Studio execs: dumb white men
p2pnet.net Feature:- "Ok guys, here’s my idea. There’s a plane which crashes on a small island in the Pacific and the people left alive have to learn how to survive together. Soon, they realize that there’s something weird about the island – there’s some kind of mysterious creature living there and other strange things going on. It’s a world waiting to be explored and we get to see the best and worst sides of the survivors as they discover the island…and themselves.
"Sounds like expensive crap."
"Ok, I have another idea, for a film this time. It’s the life story of one of the world’s best-known musicians. He has a disability and nobody thinks he’ll be able to go very far with it. But he goes from strength to strength until his music is loved by millions and he becomes an international celebrity. Oh, and he’s black."
"Black? Won’t make any money".
"Alright then, how about we just take one of the most loved stories of the 20th century and film it? I know a great epic story, so the whole project just screams sequels!"
"Hmm…Ok, but only if you squash the story down to one film. Two hours maximum."
What’s going on with the big studios? I just described ratings topper and Emmy Award winner "Lost", double Oscar winner "Ray" and Peter Jackson’s US$3 billion revenue reaper, The Lord of The Rings.
All three had problems getting into production.
The executive who backed "Lost" left the television network halfway through the filming of the pilot over a disagreement with the network owners. "Ray" was financed with zero help from the studio that released it, and Miramax decided they didn’t know enough about big budget films or sequels to make The Lord of the Rings trilogy and wanted to cut it down to a single film.
Is it really that hard to recognise a good idea when it presents itself? Or are media executives just stupid?
Cynicism aside, the answer lies more towards the former – the vast majority of studio executives are middle aged white men who don’t represent the general population. Michael Moore explained this phenomenon in his book Stupid Whit Men, and while you many not agree with his politics, it’s difficult to find fault with his logic.
How many women come to mind when looking at international politics? Condelleza Rice, Queen Elizabeth…um…oh, whatshername, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Just about everything else is run by men. We often have little idea who they actually are but they toil away doing their jobs the way most middle aged men would.
It’s a well known fact in US politics that you can’t win the White House by pitching your policies to white men. The two most important demographics are women (because they make up more than half the population), and "minorities" like latinos and blacks. Actually, white men usually back the losers.
Why, then, are we happy to let them run our TV stations and movie studios? Would the quality of our entertainment perhaps improve with a little (or a lot) of input from some different points of view? Why are we letting our creativity and culture be influenced by such conservative, profit driven people?
I can understand why these guys think the way they do: they’re not as young as they used to be, they like attractive young women, they never got the chance to blow stuff up or play with big guns. So in essence, they back stories they want to see.
I can understand how they think and feel because I mix with an incredibly diverse group of people: black, white, Asian, men, women, old, young, rich, poor, smart and stupid. I get the benefit from all these different points of view.
We’re seeing the games industry get their act together since people realised that women like playing The Sims. It’s a different experience for a different audience, which just happens to include an incredibly large number of people.
Wow, who would have thought it. Bring on the best selling PC game of all time.
When Lloyd Braun left ABC after the fight over "Lost", he asked his children whether they’d prefer to give up their TV or their computer. The kids voted to ditch the TV. They must have thought the internet had more to offer them.
Lloyd Braun is now the head of media and entertainment at Yahoo!
There’s at least one middle aged white man out there with some kind of an idea about where the world is heading.
Now let’s hope we can find a few more.
Alex H, p2pnet – Sydney, Australia
[Alex is an operations manager for an ATM (automatic teller machine) supplier and he specialises in infrastructure development and maintenance, and logistics. He’s also an[other] active member of the Shareaza community.]
If there’s something you think we should know, contact us – tips[at]p2pnet.net
August 27th, 2005 at 4:36 pm
The USA has marginalized itself by not allowing the best & brightest to shine. There are miilions of poor minority youths that could be trained to contribute to the general good, but that would mean opening up the doors to equality & fairness, a threat to those old white guys holding all the power. After 9-11, many minorities (I’m told) were hugged & told how they’re all in it together, bla bla bla…Then when the jobs get tough, out the window that sentiment goes – when they’re not trying to send all the poor & minorities to the front lines to fight the wars for these old white codgers.
