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The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hol
by habosa 1y ago
The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself. Movies and music made here are so often cited as the reason why young people around the world idealize America and want to emulate us (buy our clothes, speak English, etc)
It’s the cultural equivalent of being the world’s reserve currency, it’s a massive free advantage in almost any situation. Stupid stupid stupid to threaten it.
- earthcreed 1y agoYou do understand this is a move to protect Hollywood, Right? It is for the very reasons you cited.
- _aavaa_ 1y agoIn the domestic market maybe, but I think their point is that it will severely hurt Hollywood abroad.
- brookst 1y agoBy “protect” you mean “roll back to the 1950’s”, righ? Because Hollywood today was doing quite well and I don’t think I’ve heard a single industry source asking for this. IMO the other shoe here is stronger content restrictions and more government control of what gets made. Easier to do that with US productions, hence the attempt to make everything distributed in the US a US production.
- jparishy 1y agoWho isn't asking for something to bring more production home? Studio execs? People in LA, ATL, etc want to work, and every year there is less and less jobs below the line in the US, even though there's more productions overall paid for by US companies. This sentiment you're talking about is at least not universal
- watwut 1y agoI have hear actors complain about AI, I have heard various guilds striking over about dozens of causes ... moving abroad was not one of them.
- jparishy 1y agoThen you might be missing it as it’s a huge huge issue for below the line workers (actors are part of the package we’re shipping out to other countries)
- Hard_Space 1y ago>Because Hollywood today was doing quite well and I don’t think I’ve heard a single industry source asking for this. Unless the new edict excludes farming out VFX. The VFX industry has been on its knees for years now, in a race to the bottom that has made r/vfx a pretty depressing place. (Source: Spent the last few years working for a well-known VFX company)
- willvarfar 1y agoThe modern popularist says exactly the opposite to what they mean. Again and again. They talk about freedom as they remove it, free speech as they suppress it, the arts as they defund it, manufacturing as they gut it etc. And all this while claiming a state of emergency and necessary for national security.
- rubyfan 1y agoI’ve applied a heuristic in my life to not trust anyone who promotes “transparency”. It sounds counterintuitive but in my experience this is just a tool of attack allowing them insinuate a scheme or conspiracy is at play and then to twist the narrative to what they want. Don’t trust them, trust me I’m transparent.
- WesolyKubeczek 1y agoFor security reasons, you are required to write down your passwords in the password journal at the entrance desk.
- realusername 1y agoProtect Hollywood from what? It's the top movie industry in the world, the only way to go from there is going down.
- artemisart 1y agoBut do you understand it will harm Hollywood? This is the economic, country scale equivalent of saying "fuck your movies", do you think the answer will be "oh sorry, I'll keep buying yours" or "fuck your movies too"?
- kjksf 1y agoIt will reduce the profit margins of Hollywood studios. Maybe reduce the bonuses of their CEO. It'll help thousands of Americans that used to be employed by said studios but were fired not because they couldn't do the job but because the greed of studio execs made them move production outside of the US, playing financial arbitrage games against the interest of the US. Trump is trying to reverse this by making movies outside of the US, especially by US companies, more expensive. The goal here is not some statement about Hollywood but to bring movie production jobs back to US. The extras, the people who build sets, people who make food for actors etc. And jobs bring tax revenue and grow GDP, which helps every american.
- card_zero 1y agoThis kills the movies.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoIt’s categorically impossible that this could bring movie production jobs to the US. If a policy along these lines is implemented, both foreign and domestic consumers will launch a massive retaliatory boycott. (I will personally begin that boycott today unless Hollywood executives denounce the proposal.) The current dominance of American media offers absolutely no leverage, because it’s trivial and cost-free to go cold turkey on it.
- tremon 1y agoYou really think CEOs will choose to reduce their bonuses to help thousands of common Americans?
- mensetmanusman 1y agoIt protects the poor in Hollywood, not the rich.
