The Cost Of Freedom
The Entertainment Industry Is America's Canary In The Coal Mine. And The Bird Passed Out. There's No Going Back, But There's Light In The Distance.
You’re just a dumb American.
You only speak one language.
You can’t pronounce ‘Xiǎolóngbāo,’ and you couldn’t find the capital of Turkmenistan on a map if it saved your life.
(Just call it a steamed bun. And here’s Ashgabat. Just in case your life depends on it someday.)
Yet almost everyone on Earth knows English, at least to some degree, can pronounce ‘Whopper with cheese’ and quickly find Washington DC on a map.
Is that because Americans are dumber than everyone else?
Or is it a question of cultural influence?
Before American independence, most people lived under a crown, dictatorship, or other boot that kept everyday people from freely pursuing goals.
When a new country was born that granted fundamental freedoms, people flocked from all corners of the Earth.
Of course, America continued slavery, along with many other nations.
And the federal government imposed racist laws well into the twentieth century.
But freedom prevailed.
Since freedom is a natural human pursuit, American culture appeals to most people.
And global innovation built this country and made it great.
With a free market, we get Ford, General Electric, and McDonald’s. All were founded by Americans with Irish, English, Nova Scotian, and Czechoslovakian ancestry.
With freedom of expression, we get The Godfather, All Along The Watchtower, and The Jailhouse Rock, from creators with Italian, African, and Cherokee backgrounds.
That’s what makes American influence strong—at least cultural influence. The military bases peppered around the globe are a different story.
But the magic disappears when freedom and the human element are removed from the American experience.
Hollywood is the canary in the coal mine for our society, and oxygen levels are dangerously low, but we can only go forward.
Yet there’s light in the distance.
Giants Fall
The people in the above photo likely didn’t see an end to the Nazi party in the foreseeable future.
Yet Berlin would lay in smoking ruins about a decade later.
And when the below photo was taken in the early 1990s, who would have thought Hollywood business could fail?
As the movie industry boomed with classics such as Silence of The Lambs, Goodfellas, and Ghost, among many others, it would have been difficult to argue that Hollywood would end up like Germany in 1945.
But these blockbusters didn’t make millions because they followed a political playbook or sought a cultural quota.
They succeeded because they provided an escape.
They suspended our realities and took us into worlds of serial killers, mob life, and connecting with those that passed on.
Unfortunately, while Oda Mae turned out to be perfectly sane, Whoopi lost her mind.
Storytelling is a human phenomenon. When original, people buy movie tickets.
When they aim for socio-political acceptance and fear of cancellation, they fail.
As a result, everyday Americans can’t even tell people in the breakroom what they saw over the weekend anymore without things getting awkward.
Anyone see Sound of Freedom yet?
With a loss of originality, producers now seek to replicate past successes through a politically acceptable lens.
That’s why Paramount Studios CEO announced they would not create new content, only focusing on remakes.
They don’t want to bet on originality, they say. But those bets are what gave us the classics.
Whether it’s Schindler’s List or Office Space, people relate to originality. It’s why 11,000,000 people listen to Joe Rogan each episode, a polished 1970s El Camino will always turn heads, and you’ll always find corn dogs and lemon shake-ups at the county fair.
They’re also killing the cinema experience thanks to the government’s failed CV response and increased options to watch movies at home alone.
Over the past few years, over 2,000 theaters closed their doors.
To make things worse, there’s growing fear of AI not only replacing actors but writing content as well.
The Day The Music City Died
Unfortunately, major music labels between New York and Los Angeles followed Hollywood’s example.
Nashville used to be the exception, but the establishment eventually came to Tennessee.
Even legends like Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash left The Music City as they disagreed with country music’s direction.
Like film, music has been sterilized, stripped of its originality and ability to make genuine human connections.
That goes for pop and country. Like film, it’s all recycled garbage.
Nashville is Hollywood with a cowboy hat on. -Alex Jones
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Our government weaponized the system further this week as they’ve repeatedly indicted President Trump—a clear abuse of power for political gain.
And every day, we see more violence, drug use, and overall social decay.
Yet we find hope in the arts.
While ‘Barbenheimer’ exceeded a billion at the box office, as expected, The Sound Of Freedom made a name for itself as one of this year's top ten films despite being a limited release.
As the film’s star Jim Caviezel, said in an interview with Russell Brand, people are hungry for originality and a genuine story.
We want to see the good guys win.
Especially when it’s a true story and children are the victims.
But while films about the truth are crucial, we also need regular non-woke movies as we did in the 1990s.
I caught the previews before The Sound of Freedom, and the film’s producers, Angel Studios, are also creating fictional content such as The Shift, a science-fiction feature about parallel universes.
The Holdolvers, while produced by Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax, might fit the bill as a regular film.
As does this Emma Stone flick, Poor Things:
It’s based on a novel, so it’s a remake, technically, but it looks like a breath of fresh air. We’ll see.
And there’s hope in music as well.
A couple of weeks ago, nobody heard of Oliver Anthony.
Then he uploaded his song Rich Men North of Richmond (a reference to DC for you dumb Americans) to YouTube. It’s at 17,000,000 views as I write this and sits at #1 on Apple Music. And it’s only been eight days.
And that doesn’t account for other social media and Spotify plays.
Why so popular?
The video features no star cameos, special effects, lewd dancing, drugs, alcohol, or synthesized sounds.
Just an everyday American with his guitar and a genuine message.
…'Cause your dollar ain't shit, and it's taxed to no end
'Cause of rich men north of Richmond…
Corrupt politicians have done a number on this country. And it’s been happening long before CV, wokeness, and the climate cult.
And we’ve ignored it for a long time as it didn’t impact everyday Americans the way it does now.
While we’ve taken our freedom for granted, the fall of the entertainment industry proves what happens when it’s gone.
But people are waking up.
Elon Musk proved birds can be resuscitated.
But let’s leave the name and logo alone.
If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. -George Washington