August 27th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
This is not a P2P article, but it relates directly to P2P and what is happening in America. And what happens in the USA affects the rest of the world.
The obstacle with Filesharing use, lies not in its merits or justification. The problem lies in the fact the mass of Americans of being fed DISINFORMATION and LIES by the cartel. And there’s a saying:
“If something is repeated many, many, many times — People will tend to grow to believe it is the gospel truth.”
So, the more lies and fantasy that are being pumped down people’s throats, the less they are able to make objective, rationale decisions.
One prime example of the ’state’ of Ridiculous and Stupidy being PROPAGANDIZED is below. Read it, and if you don’t slap yourself for it’s sheer propaganda, then you have been ‘OWNED’ by the big media with a political agenda…
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-dinosaurs27aug27,0,6894033.story?coll=la-home-local
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August 27, 2005
Adam, Eve and T. Rex
# Giant roadside dinosaur attractions are used by a new breed of creationists as pulpits to spread their version of Earth’s origins.
By Ashley Powers, Times Staff Writer
CABAZON, Calif. — Dinny the roadside dinosaur has found religion.
The 45-foot-high concrete apatosaurus has towered over Interstate 10 near Palm Springs for nearly three decades as a kitschy prehistoric pit stop for tourists.
Now he is the star of a renovated attraction that disputes the fact that dinosaurs died off millions of years before humans first walked the planet.
Dinny’s new owners, pointing to the Book of Genesis, contend that most dinosaurs arrived on Earth the same day as Adam and Eve, some 6,000 years ago, and later marched two by two onto Noah’s Ark. The gift shop at the attraction, called the Cabazon Dinosaurs, sells toy dinosaurs whose labels warn, “Don’t swallow it! The fossil record does not support evolution.”
The Cabazon Dinosaurs join at least half a dozen other roadside attractions nationwide that use the giant reptiles’ popularity in seeking to win converts to creationism. And more are on the way.
“We’re putting evolutionists on notice: We’re taking the dinosaurs back,” said Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, a Christian group building a $25-million creationist museum in Petersburg, Ky., that’s already overrun with model sauropods and velociraptors.
“They’re used to teach people that there’s no God, and they’re used to brainwash people,” he said. “Evolutionists get very upset when we use dinosaurs. That’s their star.”
The nation’s top paleontologists find the creation theory preposterous and say children are being misled by dinosaur exhibits that take the Jurassic out of “Jurassic Park.”
“Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah’s Ark? Give me a break,” said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. “For them, ‘The Flintstones’ is a documentary.”
Tyrannosaurus rex and his gigantic brethren find themselves on both sides of the nation’s renewed debate over the Earth’s origins and the continuing fight over whether Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” or Genesis best explains the development of life.
Science holds that dinosaurs were the Earth’s royalty for about 160 million years. Their reign ended abruptly, possibly after a meteorite smacked into the planet, but they’re considered the forebears of birds.
Unearthing dinosaur bones that are millions of years old “doesn’t prove evolution, but it shows the Genesis account doesn’t work,” said Nick Matzke, a spokesman for the National Center for Science Education.
Drivers who pull off Interstate 10 in Pensacola, Fla., are told a far different story at Dinosaur Adventure Land. Its slogan: “Where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!”
The nearly 7-acre museum, low-tech theme park and science center embodies its founder’s belief that God created the world in six days. The dinosaurs, even super carnivores such as T. rex, dined as vegetarians in the Garden of Eden until Adam and Eve sinned — and only then did they feast on other creatures, according to the Christian-based young-Earth theory.
