The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself. Movies and music made here are so often cited as the reason why young people around the world idealize America and want to emulate us (buy our clothes, speak English, etc)
It’s the cultural equivalent of being the world’s reserve currency, it’s a massive free advantage in almost any situation. Stupid stupid stupid to threaten it.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s in Germany, I've been brainwashed by US movies and sitcoms, 90% of the things I've watched was from the US - Magnum P.I, Simon & Simon, The Fall Guy, Kojak, A-Team, Golden Girls, Mary Taylor Moore, Lou Grant, MacGyver, Knight Rider, Night Court, Family Ties, Miami Vice, The Wonder Years, Facts of Life, Love Boat, and on and on and on.
I read an article years ago from a lawyer (might have been a judge) complaining that, thanks to US TV and movies, people in Sweden know more about how the US justice system works than the Swedish system. Far too many people just fall back on their US TV knowledge of how they think courts work and that they keep having to explain to the people that, no that's not how things works in Sweden.
To be fair, Americans have the same problem. The US justice system does not perfectly mirror the Hollywood justice system and jurors are constantly reminded of this when they're called to serve on US juries.
It's hilarious to watch police body cam footage where an arrested person is screaming that they haven't been arrested properly because it didn't happen the way it happens in movies.
We have very few shows about lawyers/law here because our system is simple (and boring?) enough that there isn't much to make anything interesting about.
IANAL but have taken some intro level course (that usually starts with don't think anything from American shows applies).
1: It's rooted in civil law so the written laws(and their precursor political discussions) are first considered, laws are thus fairly broadly written with specifications where needed. So precedents are mostly only used to disambiguate gray areas in terms of applicability or conflicts between laws. (but precedents rulings are in turn are meant to rely on the precursor political discussions before courts can take their own authority on any subject).
2: Intent is given significance, so 2 parties can enter into fairly "sloppily written" contracts that will be legally binding as long as the intent of the contract is clear, they're signed and doesn't violate any laws (there is law specifically targets obviously unfair contracts, but also other laws that regulate specific areas).
3: Criminal prosecution at the primary level is in front of 3 judges, one professional head judge with law degree that knows laws and 2 "laymen" to represent people in general (usually politically appointed to reflect the people via elections), no juries as the role those serve is handled by the laymen judges.
There was a claim at one point that, due to the popularity of American TV shows in Europe, during household emergencies kids were calling 911 instead of the local version (e.g. it's 999 in some European countries)
112 works in the reverse way in the US as well (along with 999 which is the equivalent in many other countries such as the UK). There's not really any reason not to have many numbers just in case. Tourists shouldn't have to memorize, and recall, new numbers in an emergency.
As siblings have commented, 112 and 911 are in the GSM standard. On landlines, only 112 will work in most EU countries (and even that is an EU achievement; e.g. in Switzerland 112 is inconsistent)
What else would someone who dials 911 be trying to achieve? And does the benefit outweigh the cost?
911 has enough mindshare that it'd be silly to use it for anything else. And if you're not going to use it for anything, a redirect seems like a very productive way to park it.
Sure. And in a spherical cow world, assuming you want to make n emergency numbers work, you'd sort by population-using and take the first n.
…but even then 911 would only be an emergency phone number if n ≥ 3; first two places being taken by 112 and 110 (because China).
However, this completely ignores facts like people from China being far less likely to travel to e.g. the US… it's more of a "of the people who'd make emergency calls in XYZ, what numbers would they use" consideration…
…it's really not an easy question. GSM went with 112 and 911 and I guess that's as good as an answer this'll get.
Why are there two different numbers? When there is an emergency you want people to always do the right thing. Guessing the wrong number to call is not the right thing, and worse 2 numbers means there is great chance you didn't memorize either. This is well studied in human factors.
Besides, anytime the other two are involved the police need to respond too - when there is a fire or medical emergency whoever can get that first can often be very helpful even if they are mostly for a different job. As such this separation seems wrong.
"anytime the other two are involved the police need to respond too"
This is not the US, the police does not show up to a fire or an emergency, why would they? They show up to an accident, and when you need an ambulance they will bring one.
The will also not stop and interrogate you when you walk to the side of the road. People usually have no interaction with the police outside of speeding tickets.
"get that first can often be very helpful"
Germany is not full of police patrolling the streets. Gladly we are no longer a police state. Usually I don't see any police for days, often not for weeks. Again, this is not the US. The only time you'll probably see police is going to train stations, airports or big tourist spots (and sometimes at parties that are too loud). In large cities, like Berlin, you might hear a siren and see a police car from time to time, depending on where you are. In smaller <1M people cities, not so.
Germany also has a proper health system and invests in ambulances and health instead of militarizing the police. So I can see your point, but it is irrelevant here.
> the police does not show up to a fire or an emergency, why would they?
Because they're trained first-responders, who have medical first aid training, vehicles with lights and sirens to move quickly through traffic, knowledge of the local area to navigate around road closures or ambiguous location descriptions, etc.
There are many situations where multiple sub-specialties of first-responders (police, firefighters, EMT, etc) are useful. The police aren't just showing up to arrest or shoot people, in a functioning society they can and do provide valuable service in assisting injured people, controlling traffic around car accidents, etc.
A common joke with firefighters: the difference between a training exercise and a real fire scene is the lack of law enforcement getting in the way.
> Because they're trained first-responders, who have medical first aid training
In many parts of the US they are only trained to EMR level (if that) which isn't particularly useful. Most fire departments require everyone to be EMT and will often have a paramedic on board. Where I am, police are all EMR and will rarely be dispatched to a medical call (unless there's a threat of violence). They will be dispatched to vehicle accidents for traffic control.
Where I'm from the police all have a larger first aid kit than is the typical home and they also have AEDs. If there is any change a police officer can arrive before the ambulance or fire department then they will dispatch the police there because seconds might be counting.
Yes the ambulance and fire department is better trained for these things. However basic first aid (CPR) and an AED in the hands of someone with basic first aid training often beats the most trained professional who is arrives just a minute later. So dispatches will get whoever can get to the scene first there, as well as the right people.
Yes the police often are in the way in a fire real scene - but that is a lot better than all the bystanders watching the fire in the way instead. However it is hard to see how bad it could be, while easy to see how bad things are.
You want whoever is time closest to respond as well. While the ambulance is better, the police should have first aid training and a good sized first aid kit. When seconds are counting you are better off with someone partially trained who can get there fast over someone better trained who takes longer.
I've witnessed a lady falling down the stairs banging her head hard, blood everywhere. Called 112 in my country, a guy answered, and I calmly explained what happened, and I wanted someone coming there stat. "Nah" he says, he needs to ask me some questions first. One of the questions was: "is it serious?". This is no joke, I said "yeah, its fucking serious". "Okay" he says, "You should have called emergency services directly, but he'll do me one and connect me anyways(!)".
Then I had to repeat everything again and they've then reluctantly sent a team which by the way arrived in double the time it would take me to get there from their place.
Reminds me of those endless accountability sinks. Nobody gives a shit about anything as there is no accountability.
Sad to hear. Recently called 112 in Germany (small town) and <5 minutes later an ambulance arrived. It wasn't an emergency in the end, but they were happy and friendly and got back to their station.
I actually think the intention of the tariff here is to bring jobs back to the American filming industry - not that I agree with this approach. Just an assessment of mine. But speaking of cultural influence, I think something interesting has been happening.
> that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself
I'll all for the "soft power" of the US, including cultural influence. Just wanted to point out that things have been changing slowly. More and more people started to be more credulous about Hollywood's values. Case in point, Blank Panther won Oscar, yet it was widely criticized in China and its box office in China was miserable. Below is the translation of a popular criticism of Black Panther:
Imagine you made a movie about China, kind of like Black Panther. In it, China is this isolated country with crazy-advanced technology, way ahead of the rest of the world. But instead of a modern government, it's run by tribal warlords—each one basically a dictator. To choose their top leader, they fight each other with knives and spears on top of the Forbidden City.
In your story, Chinese people still do foot binding like it’s totally normal. The elite chieftains live in ridiculous luxury inside the imperial palace. Their medicine is so advanced it’s basically magic—people come back from the dead—and they’ve got levitating trains that look like they’re from another planet.
But regular folks? They live in grass huts, spend their days feeding rhinos (or maybe pandas), and there are barely any roads in the whole country.
Then you take this movie to China and tell everyone it’s a tribute to Chinese culture? People would be so insulted, they might actually beat you up.
This is actually surprisingly a pro-union move by Trump.
If you aren't aware, they've shipped most IATSE jobs to Serbia since 2023.
They used to shoot most Disney and Netflix shows in LA and Atlanta. Now they're happening in Eastern Europe. They fly the cast out and film with crews that don't have labor laws or unions and that are an order of magnitude cheaper.
IATSE members have been forced to leave the industry, sell their homes, and move out of California. There are a few holdouts, but it's likely they'll have to exit the industry too.
Once that capacity goes, it'll never come back.
Studios are sitting vacant. CBRE is going to come in and turn them all into office parks and mixed use.
Yet the budgets keep going up and the "all movies make a loss" accounting continues. What are the chances the consumer will see any savings or the crew will see any raises?
> You have to remember that the MAGA movement is a cult of personality with a bunch of weirdos ginning up stupid and naive people.
I think it's more pernicious than that. The whole MAGA movement has a rather obvious accelerationist agenda, which leads to self-destructive policies like dismantling basic social safety nets and eliminating basic state institutions. Their policies don't make sense to anyone outside of their cult because we presume the goal is to build upon the state institutions and improve upon what's already there, whereas the MAGA crowd applauds destroying everything down to fundamental rights such as the right to a fair trial. They want to see te world burn hoping they'll be able to rebuild it to their liking. The only members of the MAGA that so far voiced regrets are those who faced the fact that they themselves were being left behind.
Yea, that's fatal mistake that the (D) side keeps making: They assume that both sides have good intentions and are trying to make the world better, and that we simply disagree about what "better" means, and about methods, priorities and principles.
MAGA reminds me of That One Guy we all knew in High School who just wanted to cause trouble, start fights, insult people, light fires in the bathroom, destroy things, and basically grief anyone who encountered him. There's no good intentions here--no aim to make things better for everyone. It was just ABCD with that guy: anger, belligerence, cruelty, and defiance. Fast forward to today, and we've got 70M+ of these guys voting.
And it will very likely lead to issues with financing films. Many films these days are shot in multiple locations and use foreign financing, tax breaks and subsidies, sometimes accepting funds from multiple countries.
There are big issues with foreign cinema. We still have a lot of structural advantages in the US to producing films. Production has shifted to other countries because of significant tax incentives. These tax incentives are a way that other countries are frankly not playing fair.
The bottom line for me is that we shouldn't simply accept that films should all be filmed in Canada, Australia, the UK, or elsewhere. Hollywood has been the epicenter of creative jobs in this country for a century, and we should try to preserve it.
Not playing fair? Horse hockey. Every sovereign nation is entirely within their rights to adjust their taxing system for their own benefit. Belief in this juvenile concept of fairness is how we got the unholy mess we're sitting in right now.
US has tons of tax incentives for film, just at the state level. And Trump announced 100% tariffs across the board regardless of if a country has film subsidies.
> This tariff isn't an attack on Hollywood. This helps actors and staff in the Hollywood area.
Does it, though? I mean, the Trump administration is only making it more expensive for theaters to screen non-US movies. Are you going to even bother going to a cinema if the movie you wanted to see isn't made available? And how dominant are non-US productions in US cinemas?
It sounds like more tarrif bullshit,where the only output is lose-lose.
Most top movies last year [1] were shot outside of the US. Excluding animation movies, of course. I understand that the idea is “medium/long term” to move production to Hollywood area, but the short term impact can be massive.
[1] “Deadpool and Wolverine”, “Wicked” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in London, “Dune part 2” in Budapest and Italy, “Godzilla x Kong” in Australia. Only “Twisters” was filmed in the US.
That's like saying an Apple iPhone is a US phone and hence shouldn't be tariffed. No, it's made in China. Not in the US.
The movies aforementioned are not made in the US either.
The distinction here isn't US vs non-US movies, it's where they're produced. A lot of Hollywood output is produced outside the US now to escape the unions, to benefit from cheaper non-US workers and to benefit from tax breaks. These are American movies funded and written by Americans, but the bulk of the production staff aren't from there.
From the first paragraph of the article:
Donald Trump on Sunday announced on his Truth Social platform a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”, saying the US film industry was dying a “very fast death” due to the incentives that other countries were offering to draw American film-makers.
That is correct. Other countries are gutting Hollywood because Hollywood has become a hard place to make things. To pick a random example, the TV show Silo by Apple TV is made in the UK, not America, and the lead actress is Swedish. It's set in the USA, based on a story by an American author and produced by Apple but it's not made there.
This move is bad news for the UK and other countries that have built up a successful film industry but don't have the capital depth to fund big budget films, even with access to the US market. Now they lose access to US funding and can't easily export their films to the US either, assuming it goes through.
I don't think they understand the damage all of this is doing to brand America.
Since the first Trump administration, young people in Western Europe have increasingly lost their idealization of the United States. I'm 43 and moved to the US ten years ago and I feel like I'm part of the last generation that still wanted to move here. Highly qualified people I know in Europe no longer even consider coming here.
I'm a similarly aged European who studied, worked, lived in the States for a decade and moved out for good ten years ago, abandoned my Green Card and never looked back. The world is a big beautiful place. Much bigger and more important and diverse than the US. More free nowadays too.
Everyone in this thread is reading surface level media summaries.
This is 1000% pro-union.
IATSE workers have been decimated by the move of productions to Serbia since 2023.
LA and Atlanta film productions have all but collapsed since the offshoring of production. Serbian crews work without unions for much cheaper than local IATSE members.
This is designed to save IATSE and domestic American production.
Since when does the MAGA crowd give a hoot about unions?
The studios are dying. I go to the movies every week when there are movies. Other than Minecraft, the biggest crowd I’ve seen was the Star Wars re-release.
Is it pro union, or does it happen to just match union's interests today? I've not seen him mention unions explicitly, neither in search nor perplexity. He did mention Hollywood finance, but whether he ment helping the workers or helping some studio owner by that is not clear to me. With the current track record of what's dismantled, I'm not sure he cares about IATSE at all. His explanation of the reasons mentions lots of other things though.
The MAGA crowd is happy to throw out the ability to project useful stuff globally if it makes hollywood stop projecting what they consider divisive stuff domestically and are willing to throw out the foreign aspect if need be.
They're not stupid (well they might be, but that's beside the point), they're just in such fundamental disagreement with you that it's possible to squint and assess the situation as "yup, they're stupid" (and frankly that's a lot more comforting of an assessment).
Film production has been moving steadily overseas chasing cheap labor. By forcing some of it back or forcing it to stay put it makes that industry and the people in it a little more dependent upon government, a little more dependent upon isolationist economic policy, a little more inclined to stay in the government's good graces (i.e. less likely to create stuff the .gov doesn't like), etc, etc, even if it kneecaps the ability of the overall industry to perform globally.
Edit: I shouldn't have to say this but none of the above should be construed as an endorsement of a) high tariffs or b) increased government control of media)
The frame that MAGA has embraced (its in the name itself) is that the policy of the last however long time has failed. I haven't seen the pitch for how having the reserve currency is helping them, and I doubt spreading Hollywood culture has helped them either. Hollywood culture superficially appears to hate them with a passion and wants to see them silenced or (depending on who these "MAGA people" are) arrested.
I think thats exactly the point though. There is a perception that "left wing ideals" are represented in art and media and that this must end. This explains the executive order to defund NPR and PBS last week.
Right. Just like other "strong" regimes do and did: Entertainment is a key vehicle for injecting values into society and forming it. Way more subtle than schools and public speeches can do. Important to control it, if you want to keep your power long term.
we actually had books by folks like Naomi Klein back in the 90s that indicated that the petroleum-based forces would subvert international cooperation for the sake of short-term profits. we were informed of the current navelgazing nationalist trend worldwide gaining popularity.
it's completely stupid and shortsighted to birth this monster, of course. we need MORE international cooperation not less to solve the vast environmental and social problems the world faces.
think about why people migrate and war is high on the list, and not addressing the root causes of human migration but merely each nation closing its doors to the world= bad dumb and wrong.
the people are to blame, of course. in one of the wealthiest nations on earth it's not hardship or suffering that drove the common man to vote for Trump, it's schadenfreude for strawmen they were programmed to hate.
Jodorowski's famous art film "holy mountain" shows our current trajectory since 40 plus years and depicts the brainwashing that allows one to dehumanize other human beings.
i am not sure if trump or vance is the antichrist, but they certainly head a religion dedicated to eradicating the values Jesus taught.
Not sure why you're being downvoted because your points are accurate. Ultra nationalist propaganda wouldn't sell well internationally compared to e.g. Star Wars.
And the current administration does at least purport to follow free market principles. It's just all principles can go out the window for them because <insert word salad>, for whatever advances their own power.
One film by isolation doesn't say much either way, as any given film is high-variance — look at the industry as a whole, and not just box office but total revenue.
I don't have stats for that either, so these things might well still support your claim, but that's what you have to look at.
I would say it’s exactly what a risk-averse money-following committee would do. Regurgitate remakes of previously successful things to milk the cow until it’s powder dry.
Whether this is a successful strategy is debatable.
Yes and no, most people will happily watch movies with gays in them and those without gays.
For decades gays were not allowed and their presence caused blowbacks. It was called free market, despite there being literal rules preventing their presence. Likewise, non whites or women in leading roles - they were not in them, because Hollywood was conservative business in this sense. It took a lot of advocacy for the change to happen.
Right wing hates them, most people just watch those movies and are not weirded out anymore about women having lead action role or whatever. And right wing hopes to revert it back.
I was actually shocked by this tariff. It's a pro-union, pro-labor, classic progressive move.
If you haven't been following what's happening with film production, basically production has moved from LA, Atlanta, New York, etc. to cheap countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.
