WILL THE RED STATES SAVE THE MOVIES?
governors and mayors at their sudden ability to exercise near-dictatorial authority in a manner they could only have dreamed of once in a lullaby. The supplications of business leaders, the bending of the knee, the kowtowing gratitude they might receive at their haughty condescension should they relent and give the free market a bit of a try – this is what some of them doubtless crave, along with the adulation they have received for supposedly saving lives they did not, in fact, save. It is these places – the places of the cultural elite in the United States – that are going to make it the hardest for things to return to normal. Only in places where politicians did not assume that authority and refused to exercise that kind of power will movie theaters be able to reopen. Only if the people in those places decide that the Hollywood goods are worth the purchase will they be able to reestablish some simulacrum of a “normal” business model. Let me put it thus... The only way Bugs Bunny escapes is if he’s saved by Elmer Fudd.
to die from COVID-19 if draconian measures were not imposed are mostly liberal and leftist academics at institutions in places like New York, California, and Washington state. Superstar public health officials like Anthony Fauci and Susan Birx are denizens of D.C. The state-level politicians who led the way in asserting emergency powers and shutting the gates of commerce in March were the governors of New York, California, New Jersey, and Illinois, joined in their efforts by the mayors of New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C, and Chicago. It is these places – the places of the cultural elite in the United States – that are going to make it the hardest for things to return to normal. There might be excellent reasons to do so... Tens of thousands of lives should not be lost and the virulence of the virus extended indefinitely so that moviegoers can see Tenet , the hotly anticipated new Christopher Nolan movie, on July 17 when they could wait to see it when there’s a vaccine or when the studio decides to take its chances and offer it for streaming at $20 or $30 a pop. The first major experiment in this regard, the online-only release of the animated Trolls World Tour , was a smashing success, grossing something like $100 million in its first weekend, far more than it would have made in theaters. But that may have had something to do with the sheer novelty of the offering and the fact that families were desperate for something, anything, to do with the kids inside. But there might also be less-than- excellent reasons to do so, among them the unimaginable thrill for some of these
John Podhoretz is the editor of Commentary Magazine .
American Consequences
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