- nobody9999 1y ago>You do understand this is a move to protect Hollywood, Right? Protect Hollywood from who, exactly? IIUC, an increasing number of "American" movies (i.e., those produced/financed by American studios) are being filmed outside the US. This isn't a bunch of foreign film makers ganging up on poor, beleaguered film companies like Disney, Paramount and Neflix. They, of course, are going to go out of business any minute now because those evil foreigners are taking away their movies. /s No. Those very profitable studios are choosing to make movies outside the US to bolster those high profits by reducing labor, physical plant and safety expenditures. As such, how is charging Hollywood studios 100% tariffs to import the movies those same studios paid to make "protecting" Hollywood? Don't mistake the above for my support of Hollywood studios. They are the OG rapacious scumbags that the SV tech bros are trying (and sometimes succeeding) in emulating.
- myvoiceismypass 1y agoHe actually cited it being a National Security threat
- tremon 1y agoEverything is a national security threat, because it's an argument-terminating escape. As soon as you play the national security card, you don't have to explain yourself any further because obviously the real reasons can't be disclosed because of National Security (tm).
- anonu 1y agoI think thats exactly the point though. There is a perception that "left wing ideals" are represented in art and media and that this must end. This explains the executive order to defund NPR and PBS last week.
- jasonjayr 1y agoBut isn't this the "free market" at play? Media with so-called "leftist" themes tend to do well commercially than "rightist" themes, so Hollywood just follows the money?
- mort96 1y agoMAGA is not a free market fundamentalist movement. The old-school neoconservative Republicans are no longer in charge of the party.
- liotier 1y agoImagine ten years ago, someone predicting you would miss the neocons...
- ringeryless 1y agowe actually had books by folks like Naomi Klein back in the 90s that indicated that the petroleum-based forces would subvert international cooperation for the sake of short-term profits. we were informed of the current navelgazing nationalist trend worldwide gaining popularity. it's completely stupid and shortsighted to birth this monster, of course. we need MORE international cooperation not less to solve the vast environmental and social problems the world faces. think about why people migrate and war is high on the list, and not addressing the root causes of human migration but merely each nation closing its doors to the world= bad dumb and wrong. the people are to blame, of course. in one of the wealthiest nations on earth it's not hardship or suffering that drove the common man to vote for Trump, it's schadenfreude for strawmen they were programmed to hate. Jodorowski's famous art film "holy mountain" shows our current trajectory since 40 plus years and depicts the brainwashing that allows one to dehumanize other human beings. i am not sure if trump or vance is the antichrist, but they certainly head a religion dedicated to eradicating the values Jesus taught.
- potato3732842 1y agoThe MAGA crowd is happy to throw out the ability to project useful stuff globally if it makes hollywood stop projecting what they consider divisive stuff domestically and are willing to throw out the foreign aspect if need be. They're not stupid (well they might be, but that's beside the point), they're just in such fundamental disagreement with you that it's possible to squint and assess the situation as "yup, they're stupid" (and frankly that's a lot more comforting of an assessment). Film production has been moving steadily overseas chasing cheap labor. By forcing some of it back or forcing it to stay put it makes that industry and the people in it a little more dependent upon government, a little more dependent upon isolationist economic policy, a little more inclined to stay in the government's good graces (i.e. less likely to create stuff the .gov doesn't like), etc, etc, even if it kneecaps the ability of the overall industry to perform globally. Edit: I shouldn't have to say this but none of the above should be construed as an endorsement of a) high tariffs or b) increased government control of media)
- RIMR 1y agoI get what you're saying, but still, it is all very stupid, especially the part where they want to censor ideas they don't like domestically...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- HPsquared 1y agoIsolationism is a key MAGA tenet. It's not accidental.
- echelon 1y agoThis is actually surprisingly a pro-union move by Trump. If you aren't aware, they've shipped most IATSE jobs to Serbia since 2023. They used to shoot most Disney and Netflix shows in LA and Atlanta. Now they're happening in Eastern Europe. They fly the cast out and film with crews that don't have labor laws or unions and that are an order of magnitude cheaper. IATSE members have been forced to leave the industry, sell their homes, and move out of California. There are a few holdouts, but it's likely they'll have to exit the industry too. Once that capacity goes, it'll never come back. Studios are sitting vacant. CBRE is going to come in and turn them all into office parks and mixed use.
- viraptor 1y agoYet the budgets keep going up and the "all movies make a loss" accounting continues. What are the chances the consumer will see any savings or the crew will see any raises?