A vast majority of IATSE film crew productions have now vacated the US. It's decimated the local film crew workforce and forced many to leave the industry entirely.
Can you actually provide numbers? like how many of the movies that used or should have been shot in the US were off-shored abroad? A bit of a "cheap" research but deepseek did search the top 10 grossing movies of 2025; and all of them except one were shot in the US.
Look at 2024; mostly animated or shot out of the U.S. And if you look at the trends the number of jobs have been declining since 2019: https://www.zippia.com/key-grip-jobs/trends/
You're assuming anything in this was planned, designed, premeditated.
It wasn't.
He's going to flip-flop on this 15 times in the next three months while studios (and other industries) go into hibernation waiting until something (or anything) stabilizes.
They used to do all principal photography for half of all Marvel films in Atlanta. The industry has almost completely pulled out in just the past three years.
We had a booming, absolutely thriving industry for nearly two decades. People moved from LA to be here. We built hundreds of studios and sound stages. Now they're sitting empty.
Everyone is going to Serbia now. IATSE folks are having to leave the industry entirely.
you can see everyone willfully ignoring this here, which makes me nervous about actually solving this problem long term. I used to dream of screenwriting and that dream is almost certainly dead but I'd like to see others have a chance. It looks bleak now
Why would you be surprised? Are you expecting some sort of pro-labor movement in a startup focused tech forum?
Modern tech is all about disruption. You get paid way too much because you’re squeezing costs (ie labor) out of business operations.
There was an action movie that filmed car chases in my city about 15 years ago. A bunch of the crew was at a bar I hung out with and we were trading stories. There was a dude who was making alot of money to essentially wet down the streets from a fire hydrant. There’s reasons for that — hydrants require some training to safely operate.
But end of the day, the money guys at Netflix, Amazon or whatever would rather just pay some rando a few bucks and let insurance deal with the damage. Or build a fake street in Serbia.
my view of capitalism is that you can't remove the market. it will exist with or without you, so if you have some control you should incentivize the things that are better for everyone.
To me I think it's possible for Netflix and Amazon and whoever to exist and make a lot of money, but also not have nation-state level power. The latter is something we haven't decided we want yet, but I think we'll come around. If there were even just very small controls (that worked) on the size of a company, or how many industries it can go into, then things would look differently. But when we let so few companies consolidate so much power through money, the status quo is a pretty natural outcome. Imagine a world where there were regional amazon.com's, because we just decided at some point they got too big. Same for google. We'd have actual competition. Tech enables market consolidation in ways we didn't expect and we have to do some actual work to fix it.
I agree with you, and this happened in the past. The entire system is designed to prevent this, and this newfound love of isolationism is a way to cement it in.
Let’s be real, these giant tech companies are becoming big stagnant bureaucracies. They can’t adapt anymore and want to build a moat to let them lumber along for a few decades.
The core assumption of the policy makers and business people was the idea that the Chinese are a bunch of dumb peasants working for scraps and unable to produce. They seem to be holding their own with AI, cars, trains, aircraft, etc. They may have a credible competitor for the B737/A320 — that’s a pretty big leap.
Seems you were a-okay with people in California losing their jobs so you got them in Atlanta. You seem not okay with it moving from Atlanta to elsewhere.
And stop repeating the Serbia line in every comment. You've done it multiple times. What productions are in Serbia? How many out of how many?
Did you lose your job to one in Serbia and now it's sour grapes all along?
“Labour unions contend that between 35 and 50 percent of feature films turned out by American producers are made abroad,” the New York Times reported on October 4 1959 as the volume of what were then called “runaway productions” began to soar.
--- end quote ---
Notice the year.
Hollywood has been running away from California for over 70 years. Your obsession with Serbia completely ignores that all of Europe is used for movie and TV productions, and Serbia is just the latest addition: https://issuu.com/thelatesteditionishereandfreetoview/docs/c...
The move was presumably done by americans themselves, no? It's a choice.
If american producers wanted to produce in america, they always could. They never had to move. It would just be more expensive. It will still be more expensive even after tariffs. Tariffs don't make labor cheaper. Cheaper choice will just not exist for americans.
Maybe the mistake here is to assume that MAGA shares those traditionally “American” values.
But I presume that the major effect of this tariff will be to force large media conglomerates (aka news agencies) to think very carefully about how their news divisions cover Trump.
Hollywood made a few anti-fascist, anti-Nazi exploitation movies last year with big name actors and directors. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Freaky Tales are two that stand out. Hollywood is pro queer, pro minority and pro free speech. MAGA hates it all and would happily destroy it. It's not stupid, it's their vision for the country and they want to project that vision to the rest of the world. They don't want the world to think of the US as an inviting place where anyone can pursue the American dream, where the government fights for the rights of the downtrodden, politically oppressed and abused and acts like the global stabilizing hand exchanging trade for peace and prosperity. For the MAGA faithful, those days are over, the country is full and it's time to reestablish Anglo-Christian dominance. Their game plan is economic and political isolation, the erosion of democracy and the end of the global unity narrative.
Cutting off Hollywood from its funding sources is part of the plan. MAGA controlled states cancelled tax breaks and subsidies for film/tv production years ago, in some cases torpedoing billions in investment in new studios. This isn't a new strategy, this is the amplification of an existing strategy.
I wish people would stop with the “Trump doesn’t understand $thing” stuff.
It doesn’t matter whether Trump understands $thing. Pretending that he’s acting in good faith to make things better, but is somehow failing because he doesn’t get X, Y, or Z falls right into the trap. He’s trying to destroy American “soft power”. It doesn’t interest him.
Neither does a good economy, schools, NATO, etc. All of these things are being destroyed or mangled on purpose.
OTOH, trump is not very clever, and IS rather infantile. its sufficient to allege that forces that seek to destabilize American power likely aided Trump financially and he is proving a good investment. the term is "useful idiot" IIRC
The modern popularist says exactly the opposite to what they mean. Again and again. They talk about freedom as they remove it, free speech as they suppress it, the arts as they defund it, manufacturing as they gut it etc. And all this while claiming a state of emergency and necessary for national security.
I’ve applied a heuristic in my life to not trust anyone who promotes “transparency”. It sounds counterintuitive but in my experience this is just a tool of attack allowing them insinuate a scheme or conspiracy is at play and then to twist the narrative to what they want. Don’t trust them, trust me I’m transparent.
By “protect” you mean “roll back to the 1950’s”, righ? Because Hollywood today was doing quite well and I don’t think I’ve heard a single industry source asking for this.
IMO the other shoe here is stronger content restrictions and more government control of what gets made. Easier to do that with US productions, hence the attempt to make everything distributed in the US a US production.
Who isn't asking for something to bring more production home? Studio execs? People in LA, ATL, etc want to work, and every year there is less and less jobs below the line in the US, even though there's more productions overall paid for by US companies. This sentiment you're talking about is at least not universal
Then you might be missing it as it’s a huge huge issue for below the line workers (actors are part of the package we’re shipping out to other countries)
>Because Hollywood today was doing quite well and I don’t think I’ve heard a single industry source asking for this.
Unless the new edict excludes farming out VFX. The VFX industry has been on its knees for years now, in a race to the bottom that has made r/vfx a pretty depressing place.
(Source: Spent the last few years working for a well-known VFX company)
But do you understand it will harm Hollywood? This is the economic, country scale equivalent of saying "fuck your movies", do you think the answer will be "oh sorry, I'll keep buying yours" or "fuck your movies too"?
It will reduce the profit margins of Hollywood studios. Maybe reduce the bonuses of their CEO.
It'll help thousands of Americans that used to be employed by said studios but were fired not because they couldn't do the job but because the greed of studio execs made them move production outside of the US, playing financial arbitrage games against the interest of the US.
Trump is trying to reverse this by making movies outside of the US, especially by US companies, more expensive. The goal here is not some statement about Hollywood but to bring movie production jobs back to US. The extras, the people who build sets, people who make food for actors etc. And jobs bring tax revenue and grow GDP, which helps every american.
It’s categorically impossible that this could bring movie production jobs to the US. If a policy along these lines is implemented, both foreign and domestic consumers will launch a massive retaliatory boycott. (I will personally begin that boycott today unless Hollywood executives denounce the proposal.) The current dominance of American media offers absolutely no leverage, because it’s trivial and cost-free to go cold turkey on it.
>You do understand this is a move to protect Hollywood, Right?
Protect Hollywood from who, exactly? IIUC, an increasing number of "American" movies (i.e., those produced/financed by American studios) are being filmed outside the US.
This isn't a bunch of foreign film makers ganging up on poor, beleaguered film companies like Disney, Paramount and Neflix.
They, of course, are going to go out of business any minute now because those evil foreigners are taking away their movies. /s
No. Those very profitable studios are choosing to make movies outside the US to bolster those high profits by reducing labor, physical plant and safety expenditures.
As such, how is charging Hollywood studios 100% tariffs to import the movies those same studios paid to make "protecting" Hollywood?
Don't mistake the above for my support of Hollywood studios. They are the OG rapacious scumbags that the SV tech bros are trying (and sometimes succeeding) in emulating.
The difference is that decades ago all movies were about how good and just the US was and now everything Hollywood produces is movies that tell that the US is the devil and other generic progressive slop. Is that really the image the US wants to project to the world?
Defund education then defund culture. Sounds exactly like America First/America Only. Next up is propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know. He can flood the media as he's been flooding the government, all the pieces are in play.
Still nobody putting up a meaningful fight. Your window is closing.
It sounds like a lot of people are kind of missing the mark a bit on what happened here in the US.
I mean:
Next up is propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know
No. "Propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know" is what happened first using the internet to radicalize those without the wisdom to have seen this outcome.
And Idiocracy may not be so much an optimistic look at our future as the conservatives continue to implement their policies, as it is a cynical look at the results that conservatives implementing their policies have had on our present.
Why does American drinking water need fluoride - for the few seconds people brush their teeth? Other developed nations seem to do get by just fine without it (i.e, most of Europe). Does modern tooth paste not contain the components for proper cleaning? I feel like I'm missing something here, because I don't swallow my tooth paste but I drink my tap water. But if fluoride is fine in water that we drink, why not just add all the other vital chemicals to the tap water that our bodies crave, like soma? Because it really smells like peoples opposition to this is not science-based but emotion-based (i.e., anti-RFK and Trump admin).
"For the few seconds people brush their teeth"? That's not how fluoridated drinking water works. Fluoridated water works all of the time, not just when brushing teeth, and it's not a vital chemical that the body craves.
You are missing something. If you're this confused about a topic, you should at a bare minimum read the Wikipedia page.
Yeah because in Europe we add fluoride and iodine to table salt, as well as to our toothpaste.
Also, we don't have anywhere close to the sugar consumption the US has, which keeps both our diabetes and dental health issues at rates far below the US.
The questions you posed are not questioning fluoride, they're asking what the basic premise even is. If you don't understand that, you are far from the position needed to be evaluating and analyzing the necessity or benefits of it.
The Wikipedia page you mentioned reading also points out that it's not only a US thing. Or even a water-only thing.
When I see an argument with a phrase like "basic premise" I know I'm reading some word mambo jambo, otherwise the author would just give their summary of that "basic premise" instead of deadlinking it (refer to something without actually referring it).
You don't have an argument yourself, you just wanted to share that you are pro some position.
There are clear factual errors in the underlying assumptions of what was stated about water fluoridation. Those are simply table stakes for having a discussion about anything at all. If one thinks that water fluoridation is useful "just for a few seconds," that it's not done outside of the United States, that it's a replacement for toothpaste, that it's a vital chemical, or that we don't fortify other foods, then they do not know enough about the topic to talk about it, let alone hold the opinion that they know better.
If someone came in with a curious mindset, that'd be one thing. But this is someone walking into a room with an agenda (get rid of fluoride) and a shocking lack of knowledge about that agenda.
>If someone came in with a curious mindset, that'd be one thing. But this is someone walking into a room with an agenda (get rid of fluoride) and a shocking lack of knowledge about that agenda.
But since "Internet People Lie About Fluoride,"[0] why are you surprised? And that's nothing new.
Why? I have no idea. Perhaps cpursley[1] could enlighten us?
Just brush your teeth after every meal, you will be fine like the Finns. And prob a higher IQ like them, as well (without all the unnecessary floride in the water).
Because just like we have stupid people who don’t vaccinate their children from measles, we have stupid people who don’t make them brush their teeth.
So rather than have them suffer with a lifetime of oral health problems, you can intervene in a transparent and cheap way to prevent these issues altogether.
The introduction of fluoride dramatically improved oral health. NYC has been doing it since the 1960s, so one would think we’d see evidence of the supposed negative effects.
Any actual stats on people not brushing their teeth? It's not 1960 any more... And my entire point was to compare to other nations with similar development levels that don't pump it into their water supply and are doing just fine in terms of oral health.
And by your metric, should we also pump in vitamins and other substances that our bodies crave? Maybe the Fed gov't could just skip that and force drip IV everyone a compliance cocktail after their breakfast of USDA approved and SNAP subsidized Captain Crunch?
> Any actual stats on people not brushing their teeth? It's not 1960 any more... And my entire point was to compare to other nations with similar development levels that don't pump it into their water supply and are doing just fine in terms of oral health.
Something like 30% of people report not brushing their teeth at least once a day. Unclear if that means most of them brush every other day or some even lower frequency, but I’d assume if you report not brushing at least once a day then you likely aren’t brushing consistently every other day or something.
> And by your metric, should we also pump in vitamins and other substances that our bodies crave? Maybe the Fed gov't could just skip that and force drip IV everyone a compliance cocktail after their breakfast of USDA approved and SNAP subsidized Captain Crunch?
We already do this, all the time! Vitamin and mineral fortified foods are everywhere. Iodine is in a lot of salt. It’s a good thing, not something to be mocked. Most vitamins and minerals have minimal cost, no issues with taking “too much” of them, and have significant health benefits if you are deficit on that particular thing.
> Something like 30% of people report not brushing their teeth at least once a day.
Gross, but that's their problem, not mine. There's a multitude of bad health habits, if we were actually serious, there'd be no soda or cereal on the shelves. But big ag and big health activity oppose that because they financially benefit from SNAP. Your fortified foods mention is an example of exactly how insane it all is (we subsidize the corn syrup farmers to produce garbage food and then give poor people money to buy it, instead of you know - real food).
> Gross, but that's their problem, not mine. There's a multitude of bad health habits, if we were actually serious, there'd be no soda or cereal on the shelves.
This absolutist mindset is not helpful for making progress. People want tasty, potentially bad for them foods. You can have bad food that’s made up of “real food” just fine. Fortifying bad foods to make them marginally less bad is a good thing. Don’t let great be the enemy of good. Nobody is looking at a bag of chips and saying “well because it’s got added Vitamin A, it’s good for me now!” Instead, it’s just a silent benefit.
We do. Table salt is iodized. We add vitamin A & D to milk and bread.
You’re looking for facts to stuff a straw man. There is clear, obvious correlation between fluoridation and improved oral health. They discovered this decades ago where it was observed that oral health was better in regions where groundwater was used and fluoride occurred naturally.
By my metric, we should take reasonable measures to improve public health. I don’t suppose you’re in favor of making dental care affordable to those who can’t afford it?
If you choose to align yourself with the pseudo intellectual descendants of the John Birch society to protect your “precious bodily fluids”, I’m sorry for you.
> Any actual stats on people not brushing their teeth?
google is free - it's not anyone's responsibility to educate you and answer your naive questions. and if did google and you're still not convinced, well then i'm glad you're not an elected official wherever it is you live (though if you live in the US i guess you probably voted for the current admin)
It's worse than that. In the movie Idiocracy, they were searching for the smartest man alive to put him in charge to fix things. That's not what governments are doing now.
You may have missed that Idiocracy is a pro-eugenics film, in which the populace got stupider by way of being fecund. It's not about this problem, really.
> You may have missed that Idiocracy is a pro-eugenics film
I kinda see how you got there, but man.
This is the same guy behind Office Space and Bevis and Butthead. He's poking fun at out of touch intellectuals and consumption. Calling it pro-eugenics though...
The whole premise hinges on "dumb" people outbreeding "high IQ" people. The movie isn't about the failure of the education system, consumer compliance, or anything like that. The movie feels pro-eugenics, even if that wasn't the intention, and it's just trying to poke fun at stereotypes.
Idiocracy is only pro eugenics in the same way that any piece of comedy that criticizes anything or takes something to the extreme can be construed as being for the opposite thing.
While I'm certainly no where even adjacent to a Trump supporter, the idea of preventing studios (rich people) from sidestepping local unions (working people), plus the crazy tax incentives we give them by producing their movies up here in Canada isn't as polarizing an idea as you think.
If the sky is falling on everything he does, and you're wrong some of the time, then people will stop listening. There's plenty that this administration has done that is objectively horrible.
You think a PhD automatically makes someone a better teacher than a school teacher? Shows quite an elitism that assumes knowledge and scholarly ability is the mark of a good teacher. From someone who actually taught in schools, scholarship matters almost zero, classroom management and emotional intelligence are far more important in a school teacher.
And giving away the money? You’d lose all amenities of a school, the building, its land, the social benefits of school interactions, etc. Most importantly, you lose classroom management of a teacher, and the kids lose out big time.
A PhD tutor stood in front of determinedly mischevious children, most couldn’t last two weeks.
idk man last time France raised the gas price by like 10% people were in the streets every weekend for a year, often blocking highways, warehouses, at its peak ~3 million people were in the streets, they got so close to Macron's castle he had his helicopter prepared to flee the capital
It ended up with 11 deaths, thousands of injured, thousands of people were arrested hundreds went to jail. Look at Serbia, Greece, damn even Turkey seems to put a better fight lol
The current protests are terrible. The loudest mobilized voices are the pro-Palestinian people, who are a wet blanket on a protest as they don’t have wide support.
Look at Georgia, look at Serbia, look at the Arab Spring. Look at your constitution! There is a part in there about resistance to oppression you seem to only use to defend the wrong things.
