Making the PRODUCT more readily available made teams which used to boast players with off-season jobs selling cars into leagues with gazillionaire players and owners.
It didn’t result in 200 NFL teams.

The economic theory of expanding the marketplace with “And here, a miracle happens” won’t result in chiselling into Hollywood’s share. If I have six more zeroes than you at the end of my bank balance, I guarantee you, over time, and overall, I’ll get better people to work for me than you’ll get, which will result in a better product, despite the occasional contrarian example. If Hollywood continues to get pounded at the box office for liberal trash, and make huge numbers for wholesome, traditional-viewpoint movies, no matter how few and far between, they’ll make more of them. (Kicking and screaming all the way, but they’ll make them.)

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and now Chronicles of Narnia, aren’t coincidences or abberations. When hit over the head with a 2×4 enough times, the moguls eventually find their way back to common sense.

And yes, absolutely, there are tons of talented people within Hollywood overlooked because they’re too old, or not cool enough, or don’t toe the leftist PC line, or whatever.

But they got to Hollywood in the first place because they were first of all talented. The machine here, at the lowest levels, doesn’t care about ideology, left or right. It cares about money. Just like a sports franchise doesn’t care which party Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or Bret Favre votes for.

They want to win. And in Hollywood, they keeps score first and last with money.

I’m sure there are undiscovered talents out there, some of them likely to remain so as far as Tinseltown is concerned because the liberal elite “powerbrokers” would never listen to them. The dawn of their day beckons.

But there aren’t going to be 5000 or 500 or even 5 Hollywoods.

Like major political parties, anything more than 2 real players is an improbable suggestion.
Hollywood itself will either change, and co-opt more conservative-values films and production entities, or else insulate itself from them completely and seek to fight them, thus guaranteeing an ongoing bipolar struggle between the two sides.

Plan B, I think, will guarantee they will eventually lose.

I also think, deep down, no matter how much it sets their teeth on edge, they know this truth, and that’s why they’ll seek accomodation, so that they can siphon off profits from wholesome entertainment and funnel it to their vile little pet projects, in desperate attempts to keep pushing their low-return liberal dungballs onto the market.

That’s what examples like “Fireproof” prove. There’s untapped talent out there that doesn’t come with an attached liberal bent. But without a Hollywood distribution deal, that flick would be on YouTube, or else it would be getting sent out by Sherwood Baptist Church to a few thousand radio listeners contiguous to Georgia.

Instead, a film with a conservative viewpoint, and an overtly pro-traditional marriage, pro-mainstream religion (not “spirtituality” whatever that is), and unashamedly Christian message, got put out to thousands of theatres by a major Hollywood studio.

And it raked in the bucks, especially compared to the lackluster dregs out at the same time from Hollywood, made with far larger budgets and bigger stars. Which benefitted both Hollywood, and the outsiders that produced it. Thus guaranteeing that both will want to repeat that partnership again, for as long as it brings solid returns, both financial, and also intangible returns for the film’s production company.

I see no likelihood of Main Street becoming Hollywood 2.0. And I have no problem with Hollywood becoming conservative. (We should all live so long.) The biggest issue, strategically, is ensuring that conservative message-makers don’t “go Hollywood” on us.

I suppose I mourn the shared experiences we had as Americans during my childhood years in the late 50s through the 70s when there were 3 networks and PBS. Everyone watched Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights and I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver on other evenings and discussed the shows the next day. Now, I watch films and listen to musical artists that 95% of people on the street have never heard of.

I can’t say whether all of this is necessarily good or bad — almost surely a bit of both. Those who are under 25 have never known a different paradigm, but I was around before cable, satellite, VCRs, DVDs, PCs. We treated music much differently, giving it a sense of value and gently handling and caring for vinyl LPs. Today, digital media is devalued and considered to be disposable — just another quickly-consumed commodity like McDonald’s fast food. Eat it and forget it.

I can’t help but feel that in the decentralization from Hollywood and the large record labels, that we’ve gained some new freedoms, yet lost something precious in the process.

While there are numerous sites featuring great indie music artists and small films or webcasts, will any of them reach any critical mass? I’m not sure that an increasingly fragmented niche market for entertainment really provides a suitable career or income for all the “new media” artists compared to the “old system”.

It may have been exclusionary, but it built big stars that were recognized by the masses and who were paid accordingly. If it weren’t for low-paid friends and family, what indie webcast could even launch? Can people on the street even name a web-only series?

You laud Spielberg, Twain, and Dickens but fail to take into account that there are people who loathe them.

‘Great’ film, music, and television will gradually become something far more personal–and venues for one’s personal tastes will multiply.

And in those will be greats and not so greats.

The medium is being placed in many more hands.

You point out the cheapness of oil paints–and claim that we have seen no tsunami of Rembrandts or Michaelangelos–but we have. We have thousands who can paint at their skill level today–if not millions. And, because of this, our art has changed.

And the same is already happening to many other media forms.

As one virtuosity becomes commonplace, we find a new one.

There may also be future outside-of-L.A. independents as well, but it would take monster hits and some distribution cooperation to keep you independent (i.e. Lucasfilm and Pixar).

They will indeed show their stuff. And more and more of those people will be seen to have no more talent than many talentless hacks in Tinseltown. Witness cable TV. By definition, mediocrity is the norm in any field of endeavor. We can all buy a pen and paper, but a Dickens or a Twain comes along only once a generation. Only in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon can everyone claim to be above average.

I’ll settle for a few (and growing number of) truly talented (but politically incorrect, underappreciated, and overlooked) folks getting inside the gates of the citadel.

Because IMHO, there isn’t enough cinematic talent in the whole country to support another Hollywood, no matter where you put it. So I’d much rather swing the pendulum back to something approaching sanity in the one we have, particularly those with the power to decide what gets created.

And Amritas,
I get your greater point, but did you really mean to point to “South Park” as a standard to emulate?