What’s wrong with Hollywood?
Dear Dale:
I like movies especially slasher movies like Freddy Jason and Chucky and was watching one the other night when right in the middle of a brutal murder it cut to a scene of the woman detective rushing to the hospital to watch her daughter give birth. I was disgusted. Besides being totally unbelievable since we all know most cops are men it had nothing to do with the story and the feelgood bullshit totally put me off. I just couldn’t enjoy the violence or relate to the serial killer anymore. I know Hollywood has to make movies for women love stories and stuff like that and I don’t mind a bit of romance so long as it’s followed by a sex scene but childbirth? In a slasher movie? Is nothing sacred? What the hell Dale? Have women totally taken over Hollywood?
Signed,
Just give me the gore
Dear JGMTG:
They sure have. Used to be, all you saw on the silver screen were dudes. Now, chicks are everywhere.
(It’s like they’re half the population.)
And not just cooking or cleaning or supporting some dude’s dream but doing guy stuff: running a company, solving crimes or cheating on their spouse.
(The very things we do best.)
What’s worse, they’ve feminized Hollywood by inflicting their obsessions on us: fashion, family and fancy restaurants.
(No guy gives a shit about any of that. To us, fine dining is a place where the ketchup comes in a bottle instead of a plastic pouch, a fashion statement is a steer skull atop a bolo tie and as for family… well, mine won’t talk to me. Ever since that time I got drunk and pissed on the Christmas tree. Saw a bunch of flashing lights and thought it was a cop car.)
So much so the biggest hit of summer was Barbie.
(I saw that movie. I was expecting chicks with big tits sunning themselves in bikinis by the pool. Boy, was I disappointed.)
That and the one about the guy who invented the A-bomb.
(I hear it didn’t go over so well in Japan. So much for international sales.)
But it’s more than that. Truth is, movies have changed. Used to be you could get a bunch of buddies together and make a movie. Something quick but fun. Like Easy Rider, Enter the Dragon or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
(Classics.)
All of which made money. Lots of it. So much so Hollywood went on a binge, financing all kinds of weird movies.
Like Taxi Driver: a Vietnam vet tries to save New York with violence.
(Talk about putting out a fire with gasoline.)
The Godfather: a young man takes over the family business of killing people.
(Gives new meaning to the phrase “family values.”)
Harold and Maude: a young dude bangs a seventy-nine-year-old woman.
(Even I wouldn’t hit that.)
Dog Day Afternoon: a guy robs a bank to pay for his boyfriend’s sex change.
(Who knew Al Pacino was gay? Flamboyant, sure. But gay?)
And The Last Detail: a pair of sailors show a young guy a good time on his way to the brig.
(My favorite scene is when Jack Nicholson slams his pistol down on the bar and shouts, “I am the mother-fucking shore patrol!” I tried that once. It didn’t work. The bartender still called the cops and I was banned for life.)
But then Spielberg came along and ruined it all with his blockbusters.
Jaws, about a shark that eats people.
(Partially making up for all those millions of fins the Chinese turn into soup.)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, about an alien who lives in your garage.
(I got one of those. He’s from Guatemala.)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, about a guy who gets on a spaceship to escape his family.
(Every married man’s dream.)
Raiders of the Lost Ark, about an archeologist who’s good with a whip.
(Bit kinky if you ask me.)
And Jurassic Park, about scientists who bring dinosaurs back from the dead.
(What could possibly go wrong?)
Him and George Lucas, with his endless Star Wars movies.
(It’s amazing how many people side with Luke over the hero, Darth Vader.)
But then Hollywood got greedy. Making twenty million on a film that cost one wasn’t enough. No, they had to make a hundred on a film that cost twenty.
Which led to a lot of overpriced flops: Ishtar, Hudson Hawk and Howard the Duck — which, believe it or not, was the first Marvel movie.
(Now everything is superhero shit.)
But you can’t make a hundred-million-dollar movie for just one part of the market. No, everyone has to see it: men, women, teenagers, children… even old people have to cough up a bit of their pension check or it loses money.
Which means you have to put a bit of something in for everyone: car chases for the dudes, childbirth for the chicks and animated characters for the kids.
Which kills the story but who cares so long as it makes a profit?
(I sometimes think we should change the motto on our money from In God We Trust to Anything for A Buck.)
Fortunately, there is a solution: a buddy of mine, who I met in the hoosegow, invented a program that allows you to skip over all the parts you don’t like.
(A sort of ad blocker for movies.)
All you have to do is enter the keywords — love, romance, children, childbirth, family, feelings and friendship — and it automatically deletes those scenes.
(I don’t want to see that in real life, let alone movies.)
What’s more, you can add it to any streaming service and it’ll piggyback onto the algorithm. You won’t even see thumbnails of movies with a strong female lead, let alone suffer through the misfortune of watching one.
(Believe or not, there wasn’t a single sex scene in that Barbie movie.)
So don’t delay. Order yours today. You’ll be glad you did. Because not only will it eliminate all the sentimental stuff, it’ll also open up your day, giving you more time for the things that really matter: sports and porn. Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Dale
Hi. If you’ve made it this far, you probably liked the story. So why not check out some others at my Medium page? https://medium.com/dear-dale