If arms are the important component, what wrong things are you saying we exclusively use that part of the constitution to defend? I don't think that part is used for much else
The only time you hear of the second amendment is to justify having guns after a massacre. Yet here we are, literally a textbook case of it, and crickets. I'm against guns and gun violence, but Americans aren't.
If that's what you need to remove the mental roadblock needed to deal with the actual topic then sure, call me pro-gun. If your constitution gave you the right to bear sharpened spoons, I'd be asking about that, too.
This is the actual topic. You said that it is bad that Americans use the second amendment to justify having guns and good for them to use them in an act of mass political violence to stop tarriffs on filming locations and science budget cuts. The other three positions are coherent: have guns and use them, have guns and don't use them, don't have guns and don't use them. If someone is going to assert that my countrymen should take up arms- putting myself, my family, and my friends at mortal risk- over taxes and budget decisions, they can at least admit that their frame means it's quite good that we kept the guns despite the mass shootings. I'm not going to operate on a hairpin trigger on advice from a self-proclaimed pacifist, you know?
Impeachment. There have been multiple clearly impeachable offences by the current administration. The congress GOP should take responsibility for getting the US out of this.
Let’s be honest, that’s not a realistic solution. The GOP is completely onboard with what he’s doing, so suggesting they take care of it is just admitting defeat.
A key question that I'm not sure can be answered: among Republican reps and senators, what is the ratio of "on board with it all" to "terrified of what will happen to themselves if they don't appear to be on board"?
If the "terrified" camp is sufficiently large, their terror can be overridden with a sufficiently large swing in public opinion. They're potentially movable.
The true believers...not sure if anything can move them. If the "on board" camp is (nearly) all Republican legislators, then there is no path to impeachment.
It will be interesting to see how things evolve as the economic impacts of Trump's policies develop. That's probably the most direct path to the level of public opinion shift needed to make impeachment possible.
He tweeted yesterday that they want to impeach him again, that he wants to remove Democratic congressmen from Congress for "crimes" they committed, and that the GOP should handle it.
For those replying who think this isn't an option - what precisely is the end-game in your mind?
Edit: I'd be interested to hear why the downvotes. I'm genuinely curious about this, because a lot of people seem to think that a) Congress is useless, and b) half the population of America is stupid, and so I'm just curious how you see America moving forward, or even if you do at all?
it appears that MAGA has successfully dismantled the USA. I don't expect any further fair elections, TBH.
I'm rather aghast at how much of American corporate money is just either collaborating with an obviously criminal regime or just sort of blindly pretending business as usual can return with an election.
There is no current checks mor balances, a king runs America and Republicans smile because they are wearing the same color jersey and seem to think their longtime agenda is being implemented, when, no, a mafia is riding their agenda and party to absolute power.
The GOP is completely mask off and is fine with Trump turning the country into Mussolini Italy if it means they get a seat at the table. They are traitors and I hope every one of them has their day in The Hague.
The United States is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court so there is exactly zero percent chance of anyone from the GOP appearing at The Hague.
Assuming there will be a free and fair election in which the Democrats win, it would be a sensible move to repeal the Hague Invasion Act, ratify the Rome Statute and refer all of the 47th's admin's key figures there - that avoids any possible issues with the Supreme Court.
Additionally, it would restore a bit of global confidence in the ICC and America's credibility on the global stage as well... something sorely needed after not even a few months of this administration.
1.Hague Invasion act was 71-22 in the Senate and 280-138 in the House, with 84 Yes and 116 Nos(edited because I flipped the numbers) from Democrats. Its more or less a consensus US position, not partisan.
2.Even if it did pass, retroactively referring 47 there doesn't scream "law and order" to me, especially when there are actual laws being broken.
> Its more or less a consensus US position, not partisan.
That was the case in 2002, back when the Supreme Court still worked and was reasonably respected, and Congress at least did lip service to follow its duties.
Now, the circumstances have shifted - the Supreme Court is seen as compromised as a result of the Trump appointments plus the corruption scandals surrounding Roberts. Therefore I'm not so sure that the Hague Invasion Act would remain if it were pushed to a vote in a future Democrat-controlled Congress.
> Even if it did pass, retroactively referring 47 there doesn't scream "law and order" to me, especially when there are actual laws being broken.
I agree, the normal course of action should be to put 47th and his goon(er)s through the regular American court system - but I am afraid that the legal system has degraded way too much over the last years from all the political appointments. That's why in Croatia and Serbia we had the ICTY established, there was no trust of fair trials.
The constitution prohibits ex post facto prosecution.
Assuming that we continue to elect presidents, you need one to appoint an effective Attorney General (ie not Garland) and use these new king like powers of the executive to smash. The president was convicted of dozens of crimes, but nobody had the balls to throw him in jail.
You have to think about 2025 solutions. The die is cast, it isn’t 1995 anymore. Nobody is clutching their pearls because POTUS made a mess on an intern anymore. It’s a different environment and you’re going to have to have fistfights on the Senate floor if the congress is functioning.
> The constitution prohibits ex post facto prosecution.
A lot of what the 47th and people in his administration did are already punishable by law - alone the Signal affair or other violations of the Public Records Act.
It would not be a ex post facto prosecution, it would simply be a prosecution by a court of law that is reasonably free from corruption.
The United States has courts. I don’t think we have a law that allows you to create another jurisdiction above that of the US Courts. That’s a change in the law.
> I don’t think we have a law that allows you to create another jurisdiction above that of the US Courts. That’s a change in the law.
Well, whoever succeeds Trump will have to go for drastic measures to restore global trust in the US. No way around that, the system is fundamentally broken and needs a complete and utter overhaul. If the Democrats have an ounce of interest in self-preservation, they have no alternative than to bring down all the hammers they can on the MAGA part of the GOP.
If this happened here in Canada, I would go to weekly protests against this administration. When I was younger I went to dozens of daily protest for something insignificant in comparison [1] and it did lead to a change of gouvernement.
HN employees of X, Tesla, SpaceX (etc), Meta, Alphabet and other tech businesses supporting Trump could also strike or threaten to strike to pressure their owners/boards.
It's going to be a long slow process of firstly making sure that all Democrats are actually anti-Trump through primary challenges, then trying to ensure a D sweep in the mid-term elections. I don't think there's much chance of anything before then.
In addition to the other comments pointing out how your "Americans invented microprocessors" is wrong,
> [Americans] landed on the moon without a federal Department of Education
maybe you should check what the budget for NASA was during the space race and what it is now, considering also the news from 3 days ago about further budget cuts to the Agency.
Biggest real action movie last year was “Deadpool & Wolverine”, a Disney movie which was shot in UK and made a bit over 50% of its revenue overseas[1]. Its main stars were Canadian and Australian.
Does this mean that you’ll have to pay double to go watch it to cinemas in the US? Will that make Disney to focus on the international market?
Since it's about movies produced overseas, I don't think the nationality of the actors or the overseas revenue counts.
But it probaby counts that it was shot in the UK. The reason why Disney does that is because they get tax breaks from the UK government, which I think it's what Trump is referring to.
I think there's a big difference between VAT for consumer goods and cities providing big incentives for filming there. I'm not giving an opinion on whether they're good or bad, just saying that they're very different and I don't think they should be compared.
VAT is bad for US because a car made in US is 22% more expensive when sold in UK than a car made in UK sold in US. VAT makes it harder for US car company to sell in UK. It reduces number of US jobs making cars.
UK giving tax breaks to US companies also reduces number of US jobs because a catering business in Los Angeles loses a job to a catering business in London. So does a carpenter, an extra etc.
It's all simple to understand, consistent and frankly very leftist.
> VAT makes it harder for US car company to sell in UK. It reduces number of US jobs making cars.
that makes no sense.
Assuming the same amount of cars sold, with or without VAT the amount of US jobs making cars would stay the same. VAT is applied to any car regardless of origin it's not harder or easier for anyone.
The overseas revenue is important as companies will need to prioritise markets. They don’t want to choose, but if they have to, they’ll prefer to keep 60% of the revenue over 40%. Assuming some sort of reciprocal actions, the risk is making Hollywood “less American”.
Reciprocal actions are not going to affect the whole 60%.
I assume there are very few locations like the UK that are going to be significantly hit by the tarifs and might react with countermeasures that will affect only a small part of the overseas revenue.
For now, there is no executive order or anything, so what he means by 'produced in' is anyone guess. Might also be just an announcement that will not end up in anything concrete. Wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the last.
There is no rational thought going into Trump's social media output.
I swear he has a set of 6 tiny books just the right size for his hands, each with 6 pages and on each page there are 6 categories of things.
He's rolls a dice 3 times to pick a category then a final one to pick from the list of 6 tariff levels to be applied.
Then when somone wakes up to see whatever unhinged shit he posted "this time" and realises how abjectly stupid it is, the whole things gets unwound. If any journalist dares mention it again then it was just "trolling the fake news media" and was never meant seriously.
Why would it be more expensive to produce it in the US, then? I thought one of the reasons for making the movie "abroad" was to get some subsidies from other countries "if you film it here", kind of.
This makes no sense and people are giving it too much credit. What does “produced” mean? How do you “tariff” a movie? When is the movie crossing the border and who’s doing the valuation, customs check, and so on? There’s literally no substance to this and people are tying themselves into knots to make sense of this.
> There are things to sort out, but it's certainly doable. They can probably use direct COGS to determine the tariff basis.
You could construct a variety of accounting methods to calculate a tax on the 'foreign content' of movies, but how do you actually impose this tax?
A tariff on physical goods is easy. A country requires that goods enter the country through customs facilities, and then the nice customs official doesn't release the thing until the tax is paid. The legal and physical ability to impose these taxes is long, long established.
How do you physically impose a tariff on a movie? If the master is transported physically, what is its value? The value of the fixed copy/master doesn't necessarily include the value of the IP involved, in the same way that a DVD of a $500 million movie might have a retail value of $20. What about movies transferred digitally, since there are no customs checkpoints on fiber-optic lines?
What legal apparatus would be used to impose this tax? Trump is currently getting away with the physical-goods tariffs because the legal infrastructure to collect the taxes is already in place, and remaining legal disputes are just about whether the President can unilaterally set or change tariff rates. If you'd need new law to "tariff movies," then the chance of this whim turning into a real tax drops sharply.
What does it mean for a movie to cross a border, if the IP ultimately belongs to an American production studio and for all effective purposes its final assembly happens in the US?
To be fair, even the EU can be expected to enact regulations calibrated to decrease American dominance in the tech sector at this point. So if Trump tariffs don’t take down US software. I’m certain new regulations around the world will take US software down in any case.
I live in Belgium. It feels like 95% of all films I ever hear about are American. Opponents counter MAGA with 'America was never great', but here they'll say 'Movies have never left America'?
Movies are overwhelmingly made _by_ American studios but I don't know if they are overwhelmingly _made_ (shot) in the US. It's very common to shoot in a location that gives tax incentives. E.g. Vancouver used to be (potentially still is) a common production location.
Vancouver and Toronto were very often used as stand-ins for shows based in places like Chicago, Seattle, NYC and many others. Might still be, but I barely consume that sort of media nowadays.
It made watching TV shows like Stargate SG1 additionally amusing though -- every planet they visited was basically some location near Vancouver. Me and friends used to joke about how much like carcinisation is a thing in evolution, in the Stargate universe all planets eventually ended up looking like British Columbia.
Iirc, either Carter or Daniel Jackson pretty much said something along those lines in one of the later seasons. Not the BC part specifically, but about why stargates were usually on planets pretty comfortable for humans.
But the overarching point is that even shows where at least one of the actors (RDA) were given an award by the US Air Force for their depiction of the branch, were largely filmed outside the US.
Another veteran movie insider's take on this issue:
"I say Los Angeles WAS the best, because I don't think it's true any more. For many decades, film tax incentives have sucked production from Hollywood (and New York). Also, due to technological advancements, it's a lot easier to shoot away from a production center." [0]
Some hard numbers:
"Lockdowns, strikes, and exploding production costs have pushed many productions overseas, especially for streaming services with global ambitions. Hollywood production volumes have declined steeply since the second quarter of 2023. Stateside production is down 40% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to peak television levels of filming during the same period in 2022." [1]
Work for IATSE crew union members has declined precipitously.
During the pandemic, there was so much demand for content that the studios spent a lot of money teaching foreign crews how to produce films. They sent a lot of staff to Eastern Europe and Asia to train local crews. Serbia, etc., where the crews are making well below union wages and can work long hours without regulation.
Since 2023, 60% or so of productions have vacated LA, Atlanta, and New York in favor of being shot overseas. They just fly the cast out. It's significantly cheaper than filming at home.
IATSE membership is being decimated. Lots of folks have moved out of California because the jobs just aren't there anymore.
I'm much more anti-union than the average joe, but Hollywood is one example where it kind of makes sense, disregarding the international competition angle for a sec: it is a highly specialised kind of work, sometimes dangerous, with a very limited number of employers that are operating in a cartel-like environment that is known to be financially (and sometimes also sexually and ethnically) ruthless and opportunistic. The negotiating power is very uneven.
Considering that even in a big and highly competitive environment such as Silicon Valley they managed to establish illegal hiring cartels between the big companies (Apple etc), I'd be sceptical to dish out free market arguments.
Hollywood is not loosing relevance due to inflated wages, they stopped making movies people want to see. The reason for that is quite obvious, but a totally different discussion.
Most non-American movies are slop, melodramatic vaudeville, or tear-jerking gut-punches. Most American movies are slop too, but America can afford to swing at more pitches and consequently get more hits.
Have you ever tried to watch Korean movies from the last 20 years? It's all melodramatic romance-crime-poverty slop, with the rare Kim Ki-duk or Bong Joon Ho in there to balance it out. And that's a country with a wonderful reputation for quality film-making.
I mean you get zombies on a train and that's a fun popcorn flick, but it's forgettable. It's no Tremors, Twister, or Independence Day.
In Indonesia for every The Raid there's 999 poorly acted, poorly shot melodramas with a thin well-trodden story.
And don't get me started on "let's yell at each other for 120 minutes" Russian cinema.
American movies are by far the most watchable, especially when you don't feel like going on a heart-wrenching journey of despair, which is all international cinema excels at.
I didn't realize how many bad movies Italy produces, or at least produced, until I started living there in the late 1990s. Italians often go to the movies every week, and I did too, and then I realized that for every 'Life is Sweet', there were 50 dire entries that were just well-targeted enough to make their money back from a native audience. You'll never have heard of these movies, and rightly so.
Having lived in other countries since, this appears to be a common syndrome. You can't judge a country by its tourists, and you certainly can't judge it by the small number of movies that get past its border control.
Well said. Most people don't realize this. And likewise there's a Paris Syndrome that tourists sometimes have when first visiting America and expecting to step into a Hollywood movie. That subsides quickly.
That said, American movies pass border control to other countries all the time because of their broad appeal.
I'll say that I am less offended than some of my fellow commenters in this thread. I can hardly name 5 Belgian movies that I would suggest anyone to watch; Belgium has 1/30th of the US' population, but certainly a much, much smaller percentage of good movies.
Also, none of them are of the same 'appeal' as the American movies you cited, which are mostly action movies. The general populace wants to see big stunts and explosions, which require budget, local movies don't gross because they rely on local audiences, repeat ad infinitum. Most European movies that try to _look American_ in that sense fail horribly imo.
However, the ones I can name all have something in common: they wouldn't appeal to an international audience because there is something inherently 'local' to them. Not only language barriers (imagine reading subtitles) but also a certain 'European film aesthetic/tone' just like American blockbusters have theirs. American movies don't have the same 'local barrier' for Europeans because they are the norm and we're getting them force-fed by the 100bio Hollywood industrial complex: it's a movie, or it's a local movie.
Hollywood undoubtedly has more money, but you genuinely have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the quality of what gets made.
So many things that hollywood produces are remakes of foreign movies, except with an order of magnitude more money poured in and palate-switched for american audiences. (which, due to the sheer volume of content that comes out of hollywood- becomes the default international palate).
The entertainment industry in Sweden (girl with the dragon tattoo, a man called Otto) and the UK (the countries I have lived in) is undoubtedly very strong, even comparatively poor (not intended as a slur here) India is quite famous for its bombastic action movies.
Russia too, has some of the most thought provoking movies that I've ever seen. Leviathan and Durak- they even have your "fun" action style movies (Brat and Brat 2 for fantastic examples).
To say that Hollywood produces more and thus sometimes better, and that other counties make slop betrays two things:
1) Hollywood steals vigorously from other countries.
2) Other countries produce works that do not translate well for american audiences.
Every country has 5 or 10 good movies you can name, and they're always the same ones. Brat and Brat 2, Leviathan and Durak... the list doesn't go on much beyond that. And certainly not in the last 20 years.
For US movies, the list goes on. And you can debate which ones should make the top-100.
But here's a pivotal soviet comedy about a guy who goes to the future... okay, here's Bob Zemeckis's Back to the Future. Compare the quality of any aspect: story, acting, props, costumes, cinematography, special fx, attention to detail, MUSIC... 1:1 US cinema destroys on every level.
Bollywood action movies? They're parodies of themselves- Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess with the Zohan, except they take themselves seriously.
> But here's a pivotal soviet comedy about a guy who goes to the future... okay, here's Bob Zemeckis's Back to the Future. Compare the quality of any aspect: story, acting, props, costumes, cinematography, special fx, attention to detail, MUSIC... 1:1 US cinema destroys on every level.
There's a Russian saying "no point in comparing finger with a dick". "Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession" was made in 1973 on a budget that was modest even by Soviet standards. It looks like a cheap TV movie for a reason: they reused existing sets and decorations from other movies. The few Hollywood sci-fi comedies of the early 1970s are of similar quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BOnUobhm6U
> "Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession" was made in 1973 on a budget that was modest even by Soviet standards. It looks like a cheap TV movie
To be fair, it looks just like any other Soviet movie from that era ("The Diamond Arm", "Afonya", "Shurik's Adventures", etc.), with the exception of the few that were considered "mega projects' by the government ("War and Peace").
