Over at the Emperor Ponders blog, the Frisky Pagan charts the decline of Western culture using the highest-grossing films of each decade as a benchmark.
Since there’s a lot to rant about this, I will focus on a single hypothesis: since the late 90s, there has been a divorce between quality and popularity. I’m sure you could go further back in time, but at that point is where it becomes evident. Before the mid-90s, you could go see the top box-office success of the year, and there was a high chance that you would see a competent or even a great movie. Even if the movie was boring or not your style, at least the movie would be a proper movie.
The following are the highest-grossing films per year according to Box Office Mojo. Underlined movies are those that filmsite ranks as the best of all time.
1950: Cinderella
1951: Quo Vadis
1952: The Greatest Show on Earth
1953: Peter Pan
1954: Rear Window
1955: Lady and the Tramp
1956: The Ten Commandments
1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958: South Pacific (1958)
1959: Ben-Hur
1960: Swiss Family Robinson
1961: 101 Dalmatians
1962: How the West Was Won
1963: Cleopatra
1964: Mary Poppins
1965: The Sound of Music
1966: The Bible: In the Beginning and Hawaii (virtual tie)
1967: The Jungle Book
1968: Funny Girl)
1969: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1970: Love Story
1971: Billy Jack
1972: The Godfather
1973: The Exorcist
1974: Blazing Saddles
1975: Jaws
1976: Rocky
1977: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
1978: Grease
1979: Kramer vs. Kramer
1980: Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
1983: Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
1984: Ghostbusters
1985: Back to the Future
1986: Top Gun
1987: Three Men and a Baby
1988: Rain Man
1989: Batman
1990: Home Alone
1991: Beauty and the Beast
1992: Aladdin
1993: Jurassic Park
1994: The Lion King
1995: Toy Story
1996: Independence Day
1997: Titanic
1998: Saving Private Ryan
1999: Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
FP posits that the decline began in the 90s. I see signs of cultural degradation as early as the 70s with garbage like Love Story and Kramer vs. Kramer. The 70s dip makes sense considering that the national mood was in the gutter. But Star Wars ushered in a brief renaissance that carried us through the 1980s and into the early 90s. After that, I’m with FP. American cinema became a sterile, blasted hellscape.
We rejoin the Frisky Pagan in the early aughts:
At first, it seems… OK-ish if you are into nerd stuff:
2000: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
2001: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
2002: Spider-Man
2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004: Shrek 2
2005: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
2006: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
2007: Spider-Man 3
2008: The Dark Knight
2009: Avatar
But then…
2010: Toy Story 3
2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
2012: Marvel’s The Avengers
2013: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
2014: American Sniper
2015: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
2016: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
2017: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Besides a couple of standouts like Toy Story 3 and American Sniper, it’s wall-to-wall “Read Another Book” crowd pandering.
Back to FP:
None of this can be considered a worthy cultural product and almost all are painfully recent. The most they can aspire to is to be mildly entertainment and then be forgotten in a year (like Avatar.) And I’m not sure about the entertainment bit.
There’s much more in the OP. His Friskiness identifies likely causes for these trends, such as increasing reliance on the global markets and catering to women as the Next Big Thing. The latter represents a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein political and corporate interests pushed for the economic ascendancy of women and now tailor most pop culture products to them in order to suck that money back out of their wallets.
FP further makes some well-considered predictions about the near and medium-term pop culture landscape. The prognosis: not good–at least not until independent content creators can effectively circumvent the gatekeepers to reach mass audiences directly.
Thankfully, there is one corner of the entertainment industry where indie creators are successfully making an end run around the ossified old guard: independent publishing.
Take Galaxy’s Edge by Jason Anspach and Nick Cole for example. FP foresaw attempts to rival Star Wars coming from overseas, but Galaxy’s Edge is shaping up to be a homegrown answer to Disney’s globalized, homogenized, and sterilized SocJus Wars.
Your humble host is also busy making whatever small contributions he can to the revival of Western culture. If you’re looking for a somewhat darker space opera series with zero political preaching, check out my award-winning Soul Cycle, which is now complete at four books.
