Anyone interested in film, psychology, and turning Americans into a nation of mindless consumer zombies (...turning?) must read Malcolm Gladwell’s article in the 10/16 New Yorker titled “The Formula: What if you built a machine to predict perfect movies?” It’s a classic piece of Gladwell’s work that considers the quantification of social and cultural phenomena. Only this one is a bit more relevant . . . and frightening. . . for film lovers.
When he says “perfect movies,” he’s referring to top-grossing movies, not platonic ones. Like, “favorite” not “best,” right? Though business people see no difference, of course, but that’s nothing new. What IS new is using computers to analyze patterns in movies and in consumption to see where they intersect, ie. to see what makes a blockbuster. In short, they’re getting close.
Anyway, read it. It starts off and ends kind of slow, but the middle part will impress. If it doesn’t impress you with the predictive powers of computers and algorithms, you are clearly ill prepared for a robot invasion. And by robots, I mean your neighbors.
Here’s a scenario for the near future: once the entertainment industrial complex perfects the ultimate entertainments, culture will cease to develop. There will be no experimentation, no independent productions, there will only be a few formulas and big profits. Americans will never be confronted with anything new. They will be supremely entertained, relatively comfortable (when not working 40-70 hrs/wk), and will begin to detach more and more and more from the world around them. They will fear and avoid anything different, build a wall around the country, lose interest in their government, and become totally oblivious to world events. Sorry, maybe this isn’t so new after all.
Well, the publisher just came into the room and called me naive and ungrateful, after scalding me with hot espresso and saying, “In some countries, that’d just be plain coffee, you scholarship ingrate.”
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