I wouldn't call "Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession" that either. It's more of a "Blazing Saddles" type movie with a cult following due to its catchphrases, but overall, it isn't very good. Even among movies by the same director, some slightly earlier titles like "Kidnapping, Caucasian Style" and "The Diamond Arm" from the late 1960s are much better, and hold up well against Hollywood contemporaries like "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Great Race". I'd even say that cinematically, "The Diamond Arm" is a league above the average Hollywood movie of the era. It was shot really beautifully and has wonderful use of color.
> "The Diamond Arm" is a league above the average Hollywood movie of the era.
OK, even if true, that's only one movie :) I mean, ask any person from that era and they'll tell you it's their favorite. Kind of unfair to compare the only shining example to the "Hollywood average".
Ask Russian-speakers to recommend a fun iconic movie to watch, and Ivan Vasilievich comes up all the time. I don’t see why, but it does.
Diamond Hand too.
It would be ridiculous if the same were true about Hollywood.
A Russian asks an American what movies to watch, and 8 out of 10 people go back to 1969 to recommend the same one? Impossible.
You’d get everything from Citizen Kane to Hitchcock to Rocky, etc. But you’d also get about 150 great picks from the 80s and 90s, and another dozen from after 2000.
And forget the greats. You’d get Zoolander, Demolition Man, Total Recall, Gremlins, Scream, John Wick, Legally Blonde even… there’s such a wide pool of fun iconic popcorn movies for any person.
Not to mention your Star Wars/Trek/Gate.
These movies aren’t “good” in the sense of being art. They’re good in the sense of people wanting to watch them.
Every n years I rewatch Commando, Con-Air, The Last Starfighter, etc just for kicks. It’s not pure nostalgia- they’re fun movies.
With int’l movies from any given country the list of recommendations is extremely shallow. It’s always one or two iconic revelations from a given decade. Or a couple auteur directors who won all the awards for their think-pieces about the human condition.
Look, this is a losing argument. It’s ok if you prefer stuff like Zemeckis (who I might add, made a lot of melodramatic films himself) over international films, but that doesn’t them objectively better or more watchable for everybody.
> Look at all those top non-American films on that list:
That’s not a list of non-American films, it’s a list of non-American directors.
To answer what I assume is your every so snarkily delivered point: Yes, about a third of the directors on that list ended up successful in Hollywood. Does that mean international films are bad? Probably not! Does it maybe mean even Hollywood recognizes that there is a lot of international talent, and very good international films being made? Probably yes?
Not trolling. Having lived in many countries and had the TV on, this happens to be my unpopular opinion.
American movies are popular globally not because they're American but because they're so damn watchable/enjoyable/varied.
Granted that becomes less true every year, since Hollywood appears to be broken. Other countries haven't figured out how to pick up the slack though. 1994 Hollywood will likely never come again.
Ah yes, the 'slop, melodramatic vaudeville, or tear-jerking gut-punches' of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Wong Ching-Po, Stephen Chow, John Woo, Emin Alper, Win Wenders, Pedro Almodóvar, Sylvain Chomet, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Jacques Demy, Lee Chang-dong, Shunji Iwai, Wai Keung Lau, Wong Kar-wai, Hirokazu Koreeda, Park Chan-wook, Tran Anh Hung, Nadine Labaki, Santiago Mitre, ...
Yes, the US is a wealthy country, with a big population, a healthy movie industries and a lot of consumer. It does mean that the US produce a lot of movies, from auteur movie to holywood blockbuster. Disproportionally more than any other country in the world. But dismissing every non-US movie industry just show your ignorance about cinema in general.
There were several from China to be exact (Hong Kong to be precise, which had its own cinema golden-era between the late 80'and early 00'), and more than one from France also, some of which are more contemporary :) .
Most movie everywhere are not masterpiece, incredible contribution to the art, tasteful and original. They are easy, made to profit, amateurish, etc. That is true for every art form.
Again, yes the US being the wealthiest country in the world means that they can afford to produce more, and therefore, in your own word "can afford to swing at more pitches and consequently get more hits.". That much is true.
The rest of your message is just dismissive of non-US movie in general, and again just show your ignorance and unwillingness to engage with different movie.
> And don't get me started on "let's yell at each other for 120 minutes" Russian cinema.
Just because you don't like it does not make it slop.
> American movies are by far the most watchable, especially when you don't feel like going on a heart-wrenching journey of despair, which is all international cinema excels at.
If you were to look at US movies that win awards, they tend to be "heart-wrenching journey of despair". That is just a bias of the perception of "awardable" cinema. Good light-heated comedy rarely wins award (altough stories of hope also often do). That is not specific to "international" cinema.
You want some fun slapstick comedy from hong-kong, watch Stephen Chow movies. Some light hearted romance from France ? Jacques Demy might tickle your fancy. A more action horiented movie, Wong Ching-po wight interest you.
Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Melodramatic poorly acted, over-choreographed, stunt wire work. Might as well be a dance or a cartoon. At least in the Matrix homage to this genre, there was some diegetic explanation for why the characters appeared to be throwing each other around on wires.
predictably, summing up the entire worlds cinema as inferior to one nations cinema provokes disagreement.
you can simply say that you were wrong to make such a sweeping judgement and have no actual notion of the entire worlds cinematic output, nor speak anything besides english to properly understand anyone elses films, but yey, feel free to dig in your heels and be wronger.
Or... I might speak multiple languages and have lived in multiple countries. Enough to see not only the movies that break through into Oscar contention, but also whatever random movie is playing in cinemas for 2 weeks over the rainy season, and will never be heard of again.
There's a universe in which one nation is a cinematic powerhouse that dwarfs not just the average quantity but also the average quality of the cinematic output of any other nation.
My argument is this is the case. Less so every year, since Hollywood is broken now, but still.
Most American movies are shot outside of the US these days because among other factors Hollywood unions have made it way more expensive to shoot in the US.
“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” Trump said in the Truth Social post. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”
To me this seems to motivate the tariffs as a battle against foreign propaganda.
Well, yes. American films obviously have been soft on China because they've been desperate for access to the Chinese market. You don't bite the hand that feeds. In a similar way, if a significant amount of film production moves to the UK, it's likely that criticisms of the UK would be more muted. In the long run, this creates a national security threat when our media is inundated with non-neutral messages about other countries that are not acting in our best interest.
The easy way to see this is to reverse your lens. We've been the beneficiary of soft power from Hollywood for a century. It'd be ridiculous to lose that power without at least trying to preserve it.
> if a significant amount of film production moves to the UK, it's likely that criticisms of the UK would be more muted.
Have you watched British television or movies sometimes? They're not exactly sparing their country from criticism .. E.g. (the original) House of Cards, Not the Nine O'Clock News, etc.
The other country you mention, China, is a better match. But is that the kind of society that the USA wants to be?
Are you intentionally missing the point? Our films made in the US are already neutered from a free-speech perspective because we're chasing opinions that are politically correct in China. We don't want to worsen that by bending to every foreign tax break. We should be making unapologetically American movies, and if foreign consumers still watch those movies, all the better. But we shouldn't be writing these to a lowest common denominator of politically correct speech. It's how we've arrived at a point where all we produce is Marvel slop.
Does the First Amendment preclude the US from imposing prohibitive taxes on media?
It'd be clearly unconstitutional to ban them outright; so, where and how's that line drawn?
late edit: I just want to note the text of POTUS' announcement includes this: "It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!" The overtly expressed motive here is animus towards the content of the speech (not some content-neutral factor like trade balances).
Not sure how you even tarif movies. I guess Netflix will receive bills based on viewership?
Anyway, as usual other countries will retaliate. American movies will become both more expensive to make and taxed abroad. Meanwhile, we can expect more people will turn to piracy to cope with rising inflation. I can't imagine any scenario where this isn't backfiring.
It's not just "evil greedy production companies want to save money", as some other comments imply.
There is EU regulation requiring that 30% of content available on streaming services for European customers are "European works". The definition is a bit complicated, but this is definitely a big part of why plenty of production has moved to Europe and the UK.
If this goes through it could bring some problems for Netflix et al. They can always artificially restrict the low-value content content from customers in EU countries though. As if the arcane licensing and availability landscape wasn't crazy enough for media...
1. Media spin or early reporting, it is nothing in stone yet. This should be the understanding for any "new policy" announced m-f for this admin.
2. Even if it is to be set in stone, likely will be rescinded.
3. It is vague on purpose ^
4. Assuming it becomes set in ston, it is a direct pander to Disney, Universal etc. from the current admin. Chinese film making (animation in particular) is now outperforming Disney in every metric in every market.
5. Disney et all. stand to lose either way. This is capitalism at work and american film studios will see costs skyrocket as local and foreign competitors silo resources.
So far only the dictatorial threat has been made. The Secretary of Commerce says he’s working on it, so presumably he’ll fabricate a justification for it soon.
This might have an interesting effect on the kind of movies produced in the US. Presumably other countries will hit American movies with reciprocal tariffs which will hurt the international market for Hollywood. But some genres play much better internationally than others. We might see a decline in fantasy and action blockbusters and a resurgence in wordy comedies and baseball movies.
Wes Anderson is positioning cinematographers on American soil with extremely powerful telephoto lenses, filming actors performing in meticulously designed miniature sets across the Canadian border. The film will be titled "The Asymmetrical Tax Avoidance" and will star Bill Murray as a customs agent with daddy issues.
I doubt he cares about any (generally) blue state/city/industry union workers as much as he cares about some random business leader with a vested interest in this outcome that talked to him this weekend.
Not only are the US the biggest film exporter in the world by far, with Hollywood being a pillar of American soft power, but you can't even apply “tariff” to movies as it is IP, not physical goods (on which tariffs apply). Sure you can imagine schemes to tax these anyway, but that's a huge can of worms to open for the US, are they are net exporters of everything IP related.
The EU has been struggling with base evasion and profit shifting (BEPS) from US companies because it was all about IP and they never dared to tax it in fear of upsetting the US government. But if the move comes from the US first, then they will follow suite with a lot of enthusiasm.
Can you give any examples of IP piracy (outside of China) because IP in the US doesn't automatically transfer outside the US, they need to be registered in other regions also..
It bodes very badly for everyone that the entire Republican Party is fine with having an entire federal government policy based on the random TV-driven whims of a bitter, broken and clearly ailing old man. Would they even try to stop him pushing the button?
It is not random. These are not some lucky people who got the lead of the world most powerful country. These are targeted at blue states/demographics. This should have been obvious from Section 174(c)(3) but somehow everyone seems oblivious to it?
> This should have been obvious from Section 174(c)(3) but somehow everyone seems oblivious to it?
If you want to change that, i.e. make people aware of it, don’t just name the section; link to it and briefly explain what it is and why people should be against it. Even doing just one of those three would help your cause.
>If you want to change that, i.e. make people aware of it, don’t just name the section; link to it and briefly explain what it is and why people should be against it. Even doing just one of those three would help your cause.
I'm not sure why this (Section 174(c)(3)) [0] is relevant to our discussion in any way, but here it is for everyone's perusal:
>(3) Software development
>
>For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred
>in connection with >the development of any software shall
>be treated as a research or experimental >expenditure.
it s impressive that , despite the US deciding to self-implode there is nobody willing to step in to compete for their place. It's as if the species has culturally peaked after its demographic peak. Europe is already in retirement and US seems to follow. Maybe we'll see African dynamism in a few decades
> there is nobody willing to step in to compete for their place
China has been stepping on a number fronts. They are working on trade deals that exclude the US, and I'm sure are excited about the soft power vacuum left when USAID shutdown.
Maybe?.. If China had some sort of open minded Taiwanese government instead of the CCP, the US would be already buried by now. The problem of China, besides its concerning demography, is the authoritarian regime and its expansion views, which are both not very appealing for many Asian neighbors and Europeans.
China as a huge manufacturing hub shows that while people may talk about China's internal policies, the economics are what really matter in geopolitics.
Then there's Africa which China has been actively engaging and the USA has all but left at this point.
The global south will be interesting to see who engages there.
When it comes to trade and geopolitics, I don't think countries would care about morality or authoritarian rule etc. As long as they are able to protect themselves against China's expansion views, countries will happily do business with the Chinese. They just wouldn't care what China does at home or elsewhere, as long as they aren't affected. I can't think of any country that has such high moral standards that they would give up cheap goods and a 1.4 Billion people market, because of Taiwan or uyghur situation
In other words there is only profit/loss and strength/weakness, not right/wrong when it comes to global politics. There might be some exception cases like material support for Ukraine, but that is limited. Even in that case, there is a bit of selfishness - countries like Poland know Ukraine is acting as a buffer, if they don't help the Ukrainians, they themselves will be next on Russia's list
I don't think something that happened more than 80 years ago is a great example of how the modern world might adapt - not to mention that involved more than just America.
China is in a similar problem to South Korea where pretty soon they'll be in a rapid population decline. Or so some have been saying. I believe their official census data supports this.
You have to ask yourself why nobody wants the role. This role has only been a thing for 81 years and the USA is the only 1 dumb enough to ever try to do it.
The EU could do it; basically nobody else is in the ballpark to try. No chance though.
Everyone is looking at Nigeria. More than doubling their population by the end of the century. Extremely healthy population pyramid.
India is soon to be the new Asian superpower. Which sure is wrecking their neighbours with their slower urbanization that is avoiding the WW2 blight.
These 2 are the likely next world order candidates; if they play their cards right.
You probably won't. French cinema is americanizing. Good movies are still made, but 'les 3 mousquetaires' showed that most huge french productions are poor copies of 2000 era Ridley Scott (well, Ridley Scott himself make poor copies of his 2000-era films). 'Le Comte de Monte Cristo' was better (way better), but the colour filters,the lack of sound (or the music too loud and too epic), the useless sword fight and the 'reading letter' trick, all inspired by Hollywood action movies pushed it down from Good movie to 'almost as bad as Marvel' imho.
And the dialogs not inspired from the book are as expected, but that's modern cinema, not Hollywood in particular. That noone took the torch from Audiard or Prevert is a shame.
The rumor I heard is that Trump watched _Escape From Alcatraz_ over the weekend, which resulted in this decree in addition to the "we are reopening Alcatraz" decree
Will this simply drive studios to produce with an even heavier eye towards the Chinese market?
There’s a nugget of truth to Hollywood moving production overseas, but I’m not convinced a massive tariff will have the effect Trump wants. Just like all his other economic fuckery.
Trump always hated foreign movies - I remember him disparaging an Academy award winning movie purely because it was non-English language. Wonder what prompted this outburst - the success of Ne Zha 2 (china bad), or No Other Land (can't say Palestine)?
This proclamation and his desire to reopen Alcatraz may be linked to the fact that PBS in Palm Beach aired "Escape from Alcatraz" last night. Presumably the tariffs on foreign movies came from his annoyance at channel surfing.
It's something that I think has been bubbling up for a while. I've heard a lot of complaints from people in and around the industry, and the complaints are a lot less about Ne Zha 2 and more about stuff that used to be filmed in Hollywood being filmed in Canada instead for cost purposes.
Cool, whatever organic market activities need to take place to make products cheaper is ok by the real gods of sacred capitalism. Trump is acting more and more like an irrational communist dictator each day.
I had never heard of Ne Zha 2, but a quick search shows that it only had a limited release in the US and made a tiny $20 million at the box office. Unlikely that Trump is making decisions based on that.
How does one tariff a movie? It’s not like because it’s made in Australia that the blue rays are shipped through there? Not that anyone uses blue rays, like at what point does a movie go through customs
I don't get it? How many non-US movies does the US even import?
I can't think of any country that the US imports more movies from than it exports?
Even if you believe in tariffs what industry in America does this protect that needs protection?
Of is he gambling on recipritoral tarrifs to 'punish' the liberal Hollywood???? Sounds conspiracy-like but I legit can't think of any other reason this makes sense.
Is no one in this administration willing/able to deter the senile old man in charge from worsening the situation through new tariffs? I mean, don't get me wrong, this is music to my ears. Ever since I became an accelerationist last november, I cheer every time I see them pour oil on the fire.
Last time he let himself be surrounded by people with experience from other administrations. They frequently ran interference. This time he's doing it his way.
It's not as if this is unexpected. He said what he was going to do. This is what the voters voted for, and his constituents support him.
I realize it's just another hair-brained scheme likely cooked up on the porcelain throne, but part of me is curious about how exactly they'd implement this train wreck.
Since Trump is relying on declarations of national emergencies for his tariffs, there's the question whether it's even legal given that Berman Amendments to the IEEPA[0] explicitly exempt "informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, *films*, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds" from the President's authority under IEEPA.[1]
Even if we set that aside and ignore the likely legal challenges, how would you actually implement them? It's not like a movie or TV episode "produced" overseas gets transmitted into the US each time somebody wants to watch it. It's a digital file, and you're really only sending it once. So when do you tariff the damn thing, how do you manage to actually do it since there's not exactly a literal port of entry for the internet, and what exactly do you value it at? The system isn't built to track and tariff info being uploaded to random servers, and making it work would require all sorts of new law.
Plus, what's the legal definition of "production" he wants to use? What constitutes foreign production? Can some of the producing just be done remotely? What if raw footage is uploaded instead and then it's edited here? Or a nearly finished copy that just needs something minor done to be considered ready? Hollywood accountants are in a league of their own. Put them in a room with lawyers and accountants whose focus is the creative eccentricities of tariff engineering--hello, chicken tax people[0]--and I shudder to imagine what they'd get up to.
We're only a few months in at this point, and I feel like I'm losing my mind.
What's Trump's agenda? Kiss the ring and we'll waive your tariffs? In what form will Hollywood be asked to kiss the ring here? More pro maga content? Pro maga actors? Remove "woke" content?
Given how much modern actors and related are freaking out about AI (despite holding "egalitarian" social views), I'm more than happy to see them destroyed. Very bad for US soft-power but great for helping gut hollywood faster.
