One of the most aggravating realities in Hollywood the past 10-20 years has been the incessant need by many operators in that town to insert their activist agendas into our entertainment. It is not the creation of genre entertainment itself that is the big radio www problem but the need to shoehorn these agenda items into conventional storylines and worse, into already established properties and franchises.
Studios have been exposed over the years as having cabals of these social activist teams within their offices pushing agendas into content. Disney is famed (in-famed?) for their DEI workforce and foisting products fans have dismissed. Pixar, likewise, has been experiencing declining fortunes with their woke attempts and in need of learning the lesson.
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The flame outs of these attempts are far more common than any qualified successes, and this begins to underscore why there is this need to force-feed their activist story elements. For starters it is a basic numbers game. When you want to make entertainment focused on, say, the gay demographic, you are creating a product designed for just 10 percent of the American public (roughly, depending on the poll relied upon.) Then, if you want to address the entertainment needs of the trans community, you are winnowing that audience down to maybe under 1 percent.
Another part of the reasoning behind the corrupting practice is to break down the norms portrayed in the original content in order to normalize the fringe content; but there is also the need to artificially expose their agenda to a wider audience. This is a contradictory mindset; they must decry the mainstream items but at the same time rely upon the established audience figures to garner attention for the lecturing content.
What has been preached by culture critics such as myself for some time is to say instead of altering existing characters and plot lines by ret-conning, create your own original IP for your agenda and the audience. Now we might be seeing this coming to fruition. The question then becomes: Is this something the activists in Hollywood want to take place?
The word has come out that “Dolls” is a sci-fi movie based loosely on the plotline of “The Stepford Wives”. It features an all trans-woman cast, was made by trans writer-director Geena Rocero, and was backrolled by the co-director of “The Matrix” trilogy, trans filmmaker Lilly Wachowski, who served as the producer.
Says Wachowski in a rave review of the finished product: “So proud to be part of this beautiful, weird, striking debut.”
This is exactly what has been called for over the years. Unlike “The Acolyte” director Leslye Headland, who made a film for herself by elbowing her way into the “Star Wars” universe, this is an endeavor by the very people who want a product for their kind and do so by putting their own capital and sweat equity into the project. What remains to be learned is how much will they be rewarded for this attempt.
While this might be touted for bravery and other effusive critiques, those praises will also apply pressure for success to be realized. The risk will be with the project fizzling or generating little-to-zero cultural impact. This was something already experienced with another segment-focused vanity project, one that has to be regarded as a setback for identity politics cinematic causes.
It was almost three years ago when a heavily promoted film, “Bros,” was released This was sold as the first gay romantic comedy to come from a major movie studio. That dose of PR was just the start of the heavy push to make the Billy Eichner-created movie a hit. The press was on board helping things out that fall, more than eager to push this agenda film. It was designed to be successful, if not an outright smash hit film.
Universal gave this a significant push, beginning with a wide release of showings in 3,350 theaters. Advertising began in the early summer, and Eichner was a fixture on the talk show circuit. Online, television, and streaming outlets all were targets for commercial time, as the studio bet big on this title. The movie had a shooting budget of around $20 million, but estimates have Universal backing it with up to an additional $40 million for promotions.
The result: The movie that was projected to earn between a $12 million to $20 million debut instead opened with a meager $4.8 million opening weekend. After its run the global box office did not even make it to $15 million. While Mr. Eichner tried to chalk up that blatant failure to the country being homophobic, I crunched the numbers to show that the gay audience failed to materialize. If every single ticket buyer for the film had been gay it amounts to an extremely small percentage of that intended audience. How does Hollywood explain a targeted demographic rejecting the movie that was made for them?
This new release “Dolls” has that same yoke of responsibility ahead of it. Roadblocks are assured to be on the horizon for this title. To start, as mentioned above, your target audience for such an offering is rather razor thin. Next, you have the somewhat opaque story, (“The new film follows Yan, a private investigator who infiltrates a suspicious dating workshop for transgender women after being hired to find a missing girl.”) Then, just to add to the challenges, this is a short-film, clocking in at a brisk 18 minutes.
It is unlikely that “Dolls” will make it to mainstream theater showings. This is more likely positioned as a film festival entry, leading to some compliant press coverage, maybe some on-demand home rentals through a supporting platform, and then little else. This may insulate it from carrying an anchor of failure like “Bros” (“it was never intended to be a commercial success”), but it will likely do little to move the needle for trans causes in Hollywood.