- ta20240528 1y agoIATSE = International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) None of them expected the "I" bit to be used? Ever?
- SpicyLemonZest 1y agoIn American labor unions, “international” generally means “US and Canada”.
- xethos 1y agoThe hope is the "A" plays a role there too though
- troupo 1y agoIt's the same as World Series in the US :)
- echelon 1y agoI was actually shocked by this tariff. It's a pro-union, pro-labor, classic progressive move. If you haven't been following what's happening with film production, basically production has moved from LA, Atlanta, New York, etc. to cheap countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. A vast majority of IATSE film crew productions have now vacated the US. It's decimated the local film crew workforce and forced many to leave the industry entirely. I wrote more about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43893915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43893915 The film crew folks post a lot about it on Reddit, especially in the /r/film industry(city) subreddits: https://www.reddit.com/r/FilmIndustryLA/comments/1k39cod/theres_a_feeling_were_not_in_hollywood_anymore/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FilmIndustryLA/comments/1k39cod/the...
- detaro 1y agoPro-union right until the point where the studios go whining to him about exactly that.
- croes 1y agoImagine the costs of any blockbuster if it’s made in the US only
- echelon 1y agoThey used to do all principal photography for half of all Marvel films in Atlanta. The industry has almost completely pulled out in just the past three years. We had a booming, absolutely thriving industry for nearly two decades. People moved from LA to be here. We built hundreds of studios and sound stages. Now they're sitting empty. Everyone is going to Serbia now. IATSE folks are having to leave the industry entirely.
- jparishy 1y agoyou can see everyone willfully ignoring this here, which makes me nervous about actually solving this problem long term. I used to dream of screenwriting and that dream is almost certainly dead but I'd like to see others have a chance. It looks bleak now
- KingOfCoders 1y agoGrowing up in the 70s and 80s in Germany, I've been brainwashed by US movies and sitcoms, 90% of the things I've watched was from the US - Magnum P.I, Simon & Simon, The Fall Guy, Kojak, A-Team, Golden Girls, Mary Taylor Moore, Lou Grant, MacGyver, Knight Rider, Night Court, Family Ties, Miami Vice, The Wonder Years, Facts of Life, Love Boat, and on and on and on. I know the US better than many parts of Germany.
- codingbot3000 1y agoMaybe Germany should have imposed 100% tariff on movies produced in foreign lands :D
- szszrk 1y agoI have a name: call it a "dubbing tax".
- dagw 1y agoI know the US better than many parts of Germany I read an article years ago from a lawyer (might have been a judge) complaining that, thanks to US TV and movies, people in Sweden know more about how the US justice system works than the Swedish system. Far too many people just fall back on their US TV knowledge of how they think courts work and that they keep having to explain to the people that, no that's not how things works in Sweden.
- KingOfCoders 1y agoSame with me. I know way too many things about the US justice system - like the difference between prisons and jails, totally irrelevant to my life.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jaimebuelta 1y agoThere was a viral clip of someone in a Spanish court saying “objection!”, and the lawyer saying “that’s in the American systems, in the movies!”
- 0xAFFFF 1y agoTrump has proven time and time again that he didn't understand soft power.
- jzb 1y agoI wish people would stop with the “Trump doesn’t understand $thing” stuff. It doesn’t matter whether Trump understands $thing. Pretending that he’s acting in good faith to make things better, but is somehow failing because he doesn’t get X, Y, or Z falls right into the trap. He’s trying to destroy American “soft power”. It doesn’t interest him. Neither does a good economy, schools, NATO, etc. All of these things are being destroyed or mangled on purpose.
- ringeryless 1y agoOTOH, trump is not very clever, and IS rather infantile. its sufficient to allege that forces that seek to destabilize American power likely aided Trump financially and he is proving a good investment. the term is "useful idiot" IIRC
- enaaem 1y agoWhen a ruler does something that seems illogical, it's most often times meant to consolidate internal power. That being said, I often find Trump's moves to be bizarre even in that light. At least try to look good, but he seems to be do everything to look bad. Even MAGA fans have a hard time coping: "It's just temporary pain" "We need to consume less" "I don't understand tariffs"
- peder 1y agoThis tariff isn't an attack on Hollywood. This helps actors and staff in the Hollywood area.