Huge amounts of the top brass of hollywood are disgusting. Tom Cruise and the rest of Scientologies leadership should be in prison right now, and that's just one tiny example of the sea of shit found in hollywood.
Trump is likely saying this because the new Prime Minister of Canada is visiting tomorrow, and Canada has been fairly successful building a "Hollywood North" industry -- lots of good filming locations, lots of talents that are indistinguishable from Americans, and tax credits on top.
This is 100% targeted at Canada, and trying to threaten destroying the Canadian film industry as another lever against Canada.
And it is laughably silly. Even in Canada alone, "Hollywood" nets far more than it ever spends here[1]. And of course worldwide media is something that the US has an enormous trade surplus. It's yet another harebrained bit of nonsense from the extremely smooth, simpleton mind of Trump and his greasy used-car salesman, carnival barker Howard Lutnick.
What Trump is really achieving in all of these declarations is making the rest of the world ask why do we accept Hollywood controlling the film or music industry, or Silicon Valley controlling the tech industry, or NYC the financial industry, etc? The end result of this is going to be massive decentralization and lowered importance of US industry leadership.
[1] Not to mention that the tax credits quite literally subsidizes the industry. And FWIW, I am wholly against tax credits for film productions, and much like paying a sports team to build a stadium, the accounting of the supposed benefit just doesn't make any sense.
The filmmaking industry is constantly flying productions all over the world to avoid paying US labor. Waste of time, money, energy. And the saved money isn't given back to the people making the movie, the unions are still constantly fighting with the industry for basic asks.
I don't see a problem here, this is what tariffs are actually for. Broken clock is right twice a day yada yada
eta: one can not like the man and not think this is a bad idea. same as we don't need more dolls from china and it's weird for us to suddenly die on that hill. /shrug
> The filmmaking industry is constantly flying productions all over the world to avoid paying US labor.
Think of all the American jobs that are lost when a film studio chooses to shoot on-location in Paris instead of attempting to build a replica of Paris in Los Angeles. No one ever thinks about all of the construction workers who never get a chance to build a fake Eiffel Tower, or all of the struggling local actors whose attempts to fake French accents will never be heard by audiences, let alone the HVAC technicians who make sure the air conditioners work properly in the indoor studio sets that have to be used to film outdoor scenes in Paris so that the Champs-Élysées doesn't look like Wilshire Boulevard.
Right, wait till all other countries tariff US movies. Again it is another US thing is more expensive for the average human on Earth scenario. Good luck with that.
It's about the production of movies, not the distribution of movies. I don't think people in this thread are reading the article. The original title of this submission didn't help.
The "tariff" we're talking about here would be for where the labor comes from. If a EU film company is choosing to film in the US instead of at home for cost reasons, then sure they can put a tariff on that somehow to keep it local. I don't think that's happening in any meaningful way, but it is in the reverse to the detriment of thousands and thousands of local jobs in LA, ATL, NY, etc.
i don't ask ppl who they voted for because i've learned it's not a good signal on whether they are nice or a good person. life is complicated. i didn't vote for trump though, so at least this village idiot has a clean conscience and just isn't interested in reliving 2017
Yes this man was democratically elected. There didn’t seem to be a particularly appealing set of options for the electorate.
As an outsider it seems a lot like groups pulling the political levers in the US only ensure candidates that can be ‘handled’ are put forward and those that can’t will be rooted out.
That’s why the choice was between braindead Biden vs deranged Trump. And when it was clear Biden wasn’t an option, a belated shift to try sell Kamala to the electorate.
I don’t think we’ll see strong presidential candidates - those clearly motivated to better the country and its citizens - in the near future either. The process now seems to suit the corporate and lobby groups who jostle to get their share of influence.
> There didn’t seem to be a particularly appealing set of options for the electorate.
I mean, there was one candidate who fawns over dictators, is a felon, always acts in his own personal interest, and had very public plans to try to dismantle democracy and seize ultimate power. Then there was another who would at worst continue the status quo and not try to overthrow the government.
It feels ridiculous to claim there was no appealing option. It’s like being given the option between losing both arms or being slapped in the face and shrugging that none of the options is appealing. At least try to pick the least unappealing.
That’s what you have spelled out but failed to appreciate the significance of. For a chunk of the electorate the status quo wasn’t working for them. I see from all the down votes people seem blind to this.
The ‘status quo’ may have been fine for you hence why you think that was better to continue…
> For a chunk of the electorate the status quo wasn’t working for them.
No doubt. But voting for someone who openly makes the worst parts of the status quo worse isn’t a solution either. If the current situation isn’t working for you, choosing to make it more difficult on yourself is nonsensical.
> The ‘status quo’ may have been fine for you hence why you think that was better to continue
I’m not American. But please do elucidate me on which groups exactly were being handed a bad hand by the status quo and are now better off. I think the answer will be quite enlightening.
> That’s why the choice was between braindead Biden vs deranged Trump.
Why would a political apparatus that only wants to offer candidates that can be 'handled' instead offer up a senile geriatric and a stubborn narcissist, both of whom are severely lacking in their capacity to take direction?
The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself. Movies and music made here are so often cited as the reason why young people around the world idealize America and want to emulate us (buy our clothes, speak English, etc)
It’s the cultural equivalent of being the world’s reserve currency, it’s a massive free advantage in almost any situation. Stupid stupid stupid to threaten it.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s in Germany, I've been brainwashed by US movies and sitcoms, 90% of the things I've watched was from the US - Magnum P.I, Simon & Simon, The Fall Guy, Kojak, A-Team, Golden Girls, Mary Taylor Moore, Lou Grant, MacGyver, Knight Rider, Night Court, Family Ties, Miami Vice, The Wonder Years, Facts of Life, Love Boat, and on and on and on.
I know the US better than many parts of Germany.
I know the US better than many parts of Germany
I read an article years ago from a lawyer (might have been a judge) complaining that, thanks to US TV and movies, people in Sweden know more about how the US justice system works than the Swedish system. Far too many people just fall back on their US TV knowledge of how they think courts work and that they keep having to explain to the people that, no that's not how things works in Sweden.
To be fair, Americans have the same problem. The US justice system does not perfectly mirror the Hollywood justice system and jurors are constantly reminded of this when they're called to serve on US juries.
It's hilarious to watch police body cam footage where an arrested person is screaming that they haven't been arrested properly because it didn't happen the way it happens in movies.
I like the ones who scream "I know my rights" when they absolutely do not know their rights.
What?! Next thing you'll tell me Dr House doesn't mirror the reality of working in healthcare.
They often got the "be an asshole to the patient" part down though.
We have very few shows about lawyers/law here because our system is simple (and boring?) enough that there isn't much to make anything interesting about.
IANAL but have taken some intro level course (that usually starts with don't think anything from American shows applies).
1: It's rooted in civil law so the written laws(and their precursor political discussions) are first considered, laws are thus fairly broadly written with specifications where needed. So precedents are mostly only used to disambiguate gray areas in terms of applicability or conflicts between laws. (but precedents rulings are in turn are meant to rely on the precursor political discussions before courts can take their own authority on any subject).
2: Intent is given significance, so 2 parties can enter into fairly "sloppily written" contracts that will be legally binding as long as the intent of the contract is clear, they're signed and doesn't violate any laws (there is law specifically targets obviously unfair contracts, but also other laws that regulate specific areas).
3: Criminal prosecution at the primary level is in front of 3 judges, one professional head judge with law degree that knows laws and 2 "laymen" to represent people in general (usually politically appointed to reflect the people via elections), no juries as the role those serve is handled by the laymen judges.
There was a viral clip of someone in a Spanish court saying “objection!”, and the lawyer saying “that’s in the American systems, in the movies!”
Same with me. I know way too many things about the US justice system - like the difference between prisons and jails, totally irrelevant to my life.
I have heard of Canadians making the same mistake.
There was a claim at one point that, due to the popularity of American TV shows in Europe, during household emergencies kids were calling 911 instead of the local version (e.g. it's 999 in some European countries)
I'd expect 911 to redirect to one of the emergency services in most/all European countries, no?
112 works in the reverse way in the US as well (along with 999 which is the equivalent in many other countries such as the UK). There's not really any reason not to have many numbers just in case. Tourists shouldn't have to memorize, and recall, new numbers in an emergency.
Hello operator, gimme the number for nine one one!
https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/112
As siblings have commented, 112 and 911 are in the GSM standard. On landlines, only 112 will work in most EU countries (and even that is an EU achievement; e.g. in Switzerland 112 is inconsistent)
No, only in a handful of countries, or on US airbases. 112 is your friend in all of Europe
112 should work in almost the whole world on a mobile phone, since it's part of the GSM standard.
AFAIK in mobile networks yes (911 and 112 are specified as emergency numbers in the specs and redirected as needed), not necessarily on landlines.
This is probably the case now as my original post was referring to a situation about 20 years ago (should have clarified)
Depends on country but in Poland where I live calling 911 also reaches emergency dispatch even if „valid” number is 112.
Why?
Because if someone is obviously trying to contact the emergency services it's probably a good idea to connect them to the emergency services.
You're answering the wrong question. Why would 911 be "obviously trying to contact emergency services"?
Prevailing culture.
A kid these days in most urban parts would tend to say "911 I have an emergency" while roleplaying because we hear it so much in popular culture.
What else would someone who dials 911 be trying to achieve? And does the benefit outweigh the cost?
911 has enough mindshare that it'd be silly to use it for anything else. And if you're not going to use it for anything, a redirect seems like a very productive way to park it.
Because US culture is exported around the world.
Because it's a number used for emergency services in many parts of the world, and not for ordering pizza, plane strikes or whatever.
Relatively speaking, it actually isn't that popular - check the map on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_...
That's what, 10% of world population? 112 has India going for it…
10% sounds incredibly significant. That's nearly a billion people.
Sure. And in a spherical cow world, assuming you want to make n emergency numbers work, you'd sort by population-using and take the first n.
…but even then 911 would only be an emergency phone number if n ≥ 3; first two places being taken by 112 and 110 (because China).
However, this completely ignores facts like people from China being far less likely to travel to e.g. the US… it's more of a "of the people who'd make emergency calls in XYZ, what numbers would they use" consideration…
…it's really not an easy question. GSM went with 112 and 911 and I guess that's as good as an answer this'll get.
It did in New Zealand in the late 90s
110 (Police), 112 (Ambulance, Fire Department) in Germany.
Why are there two different numbers? When there is an emergency you want people to always do the right thing. Guessing the wrong number to call is not the right thing, and worse 2 numbers means there is great chance you didn't memorize either. This is well studied in human factors.
Besides, anytime the other two are involved the police need to respond too - when there is a fire or medical emergency whoever can get that first can often be very helpful even if they are mostly for a different job. As such this separation seems wrong.
"anytime the other two are involved the police need to respond too"
This is not the US, the police does not show up to a fire or an emergency, why would they? They show up to an accident, and when you need an ambulance they will bring one.
The will also not stop and interrogate you when you walk to the side of the road. People usually have no interaction with the police outside of speeding tickets.
"get that first can often be very helpful"
Germany is not full of police patrolling the streets. Gladly we are no longer a police state. Usually I don't see any police for days, often not for weeks. Again, this is not the US. The only time you'll probably see police is going to train stations, airports or big tourist spots (and sometimes at parties that are too loud). In large cities, like Berlin, you might hear a siren and see a police car from time to time, depending on where you are. In smaller <1M people cities, not so.
Germany also has a proper health system and invests in ambulances and health instead of militarizing the police. So I can see your point, but it is irrelevant here.
> the police does not show up to a fire or an emergency, why would they?
Because they're trained first-responders, who have medical first aid training, vehicles with lights and sirens to move quickly through traffic, knowledge of the local area to navigate around road closures or ambiguous location descriptions, etc.
There are many situations where multiple sub-specialties of first-responders (police, firefighters, EMT, etc) are useful. The police aren't just showing up to arrest or shoot people, in a functioning society they can and do provide valuable service in assisting injured people, controlling traffic around car accidents, etc.
A common joke with firefighters: the difference between a training exercise and a real fire scene is the lack of law enforcement getting in the way.
> Because they're trained first-responders, who have medical first aid training
In many parts of the US they are only trained to EMR level (if that) which isn't particularly useful. Most fire departments require everyone to be EMT and will often have a paramedic on board. Where I am, police are all EMR and will rarely be dispatched to a medical call (unless there's a threat of violence). They will be dispatched to vehicle accidents for traffic control.
Where I'm from the police all have a larger first aid kit than is the typical home and they also have AEDs. If there is any change a police officer can arrive before the ambulance or fire department then they will dispatch the police there because seconds might be counting.
Yes the ambulance and fire department is better trained for these things. However basic first aid (CPR) and an AED in the hands of someone with basic first aid training often beats the most trained professional who is arrives just a minute later. So dispatches will get whoever can get to the scene first there, as well as the right people.
Yes the police often are in the way in a fire real scene - but that is a lot better than all the bystanders watching the fire in the way instead. However it is hard to see how bad it could be, while easy to see how bad things are.
> anytime the other two are involved the police need to respond too
No. When your partner has an urgent medical issue, you call the ambulance, not the police.
You want whoever is time closest to respond as well. While the ambulance is better, the police should have first aid training and a good sized first aid kit. When seconds are counting you are better off with someone partially trained who can get there fast over someone better trained who takes longer.
Yeah its completely stupid.
I've witnessed a lady falling down the stairs banging her head hard, blood everywhere. Called 112 in my country, a guy answered, and I calmly explained what happened, and I wanted someone coming there stat. "Nah" he says, he needs to ask me some questions first. One of the questions was: "is it serious?". This is no joke, I said "yeah, its fucking serious". "Okay" he says, "You should have called emergency services directly, but he'll do me one and connect me anyways(!)".
Then I had to repeat everything again and they've then reluctantly sent a team which by the way arrived in double the time it would take me to get there from their place.
Reminds me of those endless accountability sinks. Nobody gives a shit about anything as there is no accountability.
Sad to hear. Recently called 112 in Germany (small town) and <5 minutes later an ambulance arrived. It wasn't an emergency in the end, but they were happy and friendly and got back to their station.
Maybe Germany should have imposed 100% tariff on movies produced in foreign lands :D
I have a name: call it a "dubbing tax".
I actually think the intention of the tariff here is to bring jobs back to the American filming industry - not that I agree with this approach. Just an assessment of mine. But speaking of cultural influence, I think something interesting has been happening.
> that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself
I'll all for the "soft power" of the US, including cultural influence. Just wanted to point out that things have been changing slowly. More and more people started to be more credulous about Hollywood's values. Case in point, Blank Panther won Oscar, yet it was widely criticized in China and its box office in China was miserable. Below is the translation of a popular criticism of Black Panther:
Imagine you made a movie about China, kind of like Black Panther. In it, China is this isolated country with crazy-advanced technology, way ahead of the rest of the world. But instead of a modern government, it's run by tribal warlords—each one basically a dictator. To choose their top leader, they fight each other with knives and spears on top of the Forbidden City.
In your story, Chinese people still do foot binding like it’s totally normal. The elite chieftains live in ridiculous luxury inside the imperial palace. Their medicine is so advanced it’s basically magic—people come back from the dead—and they’ve got levitating trains that look like they’re from another planet.
But regular folks? They live in grass huts, spend their days feeding rhinos (or maybe pandas), and there are barely any roads in the whole country.
Then you take this movie to China and tell everyone it’s a tribute to Chinese culture? People would be so insulted, they might actually beat you up.
Isolationism is a key MAGA tenet. It's not accidental.
MAGA has several mutually exclusive tenets:
- Isolationism
- Increase US influence worldwide
- Exploit US influence worldwide
Each one will have a negative effect on the other two.
Authoritarianism is self-contradictory by design. Supreme leader is to be followed, not understood, so you have to refer to them in doubt.
MAGA is not a single entity. Different parts of it have different concerns. That is how politics works for better and worse.
This is actually surprisingly a pro-union move by Trump.
If you aren't aware, they've shipped most IATSE jobs to Serbia since 2023.
They used to shoot most Disney and Netflix shows in LA and Atlanta. Now they're happening in Eastern Europe. They fly the cast out and film with crews that don't have labor laws or unions and that are an order of magnitude cheaper.
IATSE members have been forced to leave the industry, sell their homes, and move out of California. There are a few holdouts, but it's likely they'll have to exit the industry too.
Once that capacity goes, it'll never come back.
Studios are sitting vacant. CBRE is going to come in and turn them all into office parks and mixed use.
Yet the budgets keep going up and the "all movies make a loss" accounting continues. What are the chances the consumer will see any savings or the crew will see any raises?
IATSE = International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
None of them expected the "I" bit to be used? Ever?
In American labor unions, “international” generally means “US and Canada”.
The hope is the "A" plays a role there too though
It's the same as World Series in the US :)
You have to remember that the MAGA movement is a cult of personality with a bunch of weirdos ginning up stupid and naive people.
Thats it. The attack is the strategy. Burn some stuff down and move on.
> You have to remember that the MAGA movement is a cult of personality with a bunch of weirdos ginning up stupid and naive people.
I think it's more pernicious than that. The whole MAGA movement has a rather obvious accelerationist agenda, which leads to self-destructive policies like dismantling basic social safety nets and eliminating basic state institutions. Their policies don't make sense to anyone outside of their cult because we presume the goal is to build upon the state institutions and improve upon what's already there, whereas the MAGA crowd applauds destroying everything down to fundamental rights such as the right to a fair trial. They want to see te world burn hoping they'll be able to rebuild it to their liking. The only members of the MAGA that so far voiced regrets are those who faced the fact that they themselves were being left behind.
Yea, that's fatal mistake that the (D) side keeps making: They assume that both sides have good intentions and are trying to make the world better, and that we simply disagree about what "better" means, and about methods, priorities and principles.
