Not taking risks

I find a lot of people in just general discussion in the 'normal' public world, talking about how modern entertainment fails miserably to do anything new and has become fairly predictable and uninteresting. 'Action-packed' is code for completely dull and boring, totally predictable but loud and noisy and frenzied.

I absolutely know that far and away most writers around here put a lot into what they do, and they have pretty strong personal commitment to what they are doing - it means something to them, and to me it's worth a lot of respect when they do that.

But I think as far as modern commercial entertainment is concerned they just plain don't take enough risks and they probably don't take ANY risks - (in their own calculations, the way they look at it) - which is as stupid a thing as you can possibly do in fiction and entertainment. These Hollywood producer types and their massive corporate backers should take more technical, more 'story-line' risks. Otherwise they are going to make themselves irrelevant.

The entertainment industry deals with money, not art. Their money is risk-averse. They have a rational bottom-line reason to churn out the same old formula crap -- as long as audiences buy it, they'll sell it. Risks are for the desperate. Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose.

Riskiness in LIT-type erotica differs. We can write formula stories and/or we can write risky stuff. There's even a formula for that: At any juncture, take the least likely path. Throw out normality; it's boring. Push all extremes. Provoke audiences. Have fun!

Entertainment exists to make money. With the advent of big data and marketing that actually can be predictive, it's possible to predictably define what's going to SAFELY get a good ROI. That's what investors and stakeholders demand - every single time - so that's what hollywood at least is all about. Risk? Who's going to fund risk? Why do that?

Besides, there's a whole school of thought that demands that entertainment only be entertainment - aka, fun. It's not required to impart lessons, be "relevant", or even be well constructed, as long as it distracts and amuses. And you're on a website that just about personifies that view. (I mean I think some of my stuff is relevant because I comment on certain kinds of male-female relationships; I am also happy to have a small niche readership here, compared to the taboo/stroke writers. I know what keeps this place going and it's at best irrelevant and at worst relevant in horrific ways.) We're better off when marketers and content-produces don't try to be relevant. Remember that recent tone-deaf soda ad that got laughed off the airwaves after Colbert referred to it as "Attractive Lives Matter"? THAT's what happens when market driven people try to be relevant. Let's not encourage it.

Personally, I don't watch television in any form and I rarely see movies - and when I do I want to laugh. I've given up on sequels. I don't read as much as I used to and my taste in music has gotten increasingly odd, in response to rock's increasing uniformity.

The best response to banality is to walk away and create something better. I do a variety of kinds of storytelling (not all of it here) in a couple different media. Producing is better than consuming (and it's cheaper.) People on this site are capable of taking risks - no one pays us - so if you want to do something about your lament, you're probably in a good place.

The entertainment industry provides a full range of products in terms of risk taking. If it looks like what is being highlighted is product that doesn't take risks, that pretty much reflects what sells the best.

I take risks with some of what I write for Literotica (for instance, my current Lit. story is a GM erotic version of a massacre of Virginia settlers in 1622--taking risks all over the board) and I don't with others. Guess which ones are received the best at Literotica.

I'm not sure what you expect to come out of a discussion like this.

I'm sort of yes and no on this one.

It's true that most of what gets made in movies/TV/books/music is commercial and intended to maximize profit rather than create great, interesting art. But that's inevitable. It takes time and money to create things, and people want a healthy return. It can drive me crazy -- I can't believe how many idiotic superhero movies get made.

But at the same time there are plenty of interesting things being done if you look for them, and you don't necessarily have to look that hard. Television is much more interesting than it was in the past -- stories and characters are far more complex and interesting and production values are better.

To some extent mirrors the world out there. Many stories have a minimal level of creativity and serve mostly to provide a quick, easy erotic fix. Others are more interesting and involved. There's a place for both types of stories. I think, on balance, the mix is a good thing.

"Entertainment exists to make money. With the advent of big data and marketing that actually can be predictive, it's possible to predictably define what's going to SAFELY get a good ROI."

Not sure I totally believe this, HandsInTheDark. I've been in the 'high end' entertainment business 'on both sides of the fence' so to speak - the movie business today exists because of the capital valuations of movie theater and entertainment complexes around the globe with a very big aspect of currency speculation involved...! 'Pre-distribution agreements' are one round of profit-taking opportunity in which 'bets' are made between the studios and the distributors and/or ultimate playing houses and entertainment chains. What you see quoted in movie magazines about sales and turnovers for first release movies are often just distribution commitment deals with a nominal or proforma figure attached to them - no one really ever audits exactly or all the time, how many tickets were actually sold at the literal 'box office(s).' It's about how much the cinema chains paid up front to acquire the specific playbill and its attached marketing budget.

And on the other side, I started out literally in the government audit side for one phase looking at the actual revenues of these businesses - and let me tell you without breaking secrecy obligations I still have: 'all is not what it seems.'

No. I think Hollywood is on the ropes in one specific sense that the actual ultimate movie tickets sales no longer are guaranteed nor do they guarantee anything - there is just as much of an impact via the physical touring of say, movie theme orchestras (Hans Zimmer, for example) associated with a production and the revenues from big live performance auditoriums, as from the cinemas showing the actual film. And so there is a split between the objective of the music, the merchandising potential, and the need for a fully developed story-line and dialogue and so on.

I wasn't really intending to suggest that entertainment had to be 'deep' and NOT fun or having to impart lessons - more voicing a suspicion that this 'predictive,' 'safe' ROI conception is false; it's not happening... It's not really happening. But it's covered over by real estate valuations (capital gains being booked as an amortized profit) and tax-advantage transfer pricing (of production budgets).

'Entertainment exists to make money...' Hmn, dunno; real estate (in the hands of big studios and movie distribution outlet chains) exists to make nominal capital gains that are amortized as 'profits' and then borrowed from at zero interest through a complicit, compliant banking system.

Every single time there is a major change in interest rate policy, all of these people get caught out. And they are very lucky that no such change has happened recently nor is likely to happen for a few years yet.

To me, the kind of argument you are making in respect to (not an exact quote) 'entertainment is designed to make money through safe predictive marketing into huge volume markets known to exist' is like saying Chanel No 5 today makes money like Chanel No 5 DIDN'T make money when it first came out. ...Because 'Chanel No 5' today 'sells' 60 million bottles worldwide per annum, and only 6 THOUSAND bottles worldwide when it first was marketed. Only 1. it doesn't sell them, it markets and distributes them to department stores and malls that pay 'up front' on a 'take or pay' basis (and I don't even want to tell you what they do to the liters that are not bought at the counter by customers), and 2. the profit margin is WILDLY lower today.

Nup. This game is changing. FOR SURE.