CORPORATE GREED IS CONTROLLING WHAT WE WATCH

CORPORATE GREED IS CONTROLLING WHAT WE WATCH

A CRITIQUE ON CORPORATE PROFITS AND THEIR POWER IN SOCIETY

By Sofia Carlos

As I click between my tabs on Safari, each website riddled with targeted advertise ments, it becomes hard to ignore what is so evident. Corporate profits influence our lives more than we think. This is seen everywhere, from the price of food and gas to the current state of inflation. All are influenced by corporations’ desire to maximize their profits.

I’m not an economist by any means, but as corpo rate America has proven time and time again corpo rations will always put profits before anything else. Hollywood isn’t safe from the reach of corporate greed either. If you’ve gone to the movies or browsed through a streaming service, like Netflix, lately you might get a sense of déjà vu. Familiar titles grace the “newly added” sections of streaming services. Every thing old is new again but not by our own choice.

Reboots, revivals and remakes have dominated movie theaters and streaming services in the last few years. For the audience, a return to their favor ite shows and movies might cater to their feelings of nostalgia. For corporations, the motivation behind pushing reboots and franchise content is quite different. The recycling of content is not caused by a creativity crisis in Hollywood, it’s that a return to familiar titles means guaranteed money.

Why would studio and media conglomerates stop using this successful formula? Don’t get me wrong, there are well made and well received reboots that are successful. Additionally, Hollywood has also taken to movie franchises to continuously bring in audiences and make money. “Top Gun: Maverick,” a sequel set 30 years after the original film, “Top Gun,” is a prime example. “Top Gun: Maverick” was released earlier this year and has a 96% rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes with a 99% audience score. The movie has made $1.4 billion so far, surpassing the original’s earnings of $357 million. So, the studios are right that reboots and sequels are often guaranteed money-makers.

It makes sense why studios have largely cast aside producing new, original movies and TV shows in exchange for the monetary safety net that reboots, remakes and revivals provide. However, the insistence of Hollywood to keep producing and repackaging old content is becoming tiring. There are only so many new directions a story can take without feeling all too familiar.

One of the biggest offenders of this is the thirteen film “Halloween” franchise. The number of times this franchise has been rebooted, remade and had follow up films is remarkable. Each of the films fall into the same repetitive storyline. Michael Myers, the villain, reemerges from the shadows in an effort to kill the protagonist of the movie. In the end, the protagonist is the only one left standing and Myers, thought to be killed by the protagonist, is still alive. This repet itive nature doesn’t always land well with audiences either. Rotten Tomatoes reviews of the “Halloween” franchise movies range from 9% to 96%. Despite the scattered review scores, the franchise has collectively made over $840 million. This reinforces the idea that this franchise keeps being resurrected not by demand of fans but to make more money.

While sticking to reboots and franchises might be a safe bet for studios, they are not always the most popular among audiences. Surprise, surprise, but audiences respond well to original shows and movies. Netflix’s “Squid Game” is the most watched TV series in the streamer’s history with 1.65 billion hours watched within the first 28 days of its release. “Squid Game” follows debt-ridden participants as they risk their lives going through a series of children’s games in effort to have a chance at winning $35 million.

The premise of the show alone challenges the usual, expected content Hollywood produces. The show’s detailed portrayal of class disparity and capitalism makes it a show unlike any other. Shows and movies like “Squid Game” remind us of the content that is being sidelined. Creativity is being thrown out the window so studios can paint over past projects and label them as new.

Streaming services also play a part in content being recycled. Streamers set themselves apart from the standard TV channels like NBC and CBS with a variety of content all one click away. Streamers also market themselves as producing their own original content, like how Netflix has their Netflix original series and movies. There’s an element of disillusionment when streamers implement price increases while continuing to value producing content not for quality but for profits. Netflix has a price tier system which includes four different plans.

Each plan increases in price based on the number of devices that can watch Netflix at the same time. Even this price tier system doesn’t seem to be making enough money for the company. In an October letter to Netflix’s shareholders, the company said they would start charging for password sharing in early 2023. The company seems to be using every opportunity they have to rake in profits all while producing content that none of its customers necessarily want. So, while producing new content is a risk, with the additional profits Netflix makes from their price hikes it seems like they would be able to take some risks in terms of content. But the thing is they won’t because corporations always put profits before anything else.

e once again find ourselves stuck in the vicious cycle of corporate greed. We settle for content we don’t want to watch out of necessity for watching something, anything. Which in turn makes the big corporate studio machines a pretty penny or two. Seeing that their formula for maximum profit and low-quality content is working they continuously release the same content over and over again. Unfortunately, 2023 doesn’t seem optimistic for original content. Netflix is releasing rebooted and remade TV series including “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” “Conan the Barbarian” and “The Gentlemen.” HBO Max isn’t being any more creative with their show “True Blood” getting a reboot and a “Game of Thrones” spinoff show being developed for release soon. It seems impossible to break this cycle when corporations always side with what makes money. We can only hope that more content like “Squid Game” will become popular and motivate studios to greenlight truly original content.