Legendary director Richard Linklater criticized Hollywood filmmakers for only making films that are targeted toward children and that have no sex appeal. At the same time, he said that he feels for the current generation, which is simultaneously bombarded with pornography while being force-fed children’s movies.
“This just is Hollywood. It’s cinema of this generation. It’s just less adult. I think when superheroes took over, it’s clear they don’t have genitalia at all, do they?” Linklater said on the podcast “Mixed Signals.”
The director of classics such as “Dazed & Confused” and “School of Rock” said that Hollywood is attempting to keep people in perpetual adolescence, thinking that it is likely more profitable to make films that are generally appealing content-wise and convince adults the films are good.
“Gosh, I’m glad I’m not a kid now. Being a young person, let’s say 10 through 13. … The only reason I went to movies was to see… because they were all adult movies. You had to find your way into the movie. Now, we make films for 12-year-olds. They’ve done a great job at convincing adults that those are good films. Just stay a kid forever. Keep reading comic books. That’s movies. They’ve just abdicated adult filmmaking and all its complexities, which includes sex. They’ve just tossed that out largely. That’s the studio’s game. They just thought it was probably more profitable to just make films for kids and the kids in all of us.”
‘I think there’s a generation now, adult, that has just been inundated with porn their entire life.’
Filmmaker Cody Clarke likened Hollywood’s tactics to “using a 12-pound weight forever, and never upping them.”
“Audiences are never given a little more than they can handle, then a little more than that, so that they can grow as people— that’s just not the model anymore.”
“There’s nothing intellectually and emotionally stimulating about anything that studios put out anymore,” Clarke told Blaze News, agreeing that there is no real difference between modern movies that are marketed toward children and those that are marketed toward adults.
“There are countless R-rated movies from yesteryear that would be like them reading some complex and interesting novel,” but studios opt to always give audiences “the easy weights,” he said.
Linklater admitted that the #MeToo movement probably made it easier for movies to “not have sex [scenes].”
However, he cut his commentary short and suggested not even talking about it if his words “hit the wrong note or offend[] someone.”
“But then, why do anything?” he added.
Diving deeper into sex in movies, the director theorized that there is no real need to simply inject sex into films and that it doesn’t have to be “hardcore.”
He explained that there is an even lesser need for it in film because those of the current generation consistently have pornography pushed on them.
“I think there’s a generation, now adult, that has just been inundated with porn their entire life. To be the old guy here, when I was a kid, Playboy was just topless. It was very gradual that things got … It was very scarce. I think sex is just so ubiquitous. It’s boring. It doesn’t really fit in a story. It feels gratuitous. I think you have to earn your way into it being a part of your movie or your story,” Linklater pontificated.
As for why Gen Z isn’t interested in sex or social interaction, Linklater said, “Everybody’s distracted.”
“I’m not saying anything original. If you’re staring at your phone all day, you’re not going to be social.”
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