People don't realize how boring life would be without the yin and yang of the universe, the right and the left. There would BE no need for The Social Network if there wasn't an audience for The Sound of Music. There would be no need to express ourselves as writers. We need each other and can learn from each other. In films, why does it take so long for the hero to absorb the mentor's message? Because it's frequently from a person she didn't think she could learn from. Don't hate! But seriously Repubs, there will be consequences if you stop going to the movies completely...

Without seeing the study, all I can say is that every bit of information there can be explained by the age difference - younger people are more likely to be democrats than older people - and the explanation makes more sense. We already knew old people don't go to as many movies and like tame crap, for reasons that have nothing to do with politics. I mean, is there even an attempt to prove causation rather than correlation? Unless there were some better statistical controls than it appears there were, this is just silly. As are his quoted opinions, which reference nothing else to back his conjectures which he states as facts. //end rant

Ashley, here's my problem with that critique: There has been a precipitous drop in young adult males at the movie theaters. I think it's fair to say the studios are seriously freaked out about this as this has been their prime target demo for decades. Meanwhile adult dramas, which appeal to the older crowd and a sub-genre that had been rumored to be dead as recently as 2 years ago, has experienced a resurgence (e.g., The Social Network, The King's Speech, The Fighter, True Grit, Moneyball, The Help). Indeed most of the movies Sony promoted at the recent TIFF were adult dramas, leading many to conjecture that the studio was redirecting their focus to aim at the one constituency who will not be distracted by videogames, social media, or reality TV, but default to their lifelong love of movies -- and that's Baby Boomers. As long as we're speaking in terms of conjecture and platitudes, let add this: My generation loves movies. We grew up with movies as our primary form of social entertainment (i.e., going to movie theaters) and we have never lost that passion for cinema. "Old people don't go to as many movies and like tame crap." I would humbly suggest this as an alternative take: Old people don't go to as many shitty movies and like good films.

The one that surprises me the most is how Reps think Hollywood portrays the military negatively. Nobody gets anything made with military equipment and support unless the military approves the script. Even stories that could be called anti-war don't pillory the soldiers like they did in the 70s.

I'm not saying there aren't many reasons for that, I'm saying that the study had no scientific controls and if you're legitimately trying to figure out why people don't go to movies, especially you're interested in boomers, you've got to look at other factors. Everything you talked about was age related, not party related. I literally do not disagree with a single thing you said, my point was entirely about the quality of the survey. Re tame crap, I only mean people with families necessarily watch more movies that are ok for families. I like family entertainment, which makes me not cool for my age group, but I don't really mind. And we know that older people don't have time to see as many movies generally, and so they are pickier, and their choices are more likely to be impacted by things like convenience, other members of the household, and word of mouth. I'm with you on the need for fewer shitty movies and more good content, I just think the study is shitty. As for platitudes, there's been a lot more research into the habits of people by age, I just think that ignoring that to make statements about party affiliation is missing the point, especially if your actual goal is to get more people to the movies. And if you think party affiliation is more important than other factors, you need to do a real study. Sloppy studies that make claims they can't actually justify are misleading and only hurt people who take them seriously without understanding their limitations. The entire thing reads like an excuse to denigrate "liberal Hollywood". And it doesn't even attempt to determine if that is just a perceived bias or an actual one. And it doesn't talk about Independents, or point out the population size of registered Reps v Dems. There's just so much absolutely vital information to understanding the results that is not there.

Some resources: MPAA's demographic study for 2009: http://www.google.com/m/url?client=ms-android-verizon&ei=Y1CQToDtL4iqNoexAQ&gl=us&hl=en&q=http://www.mpaa.org/Resources/091af5d6-faf7-4f58-9a8e-405466c1c5e5.pdf&source=android-browser-type&ved=0CBQQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFjSAaQaVO7l3tB0O1FVSpxo9aCfw Demographic film preferences: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sfischo/media3.html Book on politics and film: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0742538095/ref=aw_d_detail?pd=1 Sex and age portrayal: http://www.springerlink.com/content/g7v2u002362u6423/

Ashley, thanks for those links. I look forward to digging into them.