The startup-funding firm Y Combinator came out with this scathing statement as part of their newest Request For Startup:
Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline. But this is not an ordinary industry. The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise. (Y Combinator RFS 9 )
This sentiment is energizing, despite (or maybe because of?) its harshness. I’m all for moving away from one-way media controlled by execs who often have a dim, patronizing view of what people want to consume. Seth Godin’s book We Are All Weird describes the shift away from mass in favor of tribes, and the sooner this trend catches up to Hollywood, the better the entertainment for all of us.
