When Andy Samberg opened the 67th Emmy Awards Show in 2015 with one of his classic The Lonely Island-like short films, he is sitting with five other friends at the dining table. They are talking about the television shows they've seen recently but Andy says he hasn't seen (any of) them but is planning to. Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Orange is the New Black, Empire, Transparent, Ray Donovan, Downton Abbey, Girls, The Americans, Bloodline, So You Think You Can Dance, Kimmy Schmidt....
As he hears their list become a cacophony of titles, the camera zooms in on his anxious face, and he shouts out, "STOP"!
He breaks into song. "So many shows and so little time..."
He's decided the only way to keep up is to lock himself away in a TV Viewing Bunker, with DVDs of all the shows he needs to watch, with enough food to keep him fueled (but not nourished). He wears his hair short, jeans, and a sweater over his white collar button shirt.
One year later he emerges from the bunker with long-grown hair and beard, wearing a tank top, Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned, shorts, and socks. He has crazed eyes, and proclaims, "I watched every show!" He lists out all of the streaming services, and his DVR says "You watched every show!"
In 2016, Amazon put out a similar sentiment commercial for its Fire TV service: about the "#Showhole". A woman sitting on her couch, watching the 58th episode's final credits. And she has the empty feeling of succumbing to a void. The narrator emphasizes, "the struggle could not be more real." And upon realizing there's still an entire catalog of more TV series and movies to watch, it's as if she's brought back to life, and has something to live for again.
Amazon Showhole
These were hilarious to see then, and are hilarious to see now. But now, there's the greater sense of relating to those images. Of being physically isolated in one's home, watching worlds of television and movies without let-up. In 2015 and 2016 there was no time to watch EVERYTHING. And in 2020, there was nothing but time to watch, so that people were willing to watch ANYTHING just to avoid that #Showhole.
There is no question that the pandemic has changed our lives with daily struggles and stressors of how to keep healthy not just physically but also mentally. Watching all of the movies and television shows available on broadcast, cable, subscription services, across a dozen devices, has been made possible because there was time to watch as well as the need for infinite distraction.
People watched everything and anything they could whether actively paying attention or passively in the background. They would watch and re-watch their favorites for comfort viewing. They wanted the film's world to be an escape, or be a reminder of a pre-pandemic routine. They wanted to watch what makes them laugh, cry, and all the emotions in the spectrum. People chose to watch what they would not normally have thought to watch before because it'd be new, and it'd be doing something without risk. If they didn't like it, they could turn it off. And find something else.
We Watched It All - Netflix
About three weeks ago (in mid-December) Netflix made its own bunker-watch / #Showhole commercial: "We Watched It All". A guy is sitting on his couch, and the TV screen has a credits roll box in the upper-left corner with instead of the next recommended/auto-play title, it says "You've finished Netflix". It still seems an unlikely thing for anyone to have actually done, but because of the stay-at-home lockdowns, and quarantining, it's not impossible.
The commercial features one man listing out all of the shows he's seen in the same way that Andy says he saw it all, but then two-thirds through the song, the man changes from "I" to "We". That collectively, the Netflix audience watched it all.
"What we loved-watched, what we hate-watched, doesn't matter...We've done everything we can to keep our minds off all the madness..."
And at the end, the man sits back on his couch with the TV coming down saying "Skip to 2021". Meaning they've got more coming to Netflix for people to watch - because, well, unfortunately, there is still a contagious virus to stay home safe from - so thank goodness there's more shows and movies coming down the pike. LOL.
I can't say I've seen everything that is available to what I have access to. But because of all my time at home, watching, it feels like I did.
For example, I've seen more documentaries and reality television this year than in the last ten years just cause it was on and I needed something to watch. Other watching decisions were dictated by my emotions. What was I in-the-mood to see? And I finally had an opportunity to watch what I've long wanted to but didn't have access to or because the series had been completed.
Despite there being so much time and so much content to see at home, the vast majority of us missed out on those big Blockbuster movie releases in the theaters. So many titles had been delayed, either pushed to the end of 2020 or for sometime in 2021. There was the huge controversy between movie theater chains and studios over initial vs. simultaneous releases in the theater or available to subscription services. Independent movie theaters significantly struggled too. It started with Dreamworks' Trolls World Tour. Then Christopher Nolan's Tenet. Along with Disney's Mulan. And most recently, Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman 1984.
According to Box Office Mojo, the top 10 earning films of 2020 had been released before March 1st. The number 11th highest grossing film was Onward, released March 6th with barely $62million before theaters shut down a few weeks later. Tenet only made about $47million, at #14, released September 3rd. Wonder Woman 1984 was released on Christmas Day and earned $16.7million - but also went to HBO Max the same day, bringing more subscribers to its platform than any other this year.
Whether going to the movie theater alone or with others, the experience is magical. You are enveloped into the world you are watching, with the screen and sound so overpowering. I miss it so much! We all do. And thus even though 2020 was not good for movie-theater-going, and many theaters may close indefinitely, I firmly hold true that as soon as it's safe to go back to them we will! And maybe new theater going experiences will emerge!
In the meantime, it's okay to instead buy the wall-to-wall screen for the den, and it's great to do a watch-party on Amazon or Hulu.
If anything, instead of our being distracted by the studio superhero and Blockbuster tentpoles, audiences had more time and access to more independently made movies. What would have been otherwise been considered obscure gems or less promoted, was more paid attention to and had a louder voice in the infinite menu scroll. Difficult, uncomfortable watching even became a thing. Largely due to the increased awareness of minority (racial and gender) voices, titles featuring Black, female, and LGBTQ community performers were moved to the forefront of content menus. From looking at the top streaming watched titles as well as the critics' top choices, there's never been more diversity than in 2020. People didn't have the excuse to not watch something they normally wouldn't because of time or money. With so many films that went straight-to-home viewing, titles were already included in their subscription fees or maybe cost a little extra to get once in a while (like on Amazon Prime).
With all the world having to contend with the same virus, with so much time and content, watching stories in both feature and episodic formats became one of the few ways people could cope. Adapting to the moment with resilience is humanity at its best. And stories have been helping humanity since the very very beginning.
Covid-Cinema has showed people a wider range of content, and acted as a time capsule for what the world used to look like, how it looks now, and how it may look in the future. Covid-Cinema showed the entertainment industry how its long functioned, along with how it needed to change.
This series of Covid-Cinema posts was an attempt to explore and analyze the titles released at the beginning of and during the pandemic. Films and TV shows that were made before shutdowns and released during quarantine; that were made specifically because of social-distancing rules; that were trying to represent the industry's new protocols as well as actual people's experiences. Covid-Cinema will not be complete until the pandemic is considered over for the majority of the world. And when that happens, we can return to this period in our lives and our watching habits with an even newer sense of perspective. But how we see something while in a situation is not usually how we see it in hindsight. And as the meme says, "Hindsight is officially 2020".
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