If you have access to HBO, or if you know how to watch TV shows online, than you are lucky enough to have access to watching HBO’s hit TV show, Entourage. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Entourage follows the life of a budding star actor as he goes from his first role in a Mentos commercial to the star of the highest grossing film of all time. What I found interesting about this show is that the shows main character, Vincent Chase, is one of the few actors in Hollywood who cares more about making a quality movie than he does about making money. In the beginning of his career Vinny decides to act in an independent film called Queens Boulevard which is based on life in his hometown, Queens, NY. Vinny makes the movie and it is a major hit in the independent film world. Seeing the success, one of the major movie studios, Time Warners, decides to buy the movie and make several changes to make it more “appealing” and “commercially sellable” to the audience. When they show the changes to Vinny it is very clear that they have ruined the movie and have changed the meaning because they want to make it more sellable and more appealing to audiences and advertisers.
I think this example ties extremely well to the chapter 2 reading in that it demonstrates how the media industry works and operates. Vinny struggles to find a studio that wants to produce the movie because he only has a limited number of options and because they believe that the movie won’t be commercially successful. When he finally does find a studio willing to buy the movie they manipulate the movie and make major changes because they think it will sell better that way. In the studio’s mind all they care about is making as much money as possible while Vinny doesn’t care about making money but wants to make a meaningful movie. It is very interesting to see this dynamic work, and in the end the powerful movie studio beats the small actor and changes the movie and tries to make as much money as they can. In the end the movie study is motivated by the advertisements and how they will be able to sell the movie rather than the movie’s meaning.
Queen's Boulevard Clip
Wow being a huge fan of entourage and probably having seen every episode multiple times I never thought about the actions of the movie studio in regards to this plot line and how it tried controlling the way the movie came out just so they could make profits. Very interesting take and I definitely see how this episode series relates to chapter 2.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Abeer here, Mike. Being a huge fan of entourage, I never made the connection between Chapter 2 and Queens Boulevard. I am sure these types of activities take place all the time in Hollywood, and movies are heavily influenced by the economics of the movie studio. Good work, Mike.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the above comments. The media producers, having spent so much time in their positions feel that they know the public all too well and whatever comes their way they will most likely manipulate in some manner and change it. This is sad to think since there is the realization that most of what we see (specifically in non-reality tv) is not the original work.
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