COLUMN: Escapism is proof Americans are unhappy
This weekend I watched a movie.
So did you, probably. According to a Redbox study, Americans watch more than 5,000 movies in their lifetimes, an average of about seven per month.
But why do we feel the need to fill our free time with stories about fictional people and fictional universes that have no effect on us?
One researcher — Dr. Ping Xiao from the University of Technology and Business School in Sydney — studied movie attendance in comparison to consumer sentiment, stock prices and other economic indicators.
“While you might think that movie demand would go down during bad economic times, we found the opposite happens,” Xiao wrote in his study. “When people are feeling stressed or miserable, the desire to escape and immerse themselves in a movie increases.”
When the polar bears are dying, there are riots in the street and many go to bed hungry every night, why do Americans curl up and watch Netflix?
The answer is simple. We want to escape our problems. If Xiao’s research is accurate then Americans are increasingly more stressed.
In an age where Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon are all producing staggering amounts of original content and licensed content, there is almost an unlimited amount of entertainment at the touch of a button.
In 2009, 521 movies were released in North America with the Motion Picture Association of America’s stamp of approval. Every year that number has risen with 740 films released in 2017, 871 films released in 2018, and more than 900 films slated to be released in 2019. The film industry is growing largely in part of the Streaming Wars between big tech companies. Yet, the United States is only the third-largest market for film, behind China and India.
It doesn’t need to be a two hour blockbuster to be considered escapism.
Television and film used to be totally different entities, but a limited series on Netflix is just a long-format version of a movie. If a television series is eight 30-minute episodes, then the viewer is essentially binging a four-hour movie.
Even Shane Dawson’s latest conspiracy videos on YouTube have essentially become film-length productions.
Americans are consuming more entertainment through a wide variety of mediums. Facebook is creating television shows. Apple is launching a streaming service that will provide free content straight to the owners watch and cell phone. I personally spend upwards of 60-70 hours a week consuming content.
We’re all looking for a break from reality.
FEEL GOOD MOVIES ARE BACK
Like I said before, this weekend I saw a movie.
“Isn’t It Romantic,” the Rebel Wilson-starring romantic comedy about a businesswoman falling into a cliche rom-com world, opened in theatres Valentine’s weekend.
When I go to movies, I try to avoid people. I don’t want it to be crowded and I don’t want people to be noisy. Not thinking straight, I saw “Isn’t It Romantic” on V-day in a crowded theatre. The person next to me was eating an entire sub sandwich, the couple in front of me was making out, and the person behind me kept kicking my seat.
I was grumpy through the first third of the film. However, somewhere in between the laughs and the musical numbers and the charm of this Nancy Meyers-stylized world where Liam Hemsworth played a saxophone shirtless, I fell in love.
I loved life. I loved the movie. I loved the possibility of being happy in a world that makes me feel grey and maybe I even forgot about the sandwich girl who checked her phone three times with full brightness on sitting next to me.
I was elated.
This is why most people consume entertainment: to avoid unpleasant, boring, scary, or banal aspects of daily life. In 2019, there’s a lot going on and consequently a lot of reasons to want to get away from it all.
That may be why “dark and gritty” films are a thing of the past. Now, we want hope.
The last year has seen the return of romantic comedies. For almost two decades, rom-coms have been considered dead and unable to hold their own at the box office. Last year, “Crazy Rich Asians” and “To All The Boys I Loved Before” made splashes in social media culture, quickly becoming fan-favorites.
Films like “The Dark Knight” and “The Machinist” are a 2000’s trend that isn’t seen as much anymore. This is one reason why films like “The Nun” and “Annihilation” haven’t done well in recent years. While they each have big-budgets and intense action scenes, general audiences don’t want to go to the movies for an intense experience. Even films like “Avengers: Infinity War” where half the universe is destroyed, audiences were willing to overlook the gloominess because it is obvious those actions will be reversed.
THE LAST TIME CINEMA BECAME AN ESCAPE
Just this past weekend alone, the President announced a controversial national emergency to fund the border wall, Payless ShoeSource is closing its 2,300 stores, and five people were killed in another mass-shooting in Aurora, Illinois.
Those are all real things that affect real people in meaningful ways. So why does it matter when we will see the next “Star Wars” trailer, or what happens in the post-credit scene of the newest Marvel movie, or Lady Gaga’s performance of “Shallow” at the Grammy Awards?
Should entertainment still matter when white-nationalists are taking to the streets and children aren’t being vaccinated?
American filmmaking has always been steeped in political and economic upheaval. Even during World War II, going to the movies was a source of escapism for most Americans. In the middle of the Great Depression, “Gone with the Wind” became the highest-grossing movie ever made. Sci-fi serials gave way during this time for films like “Star Wars” to rise up and become a blockbuster a few decades later.
Our need for entertainment and escapism has always been important to our society and the social construct.
Films like “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings’ were massive successes in part due to a need for an emotional outlet following the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent war on terror.
Many studies have theorized that today’s nostalgia and emotional attachment to films stems from a generation of children who were traumatized by 9/11. Advancements in technology have made it harder to disconnect and has increased nostalgia. Combined, this generation has become overly-attached to films in an unhealthy way.
Campaigns fighting Social Justice Warrior propaganda and identity politics have popped up. Suddenly any female or person of color in a movie can be considered “destroying a person’s childhood.”
We live in a complicated world but films aren’t complicated.
CAN WE ESCAPE REAL LIFE?
Can we just spend our lives in the theater then and forget about reality? The simple answer is no.
No matter how much entertainment we enjoy, the real world will always be right outside our door.
In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” the characters consume a new type of entertainment-technology called “the feelies.” In the book “the feelies” are a way to engage with intense emotions that are basically prohibited in the real world.
While escaping the real world can be temporarily fun, life is still happening right now. It is important that our beliefs, experiences and emotions are coming from places in the real world.
It is okay to want a break from politics and the news. It is okay to be upset about the newest “Star Wars” film. It is okay to love to tweet at celebrities and watch cat videos. However, enacting change in the real world, experiencing the things that matter in life and growing to understand people with different views than your own requires stepping out of one’s comfort level.
Entertainment can provide new perspectives and facilitate social change. But real change won’t happen without real people living in the real world.
Watching the films you like will not change or enhance your view of the world. Avoiding political issues because they do not affect you will not help you grow. Turning down the chance to meet someone new because “life isn’t like a rom-com” just means that is one less connection made in the real world and one more person living virtually somewhere else.
Don’t make a habit of escaping to the movies. Be the part of your entertainment that crosses over into the real world. Live it, change it, experience it and when the real world comes knocking, leave the escapism behind for a while and go have a real adventure.
Erick L. Graham Wood is a senior in the JCOM department and is an entertainment junkie. He has the same number of tattoos as “Titanic” has Oscsar nominations.