MAGA reminds me of That One Guy we all knew in High School who just wanted to cause trouble, start fights, insult people, light fires in the bathroom, destroy things, and basically grief anyone who encountered him. There's no good intentions here--no aim to make things better for everyone. It was just ABCD with that guy: anger, belligerence, cruelty, and defiance. Fast forward to today, and we've got 70M+ of these guys voting.
We're all standing on top of a Jenga tower, and "that guy" thinks it would be fun to knock out blocks underneath us.
This tariff isn't an attack on Hollywood. This helps actors and staff in the Hollywood area.
its very likely to cause reciprocal tariffs though, and exports of Hollywood way out weigh the imports of foreign films
And it will very likely lead to issues with financing films. Many films these days are shot in multiple locations and use foreign financing, tax breaks and subsidies, sometimes accepting funds from multiple countries.
There are big issues with foreign cinema. We still have a lot of structural advantages in the US to producing films. Production has shifted to other countries because of significant tax incentives. These tax incentives are a way that other countries are frankly not playing fair.
The bottom line for me is that we shouldn't simply accept that films should all be filmed in Canada, Australia, the UK, or elsewhere. Hollywood has been the epicenter of creative jobs in this country for a century, and we should try to preserve it.
Not playing fair? Horse hockey. Every sovereign nation is entirely within their rights to adjust their taxing system for their own benefit. Belief in this juvenile concept of fairness is how we got the unholy mess we're sitting in right now.
> These tax incentives are a way that other countries are frankly not playing fair.
Honest question: what does "fair" mean in this context?
US has tons of tax incentives for film, just at the state level. And Trump announced 100% tariffs across the board regardless of if a country has film subsidies.
There already are tarrifs and bans against Hollywood in many countries.
No free country has a ban on Hollywood movies.
> There already are tarrifs and bans against Hollywood in many countries.
Name one.
Name 10.
[dead]
> This tariff isn't an attack on Hollywood. This helps actors and staff in the Hollywood area.
Does it, though? I mean, the Trump administration is only making it more expensive for theaters to screen non-US movies. Are you going to even bother going to a cinema if the movie you wanted to see isn't made available? And how dominant are non-US productions in US cinemas?
It sounds like more tarrif bullshit,where the only output is lose-lose.
Most top movies last year [1] were shot outside of the US. Excluding animation movies, of course. I understand that the idea is “medium/long term” to move production to Hollywood area, but the short term impact can be massive.
[1] “Deadpool and Wolverine”, “Wicked” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in London, “Dune part 2” in Budapest and Italy, “Godzilla x Kong” in Australia. Only “Twisters” was filmed in the US.
> Most top movies last year [1] were shot outside of the US.
The movies you listed as examples are Hollywood productions (aka Hollywod movies, aka American movies).
That's like saying an Apple iPhone is a US phone and hence shouldn't be tariffed. No, it's made in China. Not in the US. The movies aforementioned are not made in the US either.
The distinction here isn't US vs non-US movies, it's where they're produced. A lot of Hollywood output is produced outside the US now to escape the unions, to benefit from cheaper non-US workers and to benefit from tax breaks. These are American movies funded and written by Americans, but the bulk of the production staff aren't from there.
From the first paragraph of the article:
Donald Trump on Sunday announced on his Truth Social platform a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”, saying the US film industry was dying a “very fast death” due to the incentives that other countries were offering to draw American film-makers.
That is correct. Other countries are gutting Hollywood because Hollywood has become a hard place to make things. To pick a random example, the TV show Silo by Apple TV is made in the UK, not America, and the lead actress is Swedish. It's set in the USA, based on a story by an American author and produced by Apple but it's not made there.
This move is bad news for the UK and other countries that have built up a successful film industry but don't have the capital depth to fund big budget films, even with access to the US market. Now they lose access to US funding and can't easily export their films to the US either, assuming it goes through.
I don't think they understand the damage all of this is doing to brand America.
Since the first Trump administration, young people in Western Europe have increasingly lost their idealization of the United States. I'm 43 and moved to the US ten years ago and I feel like I'm part of the last generation that still wanted to move here. Highly qualified people I know in Europe no longer even consider coming here.
I'm a similarly aged European who studied, worked, lived in the States for a decade and moved out for good ten years ago, abandoned my Green Card and never looked back. The world is a big beautiful place. Much bigger and more important and diverse than the US. More free nowadays too.
Everyone in this thread is reading surface level media summaries.
This is 1000% pro-union.
IATSE workers have been decimated by the move of productions to Serbia since 2023.
LA and Atlanta film productions have all but collapsed since the offshoring of production. Serbian crews work without unions for much cheaper than local IATSE members.
This is designed to save IATSE and domestic American production.
Since when does the MAGA crowd give a hoot about unions?
The studios are dying. I go to the movies every week when there are movies. Other than Minecraft, the biggest crowd I’ve seen was the Star Wars re-release.
Is it pro union, or does it happen to just match union's interests today? I've not seen him mention unions explicitly, neither in search nor perplexity. He did mention Hollywood finance, but whether he ment helping the workers or helping some studio owner by that is not clear to me. With the current track record of what's dismantled, I'm not sure he cares about IATSE at all. His explanation of the reasons mentions lots of other things though.
When American workers are forced to compete with slaves or vastly unsafe workplaces, something was going to break.
Yeap, as example, I enjoy Seinfeld and the office (US version) than many of the comedy series in my own country.
The MAGA crowd is happy to throw out the ability to project useful stuff globally if it makes hollywood stop projecting what they consider divisive stuff domestically and are willing to throw out the foreign aspect if need be.
They're not stupid (well they might be, but that's beside the point), they're just in such fundamental disagreement with you that it's possible to squint and assess the situation as "yup, they're stupid" (and frankly that's a lot more comforting of an assessment).
Film production has been moving steadily overseas chasing cheap labor. By forcing some of it back or forcing it to stay put it makes that industry and the people in it a little more dependent upon government, a little more dependent upon isolationist economic policy, a little more inclined to stay in the government's good graces (i.e. less likely to create stuff the .gov doesn't like), etc, etc, even if it kneecaps the ability of the overall industry to perform globally.
Edit: I shouldn't have to say this but none of the above should be construed as an endorsement of a) high tariffs or b) increased government control of media)
I get what you're saying, but still, it is all very stupid, especially the part where they want to censor ideas they don't like domestically...
The frame that MAGA has embraced (its in the name itself) is that the policy of the last however long time has failed. I haven't seen the pitch for how having the reserve currency is helping them, and I doubt spreading Hollywood culture has helped them either. Hollywood culture superficially appears to hate them with a passion and wants to see them silenced or (depending on who these "MAGA people" are) arrested.
In other words, the first A in MAGA stands for MAGA, not America.
I think thats exactly the point though. There is a perception that "left wing ideals" are represented in art and media and that this must end. This explains the executive order to defund NPR and PBS last week.
Right. Just like other "strong" regimes do and did: Entertainment is a key vehicle for injecting values into society and forming it. Way more subtle than schools and public speeches can do. Important to control it, if you want to keep your power long term.
But isn't this the "free market" at play?
Media with so-called "leftist" themes tend to do well commercially than "rightist" themes, so Hollywood just follows the money?
MAGA is not a free market fundamentalist movement. The old-school neoconservative Republicans are no longer in charge of the party.
Imagine ten years ago, someone predicting you would miss the neocons...
we actually had books by folks like Naomi Klein back in the 90s that indicated that the petroleum-based forces would subvert international cooperation for the sake of short-term profits. we were informed of the current navelgazing nationalist trend worldwide gaining popularity.
it's completely stupid and shortsighted to birth this monster, of course. we need MORE international cooperation not less to solve the vast environmental and social problems the world faces.
think about why people migrate and war is high on the list, and not addressing the root causes of human migration but merely each nation closing its doors to the world= bad dumb and wrong.
the people are to blame, of course. in one of the wealthiest nations on earth it's not hardship or suffering that drove the common man to vote for Trump, it's schadenfreude for strawmen they were programmed to hate.
Jodorowski's famous art film "holy mountain" shows our current trajectory since 40 plus years and depicts the brainwashing that allows one to dehumanize other human beings.
i am not sure if trump or vance is the antichrist, but they certainly head a religion dedicated to eradicating the values Jesus taught.
The MAGA movement doesn’t believe in the idea of a free market. Tariffs are a prime example of that. What they want is control and subservience.
MAGA are fascist. The heavy base of voter support is from religious zealots.
Not sure why you're being downvoted because your points are accurate. Ultra nationalist propaganda wouldn't sell well internationally compared to e.g. Star Wars.
And the current administration does at least purport to follow free market principles. It's just all principles can go out the window for them because <insert word salad>, for whatever advances their own power.
Snow White is evidence the money is not what they follow.
One film by isolation doesn't say much either way, as any given film is high-variance — look at the industry as a whole, and not just box office but total revenue.
I don't have stats for that either, so these things might well still support your claim, but that's what you have to look at.
I would say it’s exactly what a risk-averse money-following committee would do. Regurgitate remakes of previously successful things to milk the cow until it’s powder dry.
Whether this is a successful strategy is debatable.
Yes and no, most people will happily watch movies with gays in them and those without gays.
For decades gays were not allowed and their presence caused blowbacks. It was called free market, despite there being literal rules preventing their presence. Likewise, non whites or women in leading roles - they were not in them, because Hollywood was conservative business in this sense. It took a lot of advocacy for the change to happen.
Right wing hates them, most people just watch those movies and are not weirded out anymore about women having lead action role or whatever. And right wing hopes to revert it back.
I was actually shocked by this tariff. It's a pro-union, pro-labor, classic progressive move.
If you haven't been following what's happening with film production, basically production has moved from LA, Atlanta, New York, etc. to cheap countries in Eastern Europe and Asia.
A vast majority of IATSE film crew productions have now vacated the US. It's decimated the local film crew workforce and forced many to leave the industry entirely.
I wrote more about it here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43893915
The film crew folks post a lot about it on Reddit, especially in the /r/film industry(city) subreddits:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FilmIndustryLA/comments/1k39cod/the...
Pro-union right until the point where the studios go whining to him about exactly that.
Can you actually provide numbers? like how many of the movies that used or should have been shot in the US were off-shored abroad? A bit of a "cheap" research but deepseek did search the top 10 grossing movies of 2025; and all of them except one were shot in the US.
Look at 2024; mostly animated or shot out of the U.S. And if you look at the trends the number of jobs have been declining since 2019: https://www.zippia.com/key-grip-jobs/trends/
You're assuming anything in this was planned, designed, premeditated.
It wasn't.
He's going to flip-flop on this 15 times in the next three months while studios (and other industries) go into hibernation waiting until something (or anything) stabilizes.
Imagine the costs of any blockbuster if it’s made in the US only
They used to do all principal photography for half of all Marvel films in Atlanta. The industry has almost completely pulled out in just the past three years.
We had a booming, absolutely thriving industry for nearly two decades. People moved from LA to be here. We built hundreds of studios and sound stages. Now they're sitting empty.
Everyone is going to Serbia now. IATSE folks are having to leave the industry entirely.
you can see everyone willfully ignoring this here, which makes me nervous about actually solving this problem long term. I used to dream of screenwriting and that dream is almost certainly dead but I'd like to see others have a chance. It looks bleak now
Why would you be surprised? Are you expecting some sort of pro-labor movement in a startup focused tech forum?
Modern tech is all about disruption. You get paid way too much because you’re squeezing costs (ie labor) out of business operations.
There was an action movie that filmed car chases in my city about 15 years ago. A bunch of the crew was at a bar I hung out with and we were trading stories. There was a dude who was making alot of money to essentially wet down the streets from a fire hydrant. There’s reasons for that — hydrants require some training to safely operate.
But end of the day, the money guys at Netflix, Amazon or whatever would rather just pay some rando a few bucks and let insurance deal with the damage. Or build a fake street in Serbia.
Pro labor for whom?
my view of capitalism is that you can't remove the market. it will exist with or without you, so if you have some control you should incentivize the things that are better for everyone.
To me I think it's possible for Netflix and Amazon and whoever to exist and make a lot of money, but also not have nation-state level power. The latter is something we haven't decided we want yet, but I think we'll come around. If there were even just very small controls (that worked) on the size of a company, or how many industries it can go into, then things would look differently. But when we let so few companies consolidate so much power through money, the status quo is a pretty natural outcome. Imagine a world where there were regional amazon.com's, because we just decided at some point they got too big. Same for google. We'd have actual competition. Tech enables market consolidation in ways we didn't expect and we have to do some actual work to fix it.
I agree with you, and this happened in the past. The entire system is designed to prevent this, and this newfound love of isolationism is a way to cement it in.
Let’s be real, these giant tech companies are becoming big stagnant bureaucracies. They can’t adapt anymore and want to build a moat to let them lumber along for a few decades.
The core assumption of the policy makers and business people was the idea that the Chinese are a bunch of dumb peasants working for scraps and unable to produce. They seem to be holding their own with AI, cars, trains, aircraft, etc. They may have a credible competitor for the B737/A320 — that’s a pretty big leap.
I love this comment. Please do not delete it. I'm saving this.
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Seems you were a-okay with people in California losing their jobs so you got them in Atlanta. You seem not okay with it moving from Atlanta to elsewhere.
And stop repeating the Serbia line in every comment. You've done it multiple times. What productions are in Serbia? How many out of how many?
Did you lose your job to one in Serbia and now it's sour grapes all along?
The Serbia angle is weird considering that so may movies were shot and are being shot in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania...
In general, all of Europe is bursting at the seams with movie and TV productions, many of them American: https://issuu.com/thelatesteditionishereandfreetoview/docs/c...
> Everyone is going to Serbia now.
Here's a quote for you:
--- start quote ---
“Labour unions contend that between 35 and 50 percent of feature films turned out by American producers are made abroad,” the New York Times reported on October 4 1959 as the volume of what were then called “runaway productions” began to soar.
--- end quote ---
Notice the year.
Hollywood has been running away from California for over 70 years. Your obsession with Serbia completely ignores that all of Europe is used for movie and TV productions, and Serbia is just the latest addition: https://issuu.com/thelatesteditionishereandfreetoview/docs/c...
Seems like other countries have cheaper workforce.
The move was presumably done by americans themselves, no? It's a choice.
If american producers wanted to produce in america, they always could. They never had to move. It would just be more expensive. It will still be more expensive even after tariffs. Tariffs don't make labor cheaper. Cheaper choice will just not exist for americans.
Maybe the mistake here is to assume that MAGA shares those traditionally “American” values.
But I presume that the major effect of this tariff will be to force large media conglomerates (aka news agencies) to think very carefully about how their news divisions cover Trump.
Hollywood made a few anti-fascist, anti-Nazi exploitation movies last year with big name actors and directors. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and Freaky Tales are two that stand out. Hollywood is pro queer, pro minority and pro free speech. MAGA hates it all and would happily destroy it. It's not stupid, it's their vision for the country and they want to project that vision to the rest of the world. They don't want the world to think of the US as an inviting place where anyone can pursue the American dream, where the government fights for the rights of the downtrodden, politically oppressed and abused and acts like the global stabilizing hand exchanging trade for peace and prosperity. For the MAGA faithful, those days are over, the country is full and it's time to reestablish Anglo-Christian dominance. Their game plan is economic and political isolation, the erosion of democracy and the end of the global unity narrative.
Cutting off Hollywood from its funding sources is part of the plan. MAGA controlled states cancelled tax breaks and subsidies for film/tv production years ago, in some cases torpedoing billions in investment in new studios. This isn't a new strategy, this is the amplification of an existing strategy.
Only stupid if you believe Trump is trying to strengthen the US
That brings a fascinating question. What cultures the USA emulated?
Trump has proven time and time again that he didn't understand soft power.
I wish people would stop with the “Trump doesn’t understand $thing” stuff.
It doesn’t matter whether Trump understands $thing. Pretending that he’s acting in good faith to make things better, but is somehow failing because he doesn’t get X, Y, or Z falls right into the trap. He’s trying to destroy American “soft power”. It doesn’t interest him.
Neither does a good economy, schools, NATO, etc. All of these things are being destroyed or mangled on purpose.
OTOH, trump is not very clever, and IS rather infantile. its sufficient to allege that forces that seek to destabilize American power likely aided Trump financially and he is proving a good investment. the term is "useful idiot" IIRC
You do understand this is a move to protect Hollywood, Right? It is for the very reasons you cited.
The modern popularist says exactly the opposite to what they mean. Again and again. They talk about freedom as they remove it, free speech as they suppress it, the arts as they defund it, manufacturing as they gut it etc. And all this while claiming a state of emergency and necessary for national security.
I’ve applied a heuristic in my life to not trust anyone who promotes “transparency”. It sounds counterintuitive but in my experience this is just a tool of attack allowing them insinuate a scheme or conspiracy is at play and then to twist the narrative to what they want. Don’t trust them, trust me I’m transparent.
For security reasons, you are required to write down your passwords in the password journal at the entrance desk.
By “protect” you mean “roll back to the 1950’s”, righ? Because Hollywood today was doing quite well and I don’t think I’ve heard a single industry source asking for this.
IMO the other shoe here is stronger content restrictions and more government control of what gets made. Easier to do that with US productions, hence the attempt to make everything distributed in the US a US production.
Who isn't asking for something to bring more production home? Studio execs? People in LA, ATL, etc want to work, and every year there is less and less jobs below the line in the US, even though there's more productions overall paid for by US companies. This sentiment you're talking about is at least not universal
I have hear actors complain about AI, I have heard various guilds striking over about dozens of causes ... moving abroad was not one of them.
Then you might be missing it as it’s a huge huge issue for below the line workers (actors are part of the package we’re shipping out to other countries)
>Because Hollywood today was doing quite well and I don’t think I’ve heard a single industry source asking for this.
Unless the new edict excludes farming out VFX. The VFX industry has been on its knees for years now, in a race to the bottom that has made r/vfx a pretty depressing place.
(Source: Spent the last few years working for a well-known VFX company)
In the domestic market maybe, but I think their point is that it will severely hurt Hollywood abroad.