About 4,500 years after Adam and Eve arrived, the theory goes, pairs of baby dinosaurs huddled in Noah’s Ark, and a colossal flood drowned the rest and scattered their fossils. The ark-borne animals repopulated the planet — meaning that folk tales about fire-breathing beasts are accounts of humans battling dinosaurs, who still roamed the planet.
Kids romping through the $1.5-million Florida theme park can bounce on a “Long Neck Liftasaurus” swing seat; launch water balloons at a T. rex and a stegosaurus, and smooth their own sandbox-size Grand Canyons, whose formation is credited to the flood. A “fossilized” pickle purports to show that dinosaur bones could have hardened quickly. Got an upcoming birthday? Dinosaur Adventure Land does pizza parties.
“Go to Disneyland, they teach evolution. It’s subtle; signs that say, ‘Millions of years ago’ ” said evangelist Kent Hovind, the park’s founder. “This is a golden opportunity to get our point across.”
Carl Baugh opened his Creation Evidence Museum in the 1980s near Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas, where some people said fossilized dinosaur tracks and human footprints crisscrossed contemporaneously. The Texas museum sponsors a continuing hunt for living pterodactyls in Papua New Guinea. Baugh said five colleagues have spotted the flying dinosaurs, “but all the sightings were made after dark, and we were not able to capture the creatures.”
Organizers at Creation Research of the North Coast in Humboldt County, Calif., dream of building their own reptile park but lack funding and acreage. So do leaders at Project Creation in Mount Juliet, Tenn., who would need to raise about $1 million to assemble 30 to 50 pterodactyl and brachiosaur replicas to mingle with live chickens and goats.
At the Institute for Creation Research museum in Santee, a San Diego suburb, officials plan to enlarge its paleontological offerings.
August 27th, 2005 at 9:51 pm
Propaganda is right.
I just love this statement:
“The nearly 7-acre museum, low-tech theme park and science center embodies its founder’s belief that God created the world in six days. The dinosaurs, even super carnivores such as T. rex, dined as vegetarians in the Garden of Eden until Adam and Eve sinned — and only then did they feast on other creatures, according to the Christian-based young-Earth theory. ”
Let me tell you something. Reguardless of what these crack “scientists” say, the Bible does give credence to dinosaurs, and it does agree with science. It’s in Job 45:15-24, King James Version. This is the only place in the Bible where the word “behemoth” appears. Most Bible scholars think that behemoth refers to an elephant or a hipopotumous. Now go read that passage very carefully. A cedar tree, not those bush things, but a tree, grows to about 60-70 feet tall, and to have a tail that moves like a cedar? Plus, the Jordan River is a fairly wide river, and to be able to draw it up in its mouth? To have an animal with those characteristcs, it’s something much bigger than either an elephant or hipopotumous, probably a brontosarous or similar dinosuar.
And something else, scientists say that the dinosuars were wiped out when a chunk of rock and metal smacked the planet in the Yukaton Penninsula about 65 million years ago. I have a theory about that. If it struck anywhere else, the damage would have been alot less. Oh yes, there would have been localized devestation over a wide area, but it probably wouldn’t have had much of an effect on the dinosuars. The rocks at the Yukaton are very very rich in sulphur and close to the surface. When the asteroid hit there, the tremendous release of energy from the impact vaporized the sulphur contained in those rocks into the atmosphere. Once heated and varporized, the sulphur combined with the oxygen in the atmosphere to make sulphur dioxide. The sulphur dioxide then combined with the water vapor to make sulphuric acid. With litterally thousands of tonnes of sulphuric acid in the upper atmosphere, the sunlight was reflected back into space and temperatures worldwide dropped significantly. Now think about it. What are the odds of a large asteroid hitting Earth? Now combine that with the odds of hitting the planet in just the right spot to maximize the damage. I think that maybe, just maybe, that God tossed that rock into the planet to wipe out the dinosuars.
Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Genesis 1:2 – “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
Now, do you see any reference to time there? I don’t. Could it be that billions of years have passed between those two verses? After all, science says that the earth is about 4.7 billion years old, and the bible does give evidence to the existance of dinosaurs as I have shown above.
Furthermore, the Bible also gives credence to Angles living on earth in the Garden of Eden, but that garden is not the same one that Adam and Eve lived in, it’s one that was much older, a garden of minirals. Go read about it in Ezekiel 20. It’s mentioned in vs 13, and the fact that it was an Angel in vs 14. The entire chapter has to do with the sentencing of Samuael, Lord of Light, also known as Lucifer or Satan, to death by God Himself.
And the statement “About 4,500 years after Adam and Eve arrived, the theory goes, pairs of baby dinosaurs huddled in Noah’s Ark, and a colossal flood drowned the rest and scattered their fossils. The ark-borne animals repopulated the planet — meaning that folk tales about fire-breathing beasts are accounts of humans battling dinosaurs, who still roamed the planet.” is a total load of bullshit, and here’s why: In Genesis Ch 5, there is a timeline of who begat who and their ages. When you add it all up, Noah was born exactly 1056 years from when Adam was created by God. And Noah had kids when he was 500, and Noah lived 350 years after the flood. Noah lived for a total of 950 years, so the flood happened when he was 600. So, doing simple math, the great flood took place 1656 years after Adam was created which means that the 4500 year statement is completely false.
My appologies for rambling on, but I had to comment on this. Oh, and thanks for posting that little tidbit. Propaganda is right. No matter what people say, in the end, the docterines of man crumble to dust when confronted with the truth of God. And, in the end, God’s truth is what matters.
August 28th, 2005 at 2:50 am
There are records that suggest that at least three major extinctions have ocurred during geologic timespans on the earth. So the idea that this “just happened” has happened before, through not in the precise same manner.
People have been trying for 2000 years to convence others that the christain religion is the one true religion. Funny thing is, they aren’t even the first to claim theirs is the one true religion. Nearly every religion wants that title. The problem with the bible is that it is vaguely worded and with the context of ancient languages, much of what is referred to isn’t applicable in todays world, with the exception of human interaction. The language itself has had to be interpreted and modeled as the equivalent meanings aren’t the same nor are day to day problems the same with the exception already mentioned.
Using religion to argue science is like using apples to prove dumptrucks exist. Religion is based on faith, science on facts; the bible isn’t written with the idea that theories can be taken out of it and tested over and over to see if they render the same results day after day. For better or worse, science has brought you the microwave, telephone, radio, and other modern conviences. It has done so by as much as possible proving that set conditions exist in the physical world and can be tested over and over.
Since there is no time reference in Genesis, there can be no “day”. Crap ancient Greeks thought Atlas held the world up. It was a widely supported belief at the time that gods and godesses were the supreme beings. It seems religions come and go over the scope of human history. For some reason man must have someone to blame when things go wrong and to thank for dumb luck working in his favor.
In one moment in your dialogue math doesn’t exist with the ability to measure time, yet later it suddenly does exist to prove a point. I see no one living 350 years, much less any more. One has to suspect it has been this way since the dawn of time as there is no contrary evidence. Ramblings of folks, written down in letters and the like make it very hard to qualify as the basis for a religion. It was the ramblings of the same sort of beings that brought about Hindi gods with multiple arms. Sorry the whole post proves nothing other than man must have some supreme being in his life for his own benefit.
August 28th, 2005 at 4:05 am
No one ever said studios executives are smart, but they _are_ venal, corrupt and rich, and that’s a winning combination in the USA today.
Morg
August 28th, 2005 at 5:59 am
You do provide a number of interesting points. The first 5 books of the Bible was written by Moses, and during that time, math certianly existed: Look at the Egyptian pyramids. They were built to presice dimensions. If math did not exist, then how do YOU explain it?
