Trailer Trash: The Cargo Cult Industry

(Originally published by thefourohfive.com)

You may have heard about a little scrap last century between, oh, just all the major (and many minor) nations on the planet. The Pacific conference of the war dragged dozens upon dozens of islands into the conflict.

Local tribes would wake up to find one or the other of the most advanced industrial civilizations landing on their turf. Chunks of jungle were cleared so that flying metal boxes could bring treasure literally out of the blue.

Then one day, as suddenly as they arrived, the warring people left. Locals, lacking the foundational knowledge to comprehend how and why the planes arrived, attempted to replicate what they had observed the armies do to make the planes come back.

They lit torches along the airstrips, they even constructed bamboo replicas of airplanes and control towers. This phenomenon became known as a Cargo Cult. These days, there is an entire cargo cult industry. We call it Hollywood.

Make no mistake, it is a cult, a religion, with unyielding dogmas, traditions, and ceremonies. The cargo cult aspect reveals itself in the endless remakes, re-imaginings, reboots, and do-overs. Nobody has any clue why one movie works and another does not so they attempt to make the planes loaded with treasure return with fucking wicker replicas.

There’s even a dismissive term for when a film unexpectedly brings in a shitload of treasure: non-recurring phenomena. It means the bishops and cardinals of Hollywood can’t find an explanation in their scriptures for why a movie is successful. They write it off as a miracle that can’t be repeated (see Dead Poets Society).

One recent example of a hollow wooden copy is Ocean’s Eight . The trailer shows a weak imitation of the smash hit, Ocean’s Eleven. The failings have nothing to do with the cast being led by an all-female crew of criminals and everything to do with the ignorance of the cult.

The trailer is quite simply boring as hell because you know what will happen. Beautiful women will attempt an “impossible” heist, face pathetically weak setbacks and no real threat from some candy-ass antagonist, and will ultimately walk away with the jools.

Compare that to another heist movie from this year, American Animals. This is based on actual events. These guys are not polished, not smooth, not cool by any definition. In other words, they are interesting.

I don’t know who the antagonist is but it might be themselves. The guys represent the biggest threat to the success of the caper. They don’t need a sooper-dooper detective to foil the plans because they are fuck ups of the highest order all by themselves. Bad shit is going to happen to these lads. Really bad shit.

If filmmakers want female-led movies to be interesting you must be willing to hurt them. I don’t mean break their hearts, I mean break their legs. Shoot them, cut them, knock their teeth out. Put their success in credible doubt. Put their lives in believable jeopardy. Risk creates drama. More risk, more drama. It’s not fucking rocking surgery. Stop making female action films like pajama parties and just maybe you will create something people besides your own stupid families can stand to watch.

The guys seem to have little chance of success and there’s excellent reason to think they end up in jail. There is zero chance Sandy or Cate spend time in the back of a patrol car. I want to see what happens to the guys while I already know what will happen to the women: nothing.

Hollywood execs, who can’t scratch up two neurons to rub together, think they can borrow (pieces of) the formula and name from “Ocean’s Eleven” and it will magically bring them mountains of gold.

Problem is, they honestly have no fucking clue what made the original work in the first place. They think there is a formula but no such thing exists. They only know what the superstitions of the cult tell them. Big names, big budgets, brand recognition. They have not a molecule of art in any of them. MBAs cannot create movies anyone wants to see.

Shit. Nothing will ever fucking change. The odds of Hollywood breaking with cult dogma are about as high as getting a bamboo C-47 off the ground.