Movies No Longer Occupy the Center of Pop Culture — Can Hollywood Stage a Comeback?
The movie industry didn’t move online fast enough; now it’s trailing music and video games in cultural relevance
The 2021 Oscars happened on Sunday. Did you bother to watch? Chances are you didn’t, considering that less than 10% of U.S. households cared enough to tune in. According to the final ratings reported by Nielsen, the ABC telecast only managed to score 10.4 million viewers and a meager 2.1 final ratings among the 18 to 49 demo, down 56% and 58%, respectively, compared to the 2020 Oscars.
Naturally, most people blamed this sharp decline on the pandemic, citing the fact that other awards shows aired in the past few months, including the Grammys and the Golden Globes, all suffered similar degrees of drop in viewership. Theaters were closed until recently, and most blockbusters have been pushed to a later date, resulting in the tepid public interest. And the Oscar’s tendency to focus on indie movies over popular blockbusters in recent years also didn’t do the academy any favor.
Still, some blamed it on cord-cutting and the resulting shift away from live TV, which sounds like a valid factor, until one realizes that the latest Super Bowl that aired on Feb. 7 was only down 9.6% compared to last year’s big game — a far cry from the 56% plummet that the Oscars took. There is yet another reason for this, one that may be difficult for movie lovers (including yours truly) to admit, and that is movies, as a form of entertainment, no longer occupy the center of our cultural conversation.
How Movies Lost Its Mojo
As the OG form of mass entertainment, movies used to be at the center of pop culture. For nearly a century, Hollywood wielded heavy influence over every aspect of pop culture, from music to fashion, from how we remember historical events to our collective imagination of the future. Even with the rise of “prestige TV” in recent decades — which established TV as a medium where complicated, adult stories could be told, often with the same actors and creators as in movies — movies still largely held onto its place as the premium visual medium that people would pay per person to access, partly thanks to the enduring popularity of IP-based blockbusters, but also partly thanks to the immersive, communal theatrical experience that heightens our enjoyment of movies.
Over the past decade, however, movies have started to recede from the center of pop culture. Although overall domestic box office results were still going up, the number of tickets sold has shown a downward trend since 2002. All media is now digital media, as all aspects of the media industry have gone through a rapid phase of digitization to keep up with the shifting audience attention. While one can easily watch movies in an on-demand fashion via streaming channels, the movies that typically drive the cultural conversation du jour are usually the new releases that are only available in theaters. In the digital age of instant access and information overload, the windowed release of movies actively works against today’s consumer preferences and the cultural reach of movies. By the time a buzzy movie eventually becomes available on on-demand channels as it goes through the various release windows, the cultural conversation has usually long moved on.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened, dealing a near-fatal blow to the movie industry. Not only was all production halted, the theaters, film’s primary channel of distribution, went dark for nearly a whole year in major markets like New York City and Los Angeles. One silver lining coming out of this unfortunate situation is the digital re-invention of the theatrical window, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to prevent a fall from grace for movies, culturally speaking. When movies become just another form of video entertainment that is easily accessible from any device at home, they lose their biggest differentiator in the viewing experiences.
Perhaps the best indication of movies’ waning popularity and cultural relevance is not the Oscars ratings or even the box office results; rather, it is perhaps best to follow the attention of the young people, for they constitute the primary consumers of pop culture. And it should come as no surprise that, facing increasing competition from digital media, movies are no longer the top entertainment choice for young people. According to Deloitte’s 2021 Digital Media Trends survey, among Gen Z consumers in the U.S. (those currently aged 14–24), video games are their №1 entertainment activity — and watching TV or movies at home comes in a distant fifth spot, with only 10% of Gen Z respondents said watching TV or movies was their favorite entertainment pastime. More Gen Z choose browsing the web and social media over watching movies. The silver screen lost to the TikTok feed.
As a digital-native generation, Gen Z’s preferred forms of entertainment have a distinct edge over movies (and TV) — they are inherently interactive and made for digital consumption, with the notable exception of music. But music was one of the first media sectors that were forced to go through the digital transformation and embraced the streaming era years before the so-called “streaming wars” started for video content. Not for nothing, the Grammy’s ratings in the 18 to 49 demo have beaten those of the Oscars for two years.
The friction of having to go to the theater in person didn’t used to be a problem, but in the digital era where culture moves at the speed of social, that friction significantly slows down movies’ ability to occupy the center of the cultural conversation. In a way, one could argue that the way that Hollywood studios held onto the traditional theatrical windowing for as long as it did before the pandemic really damaged the accessibility of movies as a mass entertainment option in the digital age. That, in turn, created an opening for other forms of entertainment, either digital-native ones like video games or social media, or music, whose distribution has already been fully digitized, to swoop in and take over the leading role of pop culture from Hollywood.
