I’ve had friends in the entertainment industry, actors, musicians, illustrators, etc who are intelligent and insightful but I can’t say this to them for obvious reasons. The entire profession is a fucking scam. It’s a fucking scam on the human race, designed to lull people into a false sense of security, or call it escapism, hope, fantasy, whatever, but what it comes down to is “extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds.”
Flip on the radio and on 9/10 stations there’s some dumb song spouting such drivel as “DONT WORRY BE HAPPY” or “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE” or “JUST SOAK UP THE SUN / LIGHTEN UP” and these saccharine stupid beats and 3-chord dumbassery are designed to hypnotize the masses into thinking the world is a dandy place. Likewise 9 out of 10 movie theaters are playing some movie by Disney or some equally vapid superhero slop where a mythical caped crusader makes the world’s problems go away, and if you get right down to it, this shit has been going on since the first Greek stoner invented the story of Perseus or Hercules. And all of this, since the dawn of storytelling and music and cave paintings is all a fucking lie.
There’s no beauty in the world. Sure there are flowers and sunsets and waterfalls but why can’t we just call them that? Flowers and sunsets and waterfalls. Why do drugged out poets and coked up musicians and clownish actors have to sell us the idea that there’s some supernatural “beauty” to these things or anything?
I’ll tell you the answer. Because we’re incapable of accepting anything as it is. We’re incapable of accepting truth or reality without having some special rose colored lighting applied to cast a contrived and artificial glow on everything. We have to sing about this shit, or pay others to sing about it, or invent delusional stories, or pay others to invent delusional stories, because we’re all So. Fucking. Desperate. To. Lie. To. Ourselves. that existence is something more than what it is.
And what is it? Take a damn look. It’s cruelty and pain and rot and suffering and strife. And in the midst of it is 1 dumbshit species that writes poetry about the beauty of stars–which are nothing more than violent flaming balls of toxic gases and radioactive waste exploding trillions and quadrillions and quintillions of miles away. Make a fucking wish.
4 comments
Yes and no. I’ve had a taste into the world of arts and entertainment as a model and actor.
The arts in of itself are NOT a scam. The industry, however, has been captured by the rich- as the rich ALWAYS does to ALL industries- especially Hollywood.
What gets bankrolled and mass produced are the movies and messages the rich want to send- work hard, be a good worker bee, don’t complain, there will be riches for you AFTER you die, etc
There are still independent artists, directors, producers etc trying to make a film but they have little to no budget and don’t have the mega reach so many ppl don’t even know these films are out there.
There actually are quiet a lot of films, and even anime, that are very thought provoking and not at all the dumbed down crap that the US mainstream popularizes. Go to other countries- it’s not AS bad- they produce more of these.
I wouldn’t say ALL of the arts are a scam- but everywhere where the rich have dug their claws are.
*I meant to say you can search for foreign made films and watch them with subtitles, which I have been doing for years.
Back When I watched a ton of movies and tv shows and animes, most of them came from other countries. The American mainstream market produces mostly generic dumbed down crap for the masses. But hey, thanks to the internet, you can bypass that crap. Go foreign. There’s LOTS of good films and shows made by other countries. And most everything now has English subtitles. You just gotta search for it.
As to the 2nd half of your post- yep- humans are too fragile to accept reality. The made up rose colored world is one where we can plod along thinking “life is great.”
Well, that mirage is fast collapsing as millions now realize life is pretty sucky. Gen Z and Gen Alpha know this reality. Now that the middle class has shrunk and is almost non existent. It’s the rich vs the rest of us plebs.
Yeah- for a BRIEF period of time- from 1945-1980, things were actually great for Americans.
1980-2000 : things were still ok (as in the bubble had not yet burst)
thanks to Reagan and all those asshats who have screwed us over stolen the lives from us masses- well, we’re just SOL to be born not a boomer. You can thank all the fucking boomers that shut the golden era and gave us all poverty once again. Thanks boomer.
Life isn’t AS horrible in some other countries (Scandinavia, Japan, Singapore, etc). Hell, life is better even in Canada though they aren’t far behind (Canada is usually 20 to 30 years behind us in terms of what happens to them).