I believe that the entertainment industry is dying. Entertainment has always been an incredible source of culture that shows plenty of creativity within various communities around the world. When various new genres were up and coming (such as the dystopian era) and new effects (such as the 3D qualities), the industry was booming. People were lining up to see the creative imagery shown on screen. The stories were fresh and there seemed to be little to no repetitive stories within the system. Yet, as time seems to pass, the industry seems to be losing its spark.
Recently there have been several issues that have accumulated in the entertainment industry. Obviously, they were building up before but now they have all risen to the surface. One of the biggest issues surfaced with the Writer’s Guild of America Strike that happened in 2023. This strike was due to the unregulated environment around streaming services. Streaming services were making a lot of money for the content they were producing, but they were not fairly paying their writers. On top of that, comedy-variety shows on streaming have refused basic protections such as minimums for scripts and weeklies. After several days of protest and a shutdown within the industry, it appears that the new contract will help writers be paid more for their work and they can expect an increase as time goes on. The fact that up until now though, the writers have been facing discrimination in pay is more than upsetting and shows the push the industry is willing to take to make money. This alone is a heavy negative instance within the entertainment industry.
To add to that, a large majority of critics have noticed that the film industry is becoming more formulaic and repetitive. Each genre seems to follow the same format, just with a little addition that without focus one can miss. For example, the violence in films becomes more and more gory as a ploy to play onto the realistic side of things. The romances seem to consistently be representing toxic love interests, just in a different setting, and then its up to the main character to find someone better. The repetitive storylines have made long-famed film series into unfortunate continuations of films that don’t do so well with audiences. A lot of the convoluted heists have stopped having such a twist and the slasher comedies’ jokes have started to die. This is the plight of too much of a good thing. The audiences have shown their ravings for the films when they first came out, but now we’ve seen too much of it. It starts to make us ill with the idea that it can be better and if not, needs to be different. I think that the cycle of good things should at some point hit a stale point but what point would that be?
I personally think the entertainment industry has more to evolve into and change much more to provide better stories for the public. I think that in all evolution there is a low point, but there is also a high one. The entertainment industry isn’t dying and there is definitely space for it to revive. But until then, I would like to see it change and evolve for the better.Â