Hollywood is trying to appeal to red states and retreating from progressive messaging

[gumby]

Over the past few years, Hollywood has released movies with progressive values, often with little success, according to the New York Times. "Barbie" was a huge success," but "Strange World," "The Marvels" and "The Color Purple" did not do well. Ticket buyers are sending the message: "We just want to be entertained, no homework attached," The Times

Comments

[just444]

the way "The Color Purple" imploded is still baffling to me

[daredevilwolf]

what happened exactly?

[just444]

people were expecting it to be a big award player and do well at the box office since it is a familiar IP

and then pretty much no one watched it, the box office numbers were terrible and it really struggeled that award season

[ivn]

The movie was hounded with negative rumors and iirc people hated Oprah during its run. Surely that didn’t help

[lovelylaura23]

Has Oprah washed off her Weinstein association? That's the last controversy I remember her being in, but she hasn't really bounced back.

[queencersi]

My timeline may be off, but people were also angry at Oprah during the time of the Hawaiian fires which was around the time that Color Purple came out.

[lovelylaura23]

Forgot all about that colonial fuckery. She's so unlikeable. Lol

[rihaty]

Adding that it also didn’t help that they didn’t market it clearly as a musical and a lot of people saw it and were put off when realizing it was one, so WOM wasn’t great.

[my_moloko]

I still haven't watched this new version, idk the concept seemed weird to me.

[delfintaka]

In my area the movie was marketed as this fun musical for a girls night out. But the film had some VERY havy themes, so potential audiences were understandably confused.

I think the cast did great though, and was buzz worthy!

[goldenhera]

I saw it and really enjoyed it BUT I think a lot of people thought it was a remake of the original and not based on the Tony award winning musical production. The advertising was not clear. I do think Taraji P Henson was miscast but everyone was excellent and I thought the transition to film worked.

[sandstorm]

idk personally I didn't want to see Black Suffering tm. And I read the synopsis, it just wasn't for me.

[goldenhera]

I would not say the movie is one about Black suffering. There is definitely heavy subject matter but it did not feel egregious or exploitative. A coworker actually said it was probably her preferred way to take in the story because the music provided levity.

[frejasface]

I had no idea it was the Broadway musical. I thought it was another tired remake.

[caitiecait]

I love the movie/book and I’ve seen the musical on stage. But if they weren’t going to lean into the queerness I didn’t need to see a movie adaption of the musical adaption of the movie adaptation of the book.

[januarysix]

it was terrible