate is leaving the future of music, science, literature, and all other aspects of culture to random chance? I don’t think that’s what I’m saying at all, though I think leaving it to random chance would be better than leaving it in the hands of people who we know beyond a shadow of a doubt are hellbent on destroying it and are not going to change their minds anytime soon. However, I don’t think we are leaving it to random chance if, individually, we seek out great music and great writing and great theater that is not funded by the elite and support it…and if we can’t find it, creating it ourselves (which is what I’m currently doing with theater). If you had a “Support This Site” button that asked for donations to keep Piece of Mindful going, I would click it and support you because what you are doing is far more valuable to me that what mainstream newspapers and magazines do. That’s not random. It’s me following my intuition and the evidence of my own senses about what is valuable, rather than letting moneyed interests make that determination for me.
Am I missing your point?
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No, I am just not making it well. I was merely pointing out that from the point of view of people in power, music and entertainment cannot be left to travel as popular taste takes them – they are too important. They are managed from above.
I agree with your statement above. The arts ought to be supported and talented people supported and appreciated.
As far as monetizing this site, that suggestion comes along now and then. I just don’t care to do so. But thank you for the kind thought.
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ScottRD perhaps you should start your own blog call it ScottsPOV. You clearly have lots to say about things you’re just now exposing yourself too all over night it seems. Congrats.
But to refer to any part of MM’s work as lazy is like saying you should know since you once followed your girlfriend the lead actress of Oklahoma! from show to show only she dumped you for providing too much support. You should consider peeling enough layers of the onion to bring yourself to tears and maybe conclude she just wasn’t feeling it or in MM’s case recognize the fact he does what he does with a scientist mind where proofs exist and the need to inform the reader of each calculation ad nauseum is his method to teach and inform the reader why he feels he’s proved his theory via genealogy which I’m sure seems as boring to most as selling apples roadside. Every layer of every story of every ingredient of every award winning pie is where 2+2=5. Where genius exists.
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ScottRD perhaps you should start your own blog call it ScottsPOV. You clearly have lots to say about things you’re just now exposing yourself too all over night it seems. Congrats.
But to refer to any part of MM’s work as lazy is like saying you should know since you once followed your girlfriend the lead actress of Oklahoma! from show to show only she dumped you for providing too much support. You should consider peeling enough layers of the onion to bring yourself to tears and maybe conclude she just wasn’t feeling it. Or in MM’s case recognize the fact he does what he does with a scientist mind where proofs exist and the need to inform the reader of each calculation ad nauseum is his method to teach and inform the reader why he feels he’s proved his theory via genealogy which I’m sure seems as boring to most as selling apples roadside. Every layer of every story of every ingredient of every award winning pie is where 2+2=5. Where genius exists.
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Rico Sauze, I totally agree that I should just start my own blog instead of hijacking the comments threads of other people’s blogs! Scott’sPOV seems a little generic though. NotRicoSauze’sPOV? NotTyroneMcCloskey’sPOV? I dunno, I’ll work on it.
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Let your soulsight guide you Scott MK so you don’t fail. Fandom anon or live journal seem more your speed since the chicken rides at midnight. Find village tavern and belt out froggy from little rascals karaoke followed by spancky stand up about people who dream of working the photo lab at the Greens developing pictures of Alfalfa swinging Darla. Make Halloween your favorite day of the year and spiderman legs your favorite trick and treat. Call your sister lil bruddr again but no more taking trips together. Change your name to Kip and do raw artist digital paintings that speak to you. Move back in with your parents sharing knowledge about selling mister boy to chinese restaurant wrapped in tinfoil crying out huzzah. Your generic list is steak n shake minions heaven.
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If this thread was hijacked, I was asleep while it happened. Often times the comments are more interesting than the post above.
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I saw Gaga at the 2015 Oscars, and if it was real, if that was her voice, it Autotune was not involved, it was indeed an impressive performance. Otherwise, point taken.
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There’s a lot more to this topic than we’ve covered. Almost every broad brush comment can be countered. For one thing, most of the shlock art being decried, the mass appeal “garbage”, usually operates on deeper levels and has a lot of esoteric ideas built in. At least I think Jay Dyer and Aaron Franz and others make a good case for that. Franz (though not really a fakeologist or Mathisian or anything) makes a case that “secret societies” are the hidden hand behind a lot of occult meaning in Hollywood product. If that’s the case, these groups have generational/ institutional knowledge and do seem to be effective at what they’re doing. Granted the public will eat the slop that’s put before them, rather than go seek out the supposed diamonds in the rough that ScottRC claims exist if we would just look, still the mainstream product is deeper than what meets the eye at a casual glance.