But do you understand it will harm Hollywood? This is the economic, country scale equivalent of saying "fuck your movies", do you think the answer will be "oh sorry, I'll keep buying yours" or "fuck your movies too"?
It will reduce the profit margins of Hollywood studios. Maybe reduce the bonuses of their CEO.
It'll help thousands of Americans that used to be employed by said studios but were fired not because they couldn't do the job but because the greed of studio execs made them move production outside of the US, playing financial arbitrage games against the interest of the US.
Trump is trying to reverse this by making movies outside of the US, especially by US companies, more expensive. The goal here is not some statement about Hollywood but to bring movie production jobs back to US. The extras, the people who build sets, people who make food for actors etc. And jobs bring tax revenue and grow GDP, which helps every american.
This kills the movies.
It’s categorically impossible that this could bring movie production jobs to the US. If a policy along these lines is implemented, both foreign and domestic consumers will launch a massive retaliatory boycott. (I will personally begin that boycott today unless Hollywood executives denounce the proposal.) The current dominance of American media offers absolutely no leverage, because it’s trivial and cost-free to go cold turkey on it.
It protects the poor in Hollywood, not the rich.
Protect Hollywood from what? It's the top movie industry in the world, the only way to go from there is going down.
He actually cited it being a National Security threat
>You do understand this is a move to protect Hollywood, Right?
Protect Hollywood from who, exactly? IIUC, an increasing number of "American" movies (i.e., those produced/financed by American studios) are being filmed outside the US.
This isn't a bunch of foreign film makers ganging up on poor, beleaguered film companies like Disney, Paramount and Neflix.
They, of course, are going to go out of business any minute now because those evil foreigners are taking away their movies. /s
No. Those very profitable studios are choosing to make movies outside the US to bolster those high profits by reducing labor, physical plant and safety expenditures.
As such, how is charging Hollywood studios 100% tariffs to import the movies those same studios paid to make "protecting" Hollywood?
Don't mistake the above for my support of Hollywood studios. They are the OG rapacious scumbags that the SV tech bros are trying (and sometimes succeeding) in emulating.
[dead]
[dead]
The difference is that decades ago all movies were about how good and just the US was and now everything Hollywood produces is movies that tell that the US is the devil and other generic progressive slop. Is that really the image the US wants to project to the world?
Defund education then defund culture. Sounds exactly like America First/America Only. Next up is propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know. He can flood the media as he's been flooding the government, all the pieces are in play.
Still nobody putting up a meaningful fight. Your window is closing.
Look to Idiocracy for a documentary of what happens if this keeps going unchecked?
Who would have guessed that Idiocracy was an optimistic look at our possible future...
It sounds like a lot of people are kind of missing the mark a bit on what happened here in the US.
I mean:
Next up is propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know
No. "Propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know" is what happened first using the internet to radicalize those without the wisdom to have seen this outcome.
And Idiocracy may not be so much an optimistic look at our future as the conservatives continue to implement their policies, as it is a cynical look at the results that conservatives implementing their policies have had on our present.
And things can get so much worse.
Gatorade to water the plants? Not a far fetch from injecting bleach to cure Covid.
And removing fluoride from the water
Why does American drinking water need fluoride - for the few seconds people brush their teeth? Other developed nations seem to do get by just fine without it (i.e, most of Europe). Does modern tooth paste not contain the components for proper cleaning? I feel like I'm missing something here, because I don't swallow my tooth paste but I drink my tap water. But if fluoride is fine in water that we drink, why not just add all the other vital chemicals to the tap water that our bodies crave, like soma? Because it really smells like peoples opposition to this is not science-based but emotion-based (i.e., anti-RFK and Trump admin).
"For the few seconds people brush their teeth"? That's not how fluoridated drinking water works. Fluoridated water works all of the time, not just when brushing teeth, and it's not a vital chemical that the body craves.
You are missing something. If you're this confused about a topic, you should at a bare minimum read the Wikipedia page.
I've read it and am not convinced we need to be ingesting fluoride water. Nor is Europe or most other countries and their dental health is fine.
Said another way - brush yo teeth, brush yo GD teeth: https://youtu.be/GlKL_EpnSp8?si=NeKJWKNlcHxtDUYD&t=112
Yeah because in Europe we add fluoride and iodine to table salt, as well as to our toothpaste.
Also, we don't have anywhere close to the sugar consumption the US has, which keeps both our diabetes and dental health issues at rates far below the US.
The questions you posed are not questioning fluoride, they're asking what the basic premise even is. If you don't understand that, you are far from the position needed to be evaluating and analyzing the necessity or benefits of it.
The Wikipedia page you mentioned reading also points out that it's not only a US thing. Or even a water-only thing.
When I see an argument with a phrase like "basic premise" I know I'm reading some word mambo jambo, otherwise the author would just give their summary of that "basic premise" instead of deadlinking it (refer to something without actually referring it).
You don't have an argument yourself, you just wanted to share that you are pro some position.
There are clear factual errors in the underlying assumptions of what was stated about water fluoridation. Those are simply table stakes for having a discussion about anything at all. If one thinks that water fluoridation is useful "just for a few seconds," that it's not done outside of the United States, that it's a replacement for toothpaste, that it's a vital chemical, or that we don't fortify other foods, then they do not know enough about the topic to talk about it, let alone hold the opinion that they know better.
If someone came in with a curious mindset, that'd be one thing. But this is someone walking into a room with an agenda (get rid of fluoride) and a shocking lack of knowledge about that agenda.
>If someone came in with a curious mindset, that'd be one thing. But this is someone walking into a room with an agenda (get rid of fluoride) and a shocking lack of knowledge about that agenda.
But since "Internet People Lie About Fluoride,"[0] why are you surprised? And that's nothing new.
Why? I have no idea. Perhaps cpursley[1] could enlighten us?
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GefwcsrChHk
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43894013
Just brush your teeth after every meal, you will be fine like the Finns. And prob a higher IQ like them, as well (without all the unnecessary floride in the water).
[flagged]
Because just like we have stupid people who don’t vaccinate their children from measles, we have stupid people who don’t make them brush their teeth.
So rather than have them suffer with a lifetime of oral health problems, you can intervene in a transparent and cheap way to prevent these issues altogether.
The introduction of fluoride dramatically improved oral health. NYC has been doing it since the 1960s, so one would think we’d see evidence of the supposed negative effects.
Any actual stats on people not brushing their teeth? It's not 1960 any more... And my entire point was to compare to other nations with similar development levels that don't pump it into their water supply and are doing just fine in terms of oral health.
And by your metric, should we also pump in vitamins and other substances that our bodies crave? Maybe the Fed gov't could just skip that and force drip IV everyone a compliance cocktail after their breakfast of USDA approved and SNAP subsidized Captain Crunch?
> Any actual stats on people not brushing their teeth? It's not 1960 any more... And my entire point was to compare to other nations with similar development levels that don't pump it into their water supply and are doing just fine in terms of oral health.
Something like 30% of people report not brushing their teeth at least once a day. Unclear if that means most of them brush every other day or some even lower frequency, but I’d assume if you report not brushing at least once a day then you likely aren’t brushing consistently every other day or something.
> And by your metric, should we also pump in vitamins and other substances that our bodies crave? Maybe the Fed gov't could just skip that and force drip IV everyone a compliance cocktail after their breakfast of USDA approved and SNAP subsidized Captain Crunch?
We already do this, all the time! Vitamin and mineral fortified foods are everywhere. Iodine is in a lot of salt. It’s a good thing, not something to be mocked. Most vitamins and minerals have minimal cost, no issues with taking “too much” of them, and have significant health benefits if you are deficit on that particular thing.
> Something like 30% of people report not brushing their teeth at least once a day.
Gross, but that's their problem, not mine. There's a multitude of bad health habits, if we were actually serious, there'd be no soda or cereal on the shelves. But big ag and big health activity oppose that because they financially benefit from SNAP. Your fortified foods mention is an example of exactly how insane it all is (we subsidize the corn syrup farmers to produce garbage food and then give poor people money to buy it, instead of you know - real food).
> Gross, but that's their problem, not mine. There's a multitude of bad health habits, if we were actually serious, there'd be no soda or cereal on the shelves.
This absolutist mindset is not helpful for making progress. People want tasty, potentially bad for them foods. You can have bad food that’s made up of “real food” just fine. Fortifying bad foods to make them marginally less bad is a good thing. Don’t let great be the enemy of good. Nobody is looking at a bag of chips and saying “well because it’s got added Vitamin A, it’s good for me now!” Instead, it’s just a silent benefit.
We do. Table salt is iodized. We add vitamin A & D to milk and bread.
You’re looking for facts to stuff a straw man. There is clear, obvious correlation between fluoridation and improved oral health. They discovered this decades ago where it was observed that oral health was better in regions where groundwater was used and fluoride occurred naturally.
By my metric, we should take reasonable measures to improve public health. I don’t suppose you’re in favor of making dental care affordable to those who can’t afford it?
If you choose to align yourself with the pseudo intellectual descendants of the John Birch society to protect your “precious bodily fluids”, I’m sorry for you.
> Any actual stats on people not brushing their teeth?
google is free - it's not anyone's responsibility to educate you and answer your naive questions. and if did google and you're still not convinced, well then i'm glad you're not an elected official wherever it is you live (though if you live in the US i guess you probably voted for the current admin)
And who in the actual flying fuck are you to assume with such confidence who I voted for?
[flagged]
It's worse than that. In the movie Idiocracy, they were searching for the smartest man alive to put him in charge to fix things. That's not what governments are doing now.
Nope. They just put the dumbest man alive in charge of an entire nation, and cheer him on every time he proclaims himself the smartest man alive.
Wrong. Not Sure got appointed to identify and fix the crops issue by the US president Camacho.
I can't believe these words have been said on HN.
Just rewatched this for thr first time in a decade the other day. I have some serious concerns lmao
You may have missed that Idiocracy is a pro-eugenics film, in which the populace got stupider by way of being fecund. It's not about this problem, really.
> You may have missed that Idiocracy is a pro-eugenics film
I kinda see how you got there, but man.
This is the same guy behind Office Space and Bevis and Butthead. He's poking fun at out of touch intellectuals and consumption. Calling it pro-eugenics though...
The whole premise hinges on "dumb" people outbreeding "high IQ" people. The movie isn't about the failure of the education system, consumer compliance, or anything like that. The movie feels pro-eugenics, even if that wasn't the intention, and it's just trying to poke fun at stereotypes.
Idiocracy is only pro eugenics in the same way that any piece of comedy that criticizes anything or takes something to the extreme can be construed as being for the opposite thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons
While I'm certainly no where even adjacent to a Trump supporter, the idea of preventing studios (rich people) from sidestepping local unions (working people), plus the crazy tax incentives we give them by producing their movies up here in Canada isn't as polarizing an idea as you think.
If the sky is falling on everything he does, and you're wrong some of the time, then people will stop listening. There's plenty that this administration has done that is objectively horrible.
It would be interesting to reshuffle the over 10k spent per child. Pods of 10-15 kids could afford PhD level tutors.
You think a PhD automatically makes someone a better teacher than a school teacher? Shows quite an elitism that assumes knowledge and scholarly ability is the mark of a good teacher. From someone who actually taught in schools, scholarship matters almost zero, classroom management and emotional intelligence are far more important in a school teacher.
And giving away the money? You’d lose all amenities of a school, the building, its land, the social benefits of school interactions, etc. Most importantly, you lose classroom management of a teacher, and the kids lose out big time.
A PhD tutor stood in front of determinedly mischevious children, most couldn’t last two weeks.
What would a meaningful fight look like?
idk man last time France raised the gas price by like 10% people were in the streets every weekend for a year, often blocking highways, warehouses, at its peak ~3 million people were in the streets, they got so close to Macron's castle he had his helicopter prepared to flee the capital
It ended up with 11 deaths, thousands of injured, thousands of people were arrested hundreds went to jail. Look at Serbia, Greece, damn even Turkey seems to put a better fight lol
https://www.ledauphine.com/france-monde/2018/12/13/gilets-ja...
Although the precise numbers are uncertain, the Hands Off protests have definitely crossed 2M in the US already. We'll see if they stop or not.
The current protests are terrible. The loudest mobilized voices are the pro-Palestinian people, who are a wet blanket on a protest as they don’t have wide support.
We need more angrier people.
Look at Georgia, look at Serbia, look at the Arab Spring. Look at your constitution! There is a part in there about resistance to oppression you seem to only use to defend the wrong things.
Did you look at Georgia and Serbia yourself? Protests have been ongoing for months, government doesn't care.
They don't have armed revolution enshrined in their constitution
If arms are the important component, what wrong things are you saying we exclusively use that part of the constitution to defend? I don't think that part is used for much else
The only time you hear of the second amendment is to justify having guns after a massacre. Yet here we are, literally a textbook case of it, and crickets. I'm against guns and gun violence, but Americans aren't.
The Americans who have the guns tend to also be the ones who support this government.
I don't think being against guns and gun violence is compatible with encouraging armed revolution.
If that's what you need to remove the mental roadblock needed to deal with the actual topic then sure, call me pro-gun. If your constitution gave you the right to bear sharpened spoons, I'd be asking about that, too.
This is the actual topic. You said that it is bad that Americans use the second amendment to justify having guns and good for them to use them in an act of mass political violence to stop tarriffs on filming locations and science budget cuts. The other three positions are coherent: have guns and use them, have guns and don't use them, don't have guns and don't use them. If someone is going to assert that my countrymen should take up arms- putting myself, my family, and my friends at mortal risk- over taxes and budget decisions, they can at least admit that their frame means it's quite good that we kept the guns despite the mass shootings. I'm not going to operate on a hairpin trigger on advice from a self-proclaimed pacifist, you know?
Impeachment. There have been multiple clearly impeachable offences by the current administration. The congress GOP should take responsibility for getting the US out of this.
Let’s be honest, that’s not a realistic solution. The GOP is completely onboard with what he’s doing, so suggesting they take care of it is just admitting defeat.
A key question that I'm not sure can be answered: among Republican reps and senators, what is the ratio of "on board with it all" to "terrified of what will happen to themselves if they don't appear to be on board"?
If the "terrified" camp is sufficiently large, their terror can be overridden with a sufficiently large swing in public opinion. They're potentially movable.
The true believers...not sure if anything can move them. If the "on board" camp is (nearly) all Republican legislators, then there is no path to impeachment.
It will be interesting to see how things evolve as the economic impacts of Trump's policies develop. That's probably the most direct path to the level of public opinion shift needed to make impeachment possible.
He tweeted yesterday that they want to impeach him again, that he wants to remove Democratic congressmen from Congress for "crimes" they committed, and that the GOP should handle it.
For those replying who think this isn't an option - what precisely is the end-game in your mind?
Edit: I'd be interested to hear why the downvotes. I'm genuinely curious about this, because a lot of people seem to think that a) Congress is useless, and b) half the population of America is stupid, and so I'm just curious how you see America moving forward, or even if you do at all?
it appears that MAGA has successfully dismantled the USA. I don't expect any further fair elections, TBH. I'm rather aghast at how much of American corporate money is just either collaborating with an obviously criminal regime or just sort of blindly pretending business as usual can return with an election.
There is no current checks mor balances, a king runs America and Republicans smile because they are wearing the same color jersey and seem to think their longtime agenda is being implemented, when, no, a mafia is riding their agenda and party to absolute power.
[flagged]
I'd like to see what this list of "clearly impeachable offenses for every president since Washington" looks like
Obama wore a tan suit once.
Oh, yeah!
And remember the furious response when Obama put his feet on the Resolute desk?
The absolute gall of the fiend!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3vuDurisp0
[dead]
The GOP is completely mask off and is fine with Trump turning the country into Mussolini Italy if it means they get a seat at the table. They are traitors and I hope every one of them has their day in The Hague.
The United States is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court so there is exactly zero percent chance of anyone from the GOP appearing at The Hague.
They are not, yet.
Assuming there will be a free and fair election in which the Democrats win, it would be a sensible move to repeal the Hague Invasion Act, ratify the Rome Statute and refer all of the 47th's admin's key figures there - that avoids any possible issues with the Supreme Court.
Additionally, it would restore a bit of global confidence in the ICC and America's credibility on the global stage as well... something sorely needed after not even a few months of this administration.
1.Hague Invasion act was 71-22 in the Senate and 280-138 in the House, with 84 Yes and 116 Nos(edited because I flipped the numbers) from Democrats. Its more or less a consensus US position, not partisan.
2.Even if it did pass, retroactively referring 47 there doesn't scream "law and order" to me, especially when there are actual laws being broken.
> Its more or less a consensus US position, not partisan.
That was the case in 2002, back when the Supreme Court still worked and was reasonably respected, and Congress at least did lip service to follow its duties.
Now, the circumstances have shifted - the Supreme Court is seen as compromised as a result of the Trump appointments plus the corruption scandals surrounding Roberts. Therefore I'm not so sure that the Hague Invasion Act would remain if it were pushed to a vote in a future Democrat-controlled Congress.
> Even if it did pass, retroactively referring 47 there doesn't scream "law and order" to me, especially when there are actual laws being broken.
I agree, the normal course of action should be to put 47th and his goon(er)s through the regular American court system - but I am afraid that the legal system has degraded way too much over the last years from all the political appointments. That's why in Croatia and Serbia we had the ICTY established, there was no trust of fair trials.
The constitution prohibits ex post facto prosecution.
Assuming that we continue to elect presidents, you need one to appoint an effective Attorney General (ie not Garland) and use these new king like powers of the executive to smash. The president was convicted of dozens of crimes, but nobody had the balls to throw him in jail.
You have to think about 2025 solutions. The die is cast, it isn’t 1995 anymore. Nobody is clutching their pearls because POTUS made a mess on an intern anymore. It’s a different environment and you’re going to have to have fistfights on the Senate floor if the congress is functioning.
> The constitution prohibits ex post facto prosecution.
A lot of what the 47th and people in his administration did are already punishable by law - alone the Signal affair or other violations of the Public Records Act.