Actually, I said that there is no time reference between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Further on, during the 6 day creation, a time reference is given. In fact, it’s Genesis 1:5 which reads “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” And God Himself gives a time reference between man and Himself in 2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” So with that in mind, which one do you use? It’s all reletive to the context. In Genesis, a day is defined as being “evening and the morning” where as further on, one day to God is a thousand years to man. I stand by my statement.
And about people living almost 1000 years, there is a point where God himself limited man’s lifespan. It’s Genesis 6:3 which reads “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”
Everyone want’s their religion to be the one true religion. But, for Christianity, there are just way to many things that have been predicted in the Bible that have come true or are coming true tens, hundreds, and thousands of years later. Here’s a link for you:
http://www.hawaiichristiansonline.com/prophecy.html
August 28th, 2005 at 11:21 am
The ‘books’ were NOT written by Moses. They were simply attributed to him. Even his “existence” is NOT collaborated by any independent source. For example, most people are not aware of this, but the “gospels” of Jesus were NOT written by his disciples. In fact, it was transcribed several CENTURIES AFTER his death. Not by his disciples, or his disciples’ disciples, or etc. It was NUMEROUS generations after when it was FIRST put to paper.
Do you see the danger in blindly following what was written by someone who was not there at the time?! Not only that, but it is written in a language, now extinct. Even the best linguist can only make ‘educated’ guesses. Take for example any modern writing, whether a poem, song, essay, news article, story, blog — each person will interpret it differently. Have you ever written something or said something that was ‘crystal clear’ to you, but had it repeated to you in a manner you did not intend?! That is the danger.
There are many other points. But lastly, I would like to make a SIMPLE CLEAR point. Don’t believe everything that is in the bible, or torah, or koran, or whatever ‘holy’ book. It’s just simply that, it’s a book written by some person. Yes, I know, you may say that it is the “word of god” (TM)…. But, when you really think about it, observing it objectively for what it really is… it is just some bed-time story with full of logical holes and contradictions. Don’t take this personally though. For what it is worth, I have studied many, many ‘religions’ around the world. I was “groomed” to be a holy man, but I declined. Life is too short to follow things blindly without looking at reality. I’d rather enjoy the sun and the moon, and all the wonderful things around me without the preconditioned responses…
August 28th, 2005 at 12:50 pm
These same people are pretty much why some shows (touching evil fo example, thanks USA) and movies never get much of a chance. I’m suprised the Lost, the X Files and the Matrix ever made it. If it wasnt for their creators fighting for them they would crash and burn.
August 29th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
I have to agree with you here. I am a Bible believer (Messianic Jew, not Christian). I am sick of all the bullshit spewed out by the cartels. I am
also sick of all the lies spewed out by organized Christian religious organizations. These organizations exist for one purpose only, to get rich while heping the governments and cartels keep their power. When these Christian organization think about saying something bad about the evolutionists and atheists, they also need to look at their own contributions to the disbelief in the Bible. If I were raised on the Christian fables (Santa Klaus, Easter bunny come to mind?), I would probabley not believe in the Bible myself. Also the hypocrisy of the Christian Coalition supporting the porn spewing RIAA and MPAA is blatantly obvious. There is propaganda spewing from both the beast (governments and cartels) and the False Prophet (organized religious systems). BE AWARE!!!!
August 29th, 2005 at 8:55 pm
They are dumb white men who are very ego-centric, who cannot stand to lose control and cannot tolerate change because they do not have the talent to adapt to the changes. They think they can delay the changes by ignoring technology and what the new customer base wants.
One way or another, the market will make the changes necessary and leave them in the dust as iTunes and TIVO has. They could be like JetBlue and give the customers what ‘they’ want, but that would make them look smart and young again and that is not what they want. They are old grumpy white men who want that next million dollar bonus this year instead of making changes to take their stock holding up even more in the years to follow.
May I suggest a good read for them after they get their heads out of their asses? “Who Moved My Cheese”. That assumes that they can still read…
Can you say “Silicon Valley Tea Party”?
May 8th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
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