Secondly, for the aesthetes, they do also have their Kubricks, Coen Bros, Woody Allen, PT Anderson, and much more, also in literature and music, not all of whom are fakers. Again kind of a gray area, bc some of these may actually be talented children of the middle and upper middle class who are allowed to play in the sandbox since their work is marginal anyway, just for “serious adults” or intellectuals… Or with a mega talent like Kubrick, IF he’s not just a front, if he’s a real singular genius, then he’s someone who was able to coexist with TPTB. And his movies even dwell on that theme quite a lot, the commoner or nobody interacting with or serving power.
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Miles jumped the shark. He’s done.
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Why? He’s done for good?
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Miles’s supposed genius in physics had already been displayed by Milton Monson’s book, “Physics is Constipated,” which revealed much of physics is bullshit. This was accomplished in the early 80s. Along with that, I made the mistake of purchasing one of Mathis’s books. Horribly written, poorly edited, it underscores Monson’s singularity.
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uh-huh… so the genius of geniuses has not been able to get himself access to Internet. Wow. Some things never change. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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A big thanks to Mark for letting my comment in… You are retired until you aren’t… Just like Andrew Luck… fishy affair that one… He battled with more serious injuries through the years and now retires due to a calf/ankle injury… hum… You can call me conspiracy theorist but I think there is more to it than that ha! No worries, I won’t stay for long.
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I don’t recall you ever being a problem. Am I missing something? I routinely go in and release all of the stops … and anyway, I’ve been banned in better places than this.
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Lawrence Rothman I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out why you left out the Sir in front of your name. You were so busy investigating and determining exactly why MM hasn’t recently posted a paper especially one you would ever believe or understand that you simply forgot to include it. Either that or you were so caught up knee slapping and high fiving yourself over unveiling an emoticon so esoteric one Leonardo Da Vinci would gladly rise from the dead just to paint that you excluded the Sir as not to intimidate him. Whatever the reason my feeling is anyone using emoticons supposedly to further get their point across does this because they mistakenly think they have a point to begin with. Sad panda face. That being said there may still be an upside out there for you in all of this. And therein lies the point. Where the mystery opens with clarity for a man of your wisdom. He who knows how will always work for he who knows why. Gunga galunga.
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If anyone thinks Tina Fey has singular talent, have them watch “Sisters.” One of the stupidest, most contrived cinematic messes ever produced.
Hollywood, and the overarching MSM, are a monopoly that is financed by Wall Street bond palaces. No one can claim anyone in that business has talent if there’s isn’t a non closed system that allows for some evaluation. Hollywood/MSM determines what they think is talent, but there’s no way to evaluate that decision…
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Ripperduck please tell me you’re not including animated films in your one fell swoop assessment of Hollywood talent. Seriously the actor who played Aladdin and the dude who played Jafar both vying for the chick who lived in the bond palace have talent. Aladdin flies on magic carpet for chrissakes can you do that? Hollywood and MSM media don’t determine who has talent Ripperduck. The eye of the beholder does. For example assuming you’re married let’s pretend your wife tells you your neighbor is the greatest lover in the world. This doesn’t mean he or she actually is. It just means to her they are. And regardless of how much revenue Sisters generated at the box office it’s still more than any of us would generate should the general public be given their own movie theaters to show movies they made with people they think have talent using a closed system like their electrician and hairdresser or neighbor. Nobody would go. Nobody would care. Talent is essentially abstract. Tomato tamato. But revenue is a measuring stick of something tangible. Cash. And Tina Fey has brought in a few bucks I’d venture to say. So that in and of itself could be considered a talent regardless of her talent. Sorry but your closed system idea to grade talent doesn’t work even in Little League tryouts. That’s because it’s impossible to predict what anyone will do given any opportunity. In other words you’re only as good as your last performance. After that it’s always going to be a crap shoot.
