So...You Know That We Write Articles About Movies Because They're Clickbait, Right?
And articles about how other articles are clickbait are also clickbait
Hey: Would you like a metric assload of theorizing about the societal implications of the Barbie movie? Before you answer: Here is a metric assload of theorizing about the societal implications of the Barbie movie, courtesy of the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, Politico, The Guardian, the New York Post, and the New York Times again. The LA Times has given Barbie a masthead-level quick-link, putting it on equal footing with the Women’s World Cup, which involves actual, non-fiction women confronting a not-made-up conflict.
Any column inches not devoted to Barbie are being given to Oppenheimer; the war in Ukraine makes the Wordle at best. The Financial Times and The New Yorker leaned more towards Oppenheimer, because those are Serious Publications read by Serious People, and a movie about a Serious Man in a Serious Fedora is sure-fire column fodder. And, of course, both movies are everywhere on social media, with content providers pushing links to countless Substack articles, YouTube videos, Tik Toks, memes, Viewmaster slides, Kinetoscopes, and bawdy wood carvings based on the two movies.
Writing about cultural trends is a valid form of journalism. We should notice what entertainment is resonating with people and think about what that might say about our society. But let’s be clear about one other thing: People in media — people like myself — write about movies and TV shows because we know that you want to read about them, so if we write about them, you’ll click on the article.
I’ve been on Substack for two years. It’s hard to break through; the internet has gobs of content and people have little time to read, probably because they’re busy creating content for the internet. How do you get people to click on your article and not on some drivel about, say, the slow death of Israeli democracy? Well, one way is to piggyback on something that’s already popular.
What’s true for disreputable independent bloggers is also true for hoity-toity legacy publications. Most newspapers have shifted from advertisement-based models to engagement-based models; magazines have done this, too (Hustler is the honorable exception — kudos to the good people at Hustler!). This shift makes media less tailored to the preferences of big corporations and more geared towards ordinary dumbasses like you and me. Plus, columnists want to write articles that get clicks, because newsrooms — like all offices — are viper-pits of brazen career jockeying and shameless self-promotion. Columnists try to write splashy, much-gabbed-about articles because doing so will raise their profile and postpone the day when they’re replaced by AI by perhaps as much as a week.
The result is that “analysis” of buzzworthy pop culture stuff has become a media staple. A search for “Barbie” on Substack turned up hundreds of articles; presumably very few were about pioneering geneticist Barbara McClintock. The New York Times ran more articles about Succession than they did about World War II. Fox News breathlessly covers any movie in the sweet spot of the Venn diagram for “can be squeezed into a narrative about wokeness run amok” and “lets old codgers leer at some hot blonde lady”. The media, writ large, has adopted the model perfected by sports radio: Blather endlessly about a topic people care about even if your “insight” is less cogent than the yelps of a dog who sat on his own ballsack.
Most analysis of popular stuff should be taken with a huge grain of salt. The thought process is probably rarely “I have something to say about (some popular thing),” and frequently “(some popular thing) is popular…what can I say about it?” The result is 4,000 word discursions about the latent jingoism in Minions: The Rise of Gru. I think there’s also a dynamic in which pencil-necked culture critics don’t want to seem out-of-step with the masses, so they write up Top Gun: Maverick like it’s Candide. When you factor in identity issues, a critic’s lens can become even foggier. But the most potent bias is almost certainly in favor of having any comment at all; if your take is “this movie is just some movie and I don’t really care”, then you won’t get any clicks.
I reject the assumption that most popular movies and TV shows contain commentary worthy of analysis. Most of these stories are — in the words of Homer Simpson — just a bunch of stuff that happened. That’s extra-true when you consider that a blockbuster movie might be the least-free creative environment in the history of human kind. Every part of a big-budget movie will be analyzed like it’s the Zapruder tape; lawyers and marketing teams and DEI consultants will tweak the film until they believe it to be optimally calibrated for maximum appeal. They will check each line for hidden meaning; they will get stoned and play the movie backwards looking for Satanic messages. I don’t think it’s impossible to say something profound in a major Hollywood movie, but I do think that searching for insight in a summer film is like looking for emeralds in a Pizza Hut: I can’t say for certain that you won’t find what you’re looking for, but I do wonder why you chose to search where you did.
I also reject the assumption that popular movies and TV shows must contain commentary worthy of analysis. In my opinion, it’s fine to just be entertaining. My friends who have seen Barbie tell me that it’s “fun” and “doesn’t take itself too seriously” — that sounds good to me! I like a good brutal slog about the darkness of the human soul as much as the next masochist, but on the other hand: Fun things are fun! If Hollywood would internalize that concept, maybe they’d stop losing market share to saucy cats on YouTube.
Maybe Barbie is a hit because it’s fun. Maybe the discourse about feminist themes and male fragility and the relationship between marketing and art is a massive overthink — maybe people just want to see a big, bright movie with a bunch of movie stars. Maybe the political earnestness of the past several years and the dour seriousness of Covid expanded the market for escapist fun, and maybe people are itching to go to a movie because that’s a lighthearted, normal summer thing that we used to do in the Before Times.
Maybe that’s true. Or maybe that’s a half-considered take that I pulled out of my ass. But either way: You read it, so I win.
"I also reject the assumption that popular movies and TV shows must contain commentary worthy of analysis. In my opinion, it’s fine to just be entertaining."
Wait, what? I am allowed to just ENJOY reading or watching movies/tv? I don't have to be embarrassed that I pretty much only read/watch European detective/crime shows? (I'm pretty sure I have read more novels about murders in Iceland over the last decade than there have been actual murders in Iceland).
There are stories in the NTY -- "I saw Barbie with a Feminist Author" and "Oppenheimer and the Siren Song of World Ending Technology" -- and both sound like articles written by people who just hate the idea of having fun and enjoying an afternoon at the cinema. (Sounds like because, no, I won't read either). I am sure that, after I watch both movies, I will discuss them with my son but I certainly have no plan to view either as some sort of talisman for understanding 2023, women, AI, or the evils of man. I guess I could have seen MI-Dead Reckoning as a movie about the evils of AI and the deep, dark powers that lead nations and people to be evil but, instead, I saw it as a fast-paced movie full of cool stunts.
I have a hard time getting into movies that dwell on the dark, twisted and morally dubious actions of controversial figures. I think I should have seen Oppenheimer.