It would not be a ex post facto prosecution, it would simply be a prosecution by a court of law that is reasonably free from corruption.
The United States has courts. I don’t think we have a law that allows you to create another jurisdiction above that of the US Courts. That’s a change in the law.
It’s all fantasy anyway.
> I don’t think we have a law that allows you to create another jurisdiction above that of the US Courts. That’s a change in the law.
Well, whoever succeeds Trump will have to go for drastic measures to restore global trust in the US. No way around that, the system is fundamentally broken and needs a complete and utter overhaul. If the Democrats have an ounce of interest in self-preservation, they have no alternative than to bring down all the hammers they can on the MAGA part of the GOP.
If this happened here in Canada, I would go to weekly protests against this administration. When I was younger I went to dozens of daily protest for something insignificant in comparison [1] and it did lead to a change of gouvernement.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Quebec_student_protests
Look at Spain right now. Not sure I agree with the anti tourism cause but man they know how to cause a fuss.
General strike, for example.
HN employees of X, Tesla, SpaceX (etc), Meta, Alphabet and other tech businesses supporting Trump could also strike or threaten to strike to pressure their owners/boards.
Those are incredibly hard to organize.
It's going to be a long slow process of firstly making sure that all Democrats are actually anti-Trump through primary challenges, then trying to ensure a D sweep in the mid-term elections. I don't think there's much chance of anything before then.
So the second amendment is only for mass shootings then? How is this not exactly what it's for?
Something like OWS - but outside the Whitehouse?
[flagged]
For context, much of the research that led to microprocessor came from outside the US. In particular, the invention of silicon gates comes from Italy.
I don't think that there is much risk of foreign researchers moving to the US in the current climate.
The integrated circuit was invented in Texas and Silicon Valley, California.
The italian Federico Faggin invented the microprocessor at Intel. He studied physics at Padua University in Italy.
[flagged]
I suggest to read the entire story. In the meantime you can admire his signature in 4004 processor.
http://intel4004.com/
I have read his story many years ago. He also designed the Z80.
The point is, if he arrived in Bangladesh instead of California, he would have accomplished nothing notable.
In addition to the other comments pointing out how your "Americans invented microprocessors" is wrong,
> [Americans] landed on the moon without a federal Department of Education
maybe you should check what the budget for NASA was during the space race and what it is now, considering also the news from 3 days ago about further budget cuts to the Agency.
I’m not wrong. It’s called Silicon Valley for a reason
Since the DoE was established, education has only declined versus the rest of the world. America spends more money for less.
Not sure I follow.
Biggest real action movie last year was “Deadpool & Wolverine”, a Disney movie which was shot in UK and made a bit over 50% of its revenue overseas[1]. Its main stars were Canadian and Australian. Does this mean that you’ll have to pay double to go watch it to cinemas in the US? Will that make Disney to focus on the international market?
[1] https://the-numbers.com/movie/Deadpool-and-Wolverine-(2024)
This guy is obviously senile, so it's pointless to even try to analyse this.
What did he mean when he said this? Who knows - he probably doesn't even remember himself.
What will the resulting policy, if any, actually be? His advisors were probably hearing it for the first time just like the rest of us.
Probably, but a useful senile. Would be interesting to know whom did he have conversations with on the day of the post.
Since it's about movies produced overseas, I don't think the nationality of the actors or the overseas revenue counts.
But it probaby counts that it was shot in the UK. The reason why Disney does that is because they get tax breaks from the UK government, which I think it's what Trump is referring to.
So let me get this straight... he's not happy with the UK because of VAT (value added tax) and he's also not happy with the UK because of tax breaks?
Amazing.
I think there's a big difference between VAT for consumer goods and cities providing big incentives for filming there. I'm not giving an opinion on whether they're good or bad, just saying that they're very different and I don't think they should be compared.
Both are harming US jobs.
VAT is bad for US because a car made in US is 22% more expensive when sold in UK than a car made in UK sold in US. VAT makes it harder for US car company to sell in UK. It reduces number of US jobs making cars.
UK giving tax breaks to US companies also reduces number of US jobs because a catering business in Los Angeles loses a job to a catering business in London. So does a carpenter, an extra etc.
It's all simple to understand, consistent and frankly very leftist.
> VAT makes it harder for US car company to sell in UK. It reduces number of US jobs making cars.
that makes no sense.
Assuming the same amount of cars sold, with or without VAT the amount of US jobs making cars would stay the same. VAT is applied to any car regardless of origin it's not harder or easier for anyone.
There will be exceptions and loopholes for friends, like e.g. for Tesla cars.
This. This is it.
Now Disney will have to bow down and kiss the ring or their us incomes will fail. Make it too expensive to not bow down.
That's how this works. I'll make doing business too painful for you unless you cater to my will. So surrender.
Well......... Let's see if the gambit will pay off.
The overseas revenue is important as companies will need to prioritise markets. They don’t want to choose, but if they have to, they’ll prefer to keep 60% of the revenue over 40%. Assuming some sort of reciprocal actions, the risk is making Hollywood “less American”.
Reciprocal actions are not going to affect the whole 60%.
I assume there are very few locations like the UK that are going to be significantly hit by the tarifs and might react with countermeasures that will affect only a small part of the overseas revenue.
I am not sure they know worth of soft power or how to use it. It's fascinating to watch.
I am so looking forward to the sequel of Rome ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_(TV_series) ), filmed in Georgia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Georgia).
Or the new Lord of The Rings in the Grand Canyon... :)
Or the remake of 'Paris, Texas' filmed in ..., oh.
It’s about the country it’s produced in, not the country it’s recorded in, though?
For now, there is no executive order or anything, so what he means by 'produced in' is anyone guess. Might also be just an announcement that will not end up in anything concrete. Wouldn't be the first time, wouldn't be the last.
There is no rational thought going into Trump's social media output.
I swear he has a set of 6 tiny books just the right size for his hands, each with 6 pages and on each page there are 6 categories of things.
He's rolls a dice 3 times to pick a category then a final one to pick from the list of 6 tariff levels to be applied.
Then when somone wakes up to see whatever unhinged shit he posted "this time" and realises how abjectly stupid it is, the whole things gets unwound. If any journalist dares mention it again then it was just "trolling the fake news media" and was never meant seriously.
Then I misunderstood, I guess...
Why would it be more expensive to produce it in the US, then? I thought one of the reasons for making the movie "abroad" was to get some subsidies from other countries "if you film it here", kind of.
The US are expensive.
You can build bigger sets for the same money in a country in eastern Europe.
This makes no sense and people are giving it too much credit. What does “produced” mean? How do you “tariff” a movie? When is the movie crossing the border and who’s doing the valuation, customs check, and so on? There’s literally no substance to this and people are tying themselves into knots to make sense of this.
VAT is what America wants but they literally dont know the word theyre looking for.
There are things to sort out, but it's certainly doable. They can probably use direct COGS to determine the tariff basis.
> There are things to sort out, but it's certainly doable. They can probably use direct COGS to determine the tariff basis.
You could construct a variety of accounting methods to calculate a tax on the 'foreign content' of movies, but how do you actually impose this tax?
A tariff on physical goods is easy. A country requires that goods enter the country through customs facilities, and then the nice customs official doesn't release the thing until the tax is paid. The legal and physical ability to impose these taxes is long, long established.
How do you physically impose a tariff on a movie? If the master is transported physically, what is its value? The value of the fixed copy/master doesn't necessarily include the value of the IP involved, in the same way that a DVD of a $500 million movie might have a retail value of $20. What about movies transferred digitally, since there are no customs checkpoints on fiber-optic lines?
What legal apparatus would be used to impose this tax? Trump is currently getting away with the physical-goods tariffs because the legal infrastructure to collect the taxes is already in place, and remaining legal disputes are just about whether the President can unilaterally set or change tariff rates. If you'd need new law to "tariff movies," then the chance of this whim turning into a real tax drops sharply.
What does it mean for a movie to cross a border, if the IP ultimately belongs to an American production studio and for all effective purposes its final assembly happens in the US?
Great way to kill one of the product categories that you do not have trade deficit in...
Yup! Software next.
To be fair, even the EU can be expected to enact regulations calibrated to decrease American dominance in the tech sector at this point. So if Trump tariffs don’t take down US software. I’m certain new regulations around the world will take US software down in any case.
Maybe people should first understand the context of this.
Apparently, here's the data:
California is losing its grip on the film industry as Canada, the UK, and Australia outspend the U.S. on production subsidies.
LA’s soundstage occupancy dropped to 90% pre-strikes, while Warner Brothers and Netflix ramp up overseas filming.
Even a $3.75 billion tax credit boost might not be enough to keep Hollywood on top.
Meanwhile, Vancouver is adding 20 new soundstages, and UK productions hit a record $7 billion.
Here's Ben Affleck talking about this: https://nypost.com/2025/04/18/entertainment/ben-affleck-crit..., https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1913449981643456612
Here's Adam Scott and Rob Lowe talking about it: https://x.com/medx0/status/1919178518031896903
Basically it seems that movie production and jobs created by it moved outside of US in a massive way.
Hence the leftist tarrifs meant to reverse that and bring movie production back in US
I live in Belgium. It feels like 95% of all films I ever hear about are American. Opponents counter MAGA with 'America was never great', but here they'll say 'Movies have never left America'?
Movies are overwhelmingly made _by_ American studios but I don't know if they are overwhelmingly _made_ (shot) in the US. It's very common to shoot in a location that gives tax incentives. E.g. Vancouver used to be (potentially still is) a common production location.
Vancouver and Toronto were very often used as stand-ins for shows based in places like Chicago, Seattle, NYC and many others. Might still be, but I barely consume that sort of media nowadays.
It made watching TV shows like Stargate SG1 additionally amusing though -- every planet they visited was basically some location near Vancouver. Me and friends used to joke about how much like carcinisation is a thing in evolution, in the Stargate universe all planets eventually ended up looking like British Columbia.
An argument could be made that the Ancients built Stargate's in places they wanted to go/were comfortable for them, and those areas were like BC
Iirc, either Carter or Daniel Jackson pretty much said something along those lines in one of the later seasons. Not the BC part specifically, but about why stargates were usually on planets pretty comfortable for humans.
But the overarching point is that even shows where at least one of the actors (RDA) were given an award by the US Air Force for their depiction of the branch, were largely filmed outside the US.
It's said several times. The first time I can recall is Carter says it to her father in "The Tok’ra, Part 2" in season two.
> E.g. Vancouver used to be (potentially still is) a common production location.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ojm74VGsZBU
They’re often not shot in the US, due to cost differences and tax incentives. I suspect the latter is the real issue, but haven’t looked into it.
When you say often, how much in % of all movies are not produced in US?
Another veteran movie insider's take on this issue:
"I say Los Angeles WAS the best, because I don't think it's true any more. For many decades, film tax incentives have sucked production from Hollywood (and New York). Also, due to technological advancements, it's a lot easier to shoot away from a production center." [0]
Some hard numbers:
"Lockdowns, strikes, and exploding production costs have pushed many productions overseas, especially for streaming services with global ambitions. Hollywood production volumes have declined steeply since the second quarter of 2023. Stateside production is down 40% in the second quarter of 2024 compared to peak television levels of filming during the same period in 2022." [1]
[0] https://x.com/RamboVanHalen/status/1918378975417532675
[1] https://www.filmtake.com/production/streamers-shift-focus-ov...
That's what this is about.
Work for IATSE crew union members has declined precipitously.
During the pandemic, there was so much demand for content that the studios spent a lot of money teaching foreign crews how to produce films. They sent a lot of staff to Eastern Europe and Asia to train local crews. Serbia, etc., where the crews are making well below union wages and can work long hours without regulation.
Since 2023, 60% or so of productions have vacated LA, Atlanta, and New York in favor of being shot overseas. They just fly the cast out. It's significantly cheaper than filming at home.
IATSE membership is being decimated. Lots of folks have moved out of California because the jobs just aren't there anymore.
> where the crews are making well below union wages and can work long hours without regulation.
This is what is so ridiculous about unions in 2025: there are people in dozens of other tier 2 countries that will work harder than you for less pay.
The solution is not to try to artificially inflate wages.
I'm much more anti-union than the average joe, but Hollywood is one example where it kind of makes sense, disregarding the international competition angle for a sec: it is a highly specialised kind of work, sometimes dangerous, with a very limited number of employers that are operating in a cartel-like environment that is known to be financially (and sometimes also sexually and ethnically) ruthless and opportunistic. The negotiating power is very uneven.
Considering that even in a big and highly competitive environment such as Silicon Valley they managed to establish illegal hiring cartels between the big companies (Apple etc), I'd be sceptical to dish out free market arguments.
Hollywood is not loosing relevance due to inflated wages, they stopped making movies people want to see. The reason for that is quite obvious, but a totally different discussion.
Most non-American movies are slop, melodramatic vaudeville, or tear-jerking gut-punches. Most American movies are slop too, but America can afford to swing at more pitches and consequently get more hits.
Have you ever tried to watch Korean movies from the last 20 years? It's all melodramatic romance-crime-poverty slop, with the rare Kim Ki-duk or Bong Joon Ho in there to balance it out. And that's a country with a wonderful reputation for quality film-making.
I mean you get zombies on a train and that's a fun popcorn flick, but it's forgettable. It's no Tremors, Twister, or Independence Day.
In Indonesia for every The Raid there's 999 poorly acted, poorly shot melodramas with a thin well-trodden story.
And don't get me started on "let's yell at each other for 120 minutes" Russian cinema.
American movies are by far the most watchable, especially when you don't feel like going on a heart-wrenching journey of despair, which is all international cinema excels at.
I didn't realize how many bad movies Italy produces, or at least produced, until I started living there in the late 1990s. Italians often go to the movies every week, and I did too, and then I realized that for every 'Life is Sweet', there were 50 dire entries that were just well-targeted enough to make their money back from a native audience. You'll never have heard of these movies, and rightly so.
Having lived in other countries since, this appears to be a common syndrome. You can't judge a country by its tourists, and you certainly can't judge it by the small number of movies that get past its border control.
Well said. Most people don't realize this. And likewise there's a Paris Syndrome that tourists sometimes have when first visiting America and expecting to step into a Hollywood movie. That subsides quickly.
That said, American movies pass border control to other countries all the time because of their broad appeal.
I'll say that I am less offended than some of my fellow commenters in this thread. I can hardly name 5 Belgian movies that I would suggest anyone to watch; Belgium has 1/30th of the US' population, but certainly a much, much smaller percentage of good movies.
Also, none of them are of the same 'appeal' as the American movies you cited, which are mostly action movies. The general populace wants to see big stunts and explosions, which require budget, local movies don't gross because they rely on local audiences, repeat ad infinitum. Most European movies that try to _look American_ in that sense fail horribly imo.
However, the ones I can name all have something in common: they wouldn't appeal to an international audience because there is something inherently 'local' to them. Not only language barriers (imagine reading subtitles) but also a certain 'European film aesthetic/tone' just like American blockbusters have theirs. American movies don't have the same 'local barrier' for Europeans because they are the norm and we're getting them force-fed by the 100bio Hollywood industrial complex: it's a movie, or it's a local movie.
I hope you're not just advocating for those really bad Marvel movies with which the USA is flooding the film market with stinking manure?
Hollywood undoubtedly has more money, but you genuinely have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to the quality of what gets made.
So many things that hollywood produces are remakes of foreign movies, except with an order of magnitude more money poured in and palate-switched for american audiences. (which, due to the sheer volume of content that comes out of hollywood- becomes the default international palate).
The entertainment industry in Sweden (girl with the dragon tattoo, a man called Otto) and the UK (the countries I have lived in) is undoubtedly very strong, even comparatively poor (not intended as a slur here) India is quite famous for its bombastic action movies.
Russia too, has some of the most thought provoking movies that I've ever seen. Leviathan and Durak- they even have your "fun" action style movies (Brat and Brat 2 for fantastic examples).
To say that Hollywood produces more and thus sometimes better, and that other counties make slop betrays two things:
1) Hollywood steals vigorously from other countries.
2) Other countries produce works that do not translate well for american audiences.
Every country has 5 or 10 good movies you can name, and they're always the same ones. Brat and Brat 2, Leviathan and Durak... the list doesn't go on much beyond that. And certainly not in the last 20 years.
For US movies, the list goes on. And you can debate which ones should make the top-100.
But here's a pivotal soviet comedy about a guy who goes to the future... okay, here's Bob Zemeckis's Back to the Future. Compare the quality of any aspect: story, acting, props, costumes, cinematography, special fx, attention to detail, MUSIC... 1:1 US cinema destroys on every level.
Bollywood action movies? They're parodies of themselves- Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess with the Zohan, except they take themselves seriously.
Non-modest Soviet productions of the era, such as the 1970 "Waterloo", are spectacular by any standard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyytd8HhuME
> "Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession" was made in 1973 on a budget that was modest even by Soviet standards. It looks like a cheap TV movie
To be fair, it looks just like any other Soviet movie from that era ("The Diamond Arm", "Afonya", "Shurik's Adventures", etc.), with the exception of the few that were considered "mega projects' by the government ("War and Peace").
The difference is that nobody holds up "The Thing with Two Heads" or "The Cat from Outer Space' as must-watch American cinema
I wouldn't call "Ivan Vasilievich Changes His Profession" that either. It's more of a "Blazing Saddles" type movie with a cult following due to its catchphrases, but overall, it isn't very good. Even among movies by the same director, some slightly earlier titles like "Kidnapping, Caucasian Style" and "The Diamond Arm" from the late 1960s are much better, and hold up well against Hollywood contemporaries like "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Great Race". I'd even say that cinematically, "The Diamond Arm" is a league above the average Hollywood movie of the era. It was shot really beautifully and has wonderful use of color.
> "The Diamond Arm" is a league above the average Hollywood movie of the era.
OK, even if true, that's only one movie :) I mean, ask any person from that era and they'll tell you it's their favorite. Kind of unfair to compare the only shining example to the "Hollywood average".