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Actually, Hollywood does determine what is talent, in the same way news outlets determine what’s news, what curriculum sellers determine what is history, in and in. Problem is, that Hollywood is, in fact, a closed system, created by a concentration of economic power that killed off alternatives. My older cousins used to work with surfing movie producers back in the 70s. Reason they could do it was due to the fact that single screen theatres were mainly independently owned, and they would rent out their venues for exhibition. None of that was studio product, instead it was the product of indie guys who saw a demand, and fulfilled it. That all went away when single screen theatres couldn’t compete against the multiplexes, which had far bigger marketing and promotional budgets. Had nothing to do with having a better product, rather it had to do with concentration of power which overwhelmed independent exhibitors.
That’s exactly what took place with video and video rental outlets. VCRs became evident in the late 70s, and rental outlets were screaming for content. What emerged was a thriving low budget, independent sector, that kept churning out product completely independent of Hollywood monopolistic closed system. Unfortunately, all that came to an end when studios demanded far more shelf space and [Indies] were squeezed out. It had nothing to do with talent or fulfilling [demand]. Quite the contrary, indies were cutting into studio market share, so that all had to cone to and end. From the studio’s perspective, no matter if they had spent tens of millions in production and marketing, their product ended up on video, sitting in a shelf next to something that was produced for less than what the studio had spent on snacks and candy bars. They couldn’t abide any outside catalyst that could have forced them to evolve and change their business model. Not after the massive amount of conglomeration that took place with studios, that gave them overwhelming resources for marketing and promotion. Again, that had nothing to do with talent, or demand.
The result of all that has been an abandonment of Hollywood’s closed system monopoly by potential buyers. In 2017, movie attendance was the lowest in nearly 30 years. In order to stave off the collapse, and win back some goodwill, MoviePass was rolled out. For $10/month, a purchaser could attend unlimited movies. Something like 4 million people subscribed. Problem was, the business model made no sense. First run movies, in prime venues in SoCal will cost $20/ticket, which MoviePass had to pay the exhibitors. They were bleeding money, but it underscored that Hollywood’s belief that no alternative existed to their supposed singularity was delusional.
This all goes back to my original point. Hollywood and MSM created a closed system that didn’t allow for outside catalysts that could help that business evolve. Quite the contrary, they conglomerates further in order to destroy any competition. Roger Corman said, “The audience is never wrong.” Audiences are saying good bye, and it’s only a matter of time before people like Tina Fey end up on a scrap heap…
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Good comment, and thank you. I took liberty correcting a typo or two, hope you don’t mind.
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Please, correct away!! And thanks…
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Since you asked to be corrected, Erica Howton is “the disconnectrix.”
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Thank you.
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Talent? The best liars make the best: Actors. Lawyers. Political Puppets. Salesman. Spokesman. Add booze & Pharmakia in great quantities to the general population. Red Flag law (and more) will be pushed hard Sep. 4th onward. But most are too busy w a t c h i n g the sideshows on TV.
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Charlie for one thing if Tina Fey ever happens upon this site or even better Mark’s post she’s going to laugh her ass off at all of us. But if there’s anyone she’s going to wish she could bed down with take a guess who that’s going to be. Charlie I doubt many people consider what I’m about to say next but I think it’s one of the keys to understanding why actors and musicians with more talent at their craft seem to always end up giving way to those with less talent even if they are better looking. It’s because the masses don’t find them insatiable. In other words seeing them once is enough. Their look isn’t something the masses can’t wait to see again. Talent has little to do with whether Hollywood feels we would want to see the actor again. In other words who Hollywood tries most to expose us to are actors that most embody an archetype. The archetypes are present in all of our unconscious minds. Archetypes we instinctually have a somatic or psychological response to in our collective unconscious minds. Something we instantly and often without really knowing why can identify and feel connection with what we are witnessing or just witnessed being portrayed so believably real with our eyes and ears. In other words when you can’t picture any other actor playing the role that you just watched a particular actor play is what I’m referring to. I’m talking about an actors ability to embody an archetype naturally or even with practice. To put it another way is are they flawlessly believable in that role. Actors with all the talent in the world for whatever reason can come across as an interchangeable part either through audition or simply by their appearance. Namely the actors that thrive don’t look like anybody else you would ever walk past on the street. Their look is distinguished and not necessarily in a classy way. But they look the part and act it as if they are the embodiment of someone who is actually living that life in reality as we know it. That is what sets them apart.
