I'd say streaming is the main culprit in combination with the professionalization of the series format. The big budgets go into series now.
Other than that, subjective as it is, there just doesn't seem to be many eye-catching movies anymore. I used to have big discussions with my g/f on which movie to go to, as at least 3 or 4 at any time would compete for that choice. Now we look at what's playing and cannot even find a single one that we would want to watch. It's all Marvel and sequels.
Maybe a bigger issues are simply audiences getting used to only seeing a certain kind of movie outside the house, that there's enough good stuff on TV that the quality gap between home and theater is smaller, the expense of a movie theater visit, an ongoing pandemic.
Only partially kidding. There is a comical parallel though with China’s Wolf Warriors movies. Hugely popular, and maybe even good cinema, but also propaganda
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I don't even know what decade you're referring to. Movies, plays, and other forms of entertainment always had politics. Some of them (like Lolita) explicitly tried to court controversy.
Or do you mean like Disney movies, like how Peter Pan (1953 Disney cartoon) has great, "non political" songs like "What makes the red man red" ??
Like, you can't escape politics. Even when you're trying to be politically neutral (like a Disney cartoon aimed at children in the 1950s), these sorts of political issues just come up... because our base assumptions of life are in fact political.
Whether we court politics on purpose (Dr. Strangelove, Lolita), or accidentally (Peter Pan 1953, "What Makes the Red Man Red?"), these sorts of things have been going on since the dawn of movies and cartoons.
Lemme leave things off with this 1940s comic by Dr. Seuss: https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb3618599q/_2.jpg
There is politicized and politicized. Art often has a political message, but there is a certain threshold where the message starts squeezing everything else out of the picture and the characters become stuffy - a weird kind of "ideal exemplars" of a certain desired stereotype instead of believable humans.
If the main hero can't be characterized more personally than "Soviet and a hero" or "trans and brave", the threshold is crossed.
People like to watch movies about other people, not stereotypized puppets.
It's honestly astonishing to me that people would think that American movies with political messaging are somehow a new phenomenon. I'd have to assume that these folks have just not watched many old movies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sands_of_Iwo_Jima
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heat_of_the_Night_(film...
Tons of our most beloved films are political, and that's true back to the dawn of cinema.
Catering to regional tastes just isn’t competitive at that scale.
Star Wars is pretty much solidly on the side of opposing facism.
The Matrix was openly an LGBTQ metaphor (though now the Warhowski sisters claim it was specifically a trans metaphor).
Avatar, Dances with Wolves, and Star Trek IV strongly promoted ecological preservation ideologies.
They come out thinking about killing orcs, killing storm troopers, and killing agents in slo motion.
Vader is German for father. The uniforms were largely based on Nazi uniforms. It's literally a story about defeating fascists using almost strictly German imagery, German names and so forth.
On the more liberal side: don’t look up. Features a ton of frankly disingenuous takes that imo are not presented as hyperbole. Personal dis favorite being the dumb conservative military man showing trying to shoot down asteroids in space with his small arms machine gun.
Both films are divisive and dishonest in their depictions of “the other side”. Both are more populist than democrat republican specifically
Name me a war movie that isn't political.
Doesn't mean that a war film is agenda free though.
Saving Private Ryan shows US / Allied soldiers murdering surrendering troops, which is 100% a political move (and _VERY_ unusual for a war movie to show).
1917.
Possibly Dunkirk.
Even Downfall is pretty light on politics, even though it takes place in the Fuehrerbunker itself.
Downfall takes an anti-Hitler and anti-Nazi stance. Just because we all "agree" with the message doesn't change the fact that Hitler is seen as a weak, degenerating, hypocritical man throughout the film.
Who happens to be a good boss to the main character.
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Finally, the secretary openly apologizes for her role in Nazi-ism. The film makes it clear that even "good people" (like the secretary), who end up helping the Nazis in little ways are still partially responsible for the evils the Nazis caused.
The main character never killed anybody. But she helped Hitler write his last will (as well as Joseph Goebbels's last will), and other jobs that a secretary should do. The film is innately bringing to focus the role of the "typical" Nazi. Not the far right but just the little supporters and their role in Nazism. The "good people on the other side", if you will.
And they're openly apologetic. Because even those little ways of getting a job and helping out in little ways was still Nazism, and in support of that awful ideology.
I'm presuming that you're talking about the "Steiner's Attack" meme/scene from the movie.
This scene "actually happened" according to Russian historians, who were writing for a single audience (Stalin). Their testimony is not to be trusted. I agree with you that its part of the historical record, but specifically part of the _RUSSIAN_ historical record.
Alas, that's the breaks. Russia captured Berlin with their army before the USA/British forces could. But there's plenty of "political decisions" made with respect to the movie (ie: whether to honor the Russian telling of events, or to focus upon say Traudl Junge's book... which didn't mention this "Hitler flies into a rage over Steiner's Attack").
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The Goring Telegram (which was in the movie, but rarely memed) is 100% accepted history IIRC, and probably serves as a better example of how Hitler really acted.
Because anything that can be targeted by legislation, is political in it's definition.
Also, multiple war movies, such as Rambo for example are explicitly political. So, this recent pearl clutching about Hollywood political honestly makes no sense.