Staging a Cinematic Comeback
There is nothing Hollywood loves more than a good comeback story, and there are many moves Hollywood can make to earn its way back into the cultural spotlight. Already, the pandemic has forced Hollywood to confront its distribution issue and reinvent the theatrical window as a multi-tier subscription model that differentiates the timing and scope of access at various price points. But that alone won’t be enough to compete against the likes of video games and social video.
Unlike video games or social video, movies are inherently made for passive consumption, and there is no way for the audience to interact with the content other than their reactions. But passive consumption generates no social capital for people in the digital era; participating in online culture does. Blockbusters used to be must-see movies because that’s all everyone will be talking about. Now that the pop culture discourse has diversified and moved online, the social value of consuming media products comes from the reaction content which is created around the source material.
As with other formats of content, movies have become just one medium that exists for people to react to, as much as to be enjoyed. To be fair, people who love movies will continue to watch movies, regardless of where they watch. But, for the majority of pop culture consumers, to keep up with what is popular is a consideration driver as important as the actual quality of the content. Oftentimes, the reaction and commentary are recorded and uploaded as new content to be consumed, hence the rise of reaction videos. Social capital only grew exponentially online, for our offline social circles are inevitably limited by the laws of proximity. In other words, it’s much easier to go “viral” online than in real life.
Therefore, for content owners, the missed opportunity of incorporating select fan-made content into its own distribution channels and marketing material is increasingly glaring. Considering how big of a viral phenomenon that the Bird Box memes became, one would think Hollywood would have learned to tap into digital culture and market its products better.
Co-viewing is also an important piece of the puzzle, especially since it is inevitable that movie distribution is moving online and therefore losing the communal experience that could sometimes enhance the enjoyment of movies. During the pandemic, some streaming services started testing co-viewing features on the web, but that won’t be enough to replicate the irreplaceable thrills of sharing a cinematic experience with a like-minded crowd. In order to future-proof its business, what Hollywood absolutely needs to figure out is a way to watch movies in a metaverse environment where the movie-going becomes an activity that people can do in virtual environments as easily as they can offline.
Then again, perhaps the best way to make sure movies stay in the cultural spotlight is to simply to make them a piece of a larger content universe. What Disney is doing with the MCU content is a good indicator of how to engage with fans on a sustained basis and generate enough buzz with each release leading up to the eventized theatrical release. The current slate of MCU TV shows are made on indie movie budgets and easily accessible via Disney+, but they serve as interim content that set up the next big events in the MCU, to be seen in theaters. If you didn’t watch Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+, you may be missing some important backstory when you get to watch the upcoming Captain America 4. If Disney gets its way, movies will survive as the tentpole content in a long string of serialized storytelling. Still, more storytelling formats are being incorporated into the MCU storytelling machinery, including podcasts and video games, further diluting movie’s control on pop culture.
Last but not the least, the theatrical experience is in need of a revamp as well for movies to maintain its sole differentiator in the viewing experience from other video mediums. As the theatrical window collapses, using it purely as a premium tier of the release window to extract more profits won’t work for much longer. Instead, the theatrical experience needs to be more accessible and community-centered, providing a space for IP fans, movie lovers, and local communities to come together and enjoy affiliated programs, which could be movie-related or not. For example, Movie theaters in minority-majority neighborhoods could become venues for community outreach and organizing, especially when movies concerning political issues are playing. Or, building out on-premise facilities, movie theaters can allow parents to drop their kids at a playroom with adult supervisors before or after the movies so that they can unwind and socialize with other parents in a nearby lounge. Similar to how indie bookstores have to function more than a sales channel to compete with online stores, movie theaters need to be more than a place to watch movies with strangers; they need to become an entertainment destination that’s worth the trouble of leaving home for.
In short, movies, as we know and love, will have to change in order to make a successful comeback. The question remains, how many changes can be made to the format, distribution, and viewing experience, before movies stop being movies and morph into something else. When a movie becomes fully interactive like a video game, is it still a movie? Of course, not every piece of content has to be interactive to be entertaining and valuable, but how can movies, both as a medium and an art form, compete against the digital-native mediums that are more engaging and customizable? These are the questions that Hollywood will also need to figure out if it were to stage a successful cinematic comeback.