Would you leave a trillion dollar industry to chance and virtually turn it into an endless cycle of America’s Got Talent putting new faces on the screen because they had the best audition. Or would you cast an actor you already know embodies the archetype you know audiences will unconsciously respond to and not worry if the audience will find the actor believable in that roll or not because the odds are they will. In other words who plays the archetype of Tina Fey better than Tina Fey. And don’t get me started your trying to bring up Indie films and local showings. Of course those types of movies are often really good and a breath of fresh air. I enjoy them privately and immensely. But the actors in those movies are most likely only suited for the roles they played and after that you’d have to ask yourself if you could do without ever seeing that actor again in your life versus movie after movie after movie. Chances are they were perfect for the role they played and that’s it. Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy watching the movie over and over it just means to see them in anything else would probably ruin what you liked about them to begin with. Yes every big name in Hollywood has been part of a dud. So maybe it’s not actors we’re talking about at all but rather movie scripts. Either way talented or not the way I judge Tina Fey isn’t whether she can act or not. I judge Tina Fey assuming she was born a woman not by her acting ability but by whether she still looks good enough to me to let sit on my face.
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I guess you didn’t bother to read, or maybe not understand, the phenomena of disappearing film audiences. Let me reiterate, 2017 was the worst year for film attendance in nearly 30 years. MoviePass was a gimmick instituted in 2018 in order to get asses in seats, even if it meant losing money every time a subscriber used the ap. That indicates the business model used by Hollywood for decades, that being, concentration of distribution channels, locking out outside talent from those distribution channels, demanding that foreign exhibitors show American films at the expense of local film production, is collapsing. Whatever products the American movie business created have depreciated in value. And it’s been going on for over a decade. How do I know? Because Spielburg and Lucas both said as much.
In a series of speeches made at the opening of a new building at USC’s film school, both men said that Hollywood, as we have known it, is gone. Production costs have soared past the carrying capacity of the bulk of USAAmericans to absorb. I would suggest looking at ticket prices for first run, prime venues in SoCal. It’s $20 and up. That underscores what both men were saying, that too many films have been mammoth bombs, not capable of recovering costs, and rendered studios, their star system, name recognition, into the category of dinosaurs.
It was really stupid for anyone to think that the old ways of doing things could be maintained indefinately. And it was very stupid to think that Hollywood should be the only place where films are created. Movie production has moved from SoCal, and is being done by tech firms that manufacture content for a fraction of traditional fare. As the Internet displaces brick and mortar theaters, the collapse of the monopoly system is accelerating. I would suggest to anyone that doubts that to tour one of the many dying malls in USAAmerica. Quite a number of the anchor chains were theaters, which have done nothing to mitigate retail disaster. The death of retail’s most visible element, the mall, is analogous to the demise of Hollywood. Products like Tina Fey are obsolete, no one needs them. How do I know that? Years ago, Arsenio Hall interviewed Eddie Murphy on the maiden episode of Arsenio’s show. Eddie was asked why he didn’t do commercials, and his response was revelatory. Celebrity has a attenuated shelf life, and it can’t be spent doing advertising. “If the bottom fell out, I’ll be a Coke slinging fool. But not until then,” said Murphy. Look at all the ‘talent’ that’s hawking candy bars, insurance, makeup, cars, and in the case of Tina Fey, mattresses. The bottom has fallen out….
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I agree with most of the points that you have made in your comments. The thing is that even with the death of malls, the climbing costs of films, and the internet, Hollywood is far from dead. Dreams die hard and Anyone making a film is going to want people to see it. They woukd also like those people to pay to see it. The Hollywood distribution model is old fashion. The Studios are still a little shaky in how fo effectively hide profits from streaming platforms and product providers. There are more people involved in getting the movie out to the public.Total control has been loss by the Studios. All that is left for them to use is the Myth of Hollywood. That is the lure used to purchase indie films and lock new directors, talent, writers into Studio beneficial contracts. Yet this system is Exactly what the directors and producers feel they need to be part of to get their films out to the viewing public. Conditioned to be in awe of the Hollywood Sell of movies, they also want to be part of the legendary system. The PR team, Marketing group, and Social media people will get the word about the movie. Now the filmmakers feel like insiders and they pump out the myth of Hollywood to anyone that listens. Until the profits can be hidden effectively and streaming viewing habits can be effectively monitored, monetized, and managed go their advantaged, Hollywood will be alive and kicking.
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Mr. Mathis has not been able to go back online even despite sincere offers to help from many acolytes and fans who speak computer.
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