What do ‘the people’ want?
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007Mark Harris is by far the best of Entertainment Weekly’s three rotating back-page columnists. (Dalton Ross is too hipster-ironic-snarky, and why should I care what Stephen King has to say about anything other than books?) His entry in the June 1 issue is a prime example of his insight and intelligence. I nodded in agreement through the entire piece, and I’m not much of a nodder.
Entitled “Power to the People,” the column addresses this common Hollywood lie: “We’re just giving the people what they want.”
It’s the defiant lie told by those who want to pretend that their failures of ambition are your fault - that because “the people” eat what they’re fed, they must like it. The moneymen behind Spiders of the Shrekibbean brag about meaningless numbers (Spider-Man 3 had the biggest opening weekend of all time!) and shrink from meaningful ones, like the fact that Spider-Man 3 cost more and will likely gross less than the first two.