- vanjajaja1 1y agoits very likely to cause reciprocal tariffs though, and exports of Hollywood way out weigh the imports of foreign films
- mensetmanusman 1y agoThere already are tarrifs and bans against Hollywood in many countries.
- jopsen 1y agoNo free country has a ban on Hollywood movies.
- exe34 1y agoName 10.
- BergAndCo 1y ago[dead]
- mensetmanusman 1y agoI wasn’t sure there would be 10, but nearly all the big countries add extra taxes on Hollywood movies to fund their own competitors. It’s effectively a tariff.
- exe34 1y agoThere are around 192 countries. I expected "many countries" to be at least 10. Now it's "big countries"? Does Greenland have a tariff on Hollywood films? Does France ban Hollywood films?
- melenaboija 1y agoI don't think they understand the damage all of this is doing to brand America. Since the first Trump administration, young people in Western Europe have increasingly lost their idealization of the United States. I'm 43 and moved to the US ten years ago and I feel like I'm part of the last generation that still wanted to move here. Highly qualified people I know in Europe no longer even consider coming here.
- mensetmanusman 1y agoWhen American workers are forced to compete with slaves or vastly unsafe workplaces, something was going to break.
- echelon 1y agoEveryone in this thread is reading surface level media summaries. This is 1000% pro-union. IATSE workers have been decimated by the move of productions to Serbia since 2023. LA and Atlanta film productions have all but collapsed since the offshoring of production. Serbian crews work without unions for much cheaper than local IATSE members. This is designed to save IATSE and domestic American production.
- Spooky23 1y agoSince when does the MAGA crowd give a hoot about unions? The studios are dying. I go to the movies every week when there are movies. Other than Minecraft, the biggest crowd I’ve seen was the Star Wars re-release.
- cloverich 1y agoSince the Dems charged towards globalization. The former union workers are being devastated by it and think protectionism will help them. It possibly will help them, just not America as a whole. Thats the general line of reasoning. Rs are walking a line with union courting since a chunk of their base is anti union, just as dems were walking a line with globalization. This is my current understanding of the undercurrents.
- 1y ago
- Spooky23 1y agoYou have to remember that the MAGA movement is a cult of personality with a bunch of weirdos ginning up stupid and naive people. Thats it. The attack is the strategy. Burn some stuff down and move on.
- motorest 1y ago> You have to remember that the MAGA movement is a cult of personality with a bunch of weirdos ginning up stupid and naive people. I think it's more pernicious than that. The whole MAGA movement has a rather obvious accelerationist agenda, which leads to self-destructive policies like dismantling basic social safety nets and eliminating basic state institutions. Their policies don't make sense to anyone outside of their cult because we presume the goal is to build upon the state institutions and improve upon what's already there, whereas the MAGA crowd applauds destroying everything down to fundamental rights such as the right to a fair trial. They want to see te world burn hoping they'll be able to rebuild it to their liking. The only members of the MAGA that so far voiced regrets are those who faced the fact that they themselves were being left behind.
- ryandrake 1y agoYea, that's fatal mistake that the (D) side keeps making: They assume that both sides have good intentions and are trying to make the world better, and that we simply disagree about what "better" means, and about methods, priorities and principles. MAGA reminds me of That One Guy we all knew in High School who just wanted to cause trouble, start fights, insult people, light fires in the bathroom, destroy things, and basically grief anyone who encountered him. There's no good intentions here--no aim to make things better for everyone. It was just ABCD with that guy: anger, belligerence, cruelty, and defiance. Fast forward to today, and we've got 70M+ of these guys voting.
- bloopernova 1y agoWe're all standing on top of a Jenga tower, and "that guy" thinks it would be fun to knock out blocks underneath us.
- matthewdgreen 1y agoMaybe the mistake here is to assume that MAGA shares those traditionally “American” values. But I presume that the major effect of this tariff will be to force large media conglomerates (aka news agencies) to think very carefully about how their news divisions cover Trump.
- roenxi 1y agoThe frame that MAGA has embraced (its in the name itself) is that the policy of the last however long time has failed. I haven't seen the pitch for how having the reserve currency is helping them, and I doubt spreading Hollywood culture has helped them either. Hollywood culture superficially appears to hate them with a passion and wants to see them silenced or (depending on who these "MAGA people" are) arrested.
- exe34 1y agoIn other words, the first A in MAGA stands for MAGA, not America.
- plemer 1y agoOnly stupid if you believe Trump is trying to strengthen the US
- ecocentrik 1y agoHollywood made a few anti-fascist, anti-Nazi exploitation movies last year with big name actors and directors. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Freaky Tales are two that stand out. Hollywood is pro queer, pro minority and pro free speech. MAGA hates it all and would happily destroy it. It's not stupid, it's their vision for the country and they want to project that vision to the rest of the world. They don't want the world to think of the US as an inviting place where anyone can pursue the American dream, where the government fights for the rights of the downtrodden, politically oppressed and abused and acts like the global stabilizing hand exchanging trade for peace and prosperity. For the MAGA faithful, those days are over, the country is full and it's time to reestablish Anglo-Christian dominance. Their game plan is economic and political isolation, the erosion of democracy and the end of the global unity narrative. Cutting off Hollywood from its funding sources is part of the plan. MAGA controlled states cancelled tax breaks and subsidies for film/tv production years ago, in some cases torpedoing billions in investment in new studios. This isn't a new strategy, this is the amplification of an existing strategy.
- BergAndCo 1y ago[dead]
- alganet 1y agoThat brings a fascinating question. What cultures the USA emulated?
- frudyputy 1y ago[dead]
- BergAndCo 1y ago[dead]
- snkzxbs 1y agoThe difference is that decades ago all movies were about how good and just the US was and now everything Hollywood produces is movies that tell that the US is the devil and other generic progressive slop. Is that really the image the US wants to project to the world?
- gaugefield 1y agoYeap, as example, I enjoy Seinfeld and the office (US version) than many of the comedy series in my own country.
- g9yuayon 1y agoI actually think the intention of the tariff here is to bring jobs back to the American filming industry - not that I agree with this approach. Just an assessment of mine. But speaking of cultural influence, I think something interesting has been happening. > that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself I'll all for the "soft power" of the US, including cultural influence. Just wanted to point out that things have been changing slowly. More and more people started to be more credulous about Hollywood's values. Case in point, Blank Panther won Oscar, yet it was widely criticized in China and its box office in China was miserable. Below is the translation of a popular criticism of Black Panther: Imagine you made a movie about China, kind of like Black Panther. In it, China is this isolated country with crazy-advanced technology, way ahead of the rest of the world. But instead of a modern government, it's run by tribal warlords—each one basically a dictator. To choose their top leader, they fight each other with knives and spears on top of the Forbidden City. In your story, Chinese people still do foot binding like it’s totally normal. The elite chieftains live in ridiculous luxury inside the imperial palace. Their medicine is so advanced it’s basically magic—people come back from the dead—and they’ve got levitating trains that look like they’re from another planet. But regular folks? They live in grass huts, spend their days feeding rhinos (or maybe pandas), and there are barely any roads in the whole country. Then you take this movie to China and tell everyone it’s a tribute to Chinese culture? People would be so insulted, they might actually beat you up.
- carlosjobim 1y ago> Hollywood projects American culture Isn't it the other way around? American culture was dictated by Hollywood, and the rest of the world mistook it for real American culture?
- tdiff 1y agoIf we end up with less american culture spread around the world, would it be net positive for everyone else?
- xk_id 1y agoIt’s crazy how blunt and unapologetic American imperialists are about their tactics and selfish motives. Hello and good morning.
- BergAndCo 1y ago[dead]
- voidspark 1y agoYou don't get it. The tariffs are intended to PROTECT Hollywood. Local US film industry is dying because it's all offshored. I live in a country that is leeching off the US film industry with subsidies. Our country benefits at the expense of American jobs.
- xnx 1y agoOn TikTok there's a minor trend of exchange students being in awe of the typical US high school experience: yellow school buses, lockers, football games with cheerleaders, prom, etc.
- bicepjai 1y agoI completely agree-growing up, I admired the values I saw in American movies. It might sound amusing, but shaping young minds through film has been a key way the United States built its global influence. Hollywood movies have long served as powerful vehicles for transmitting American customs, ideals, and cultural values to audiences around the world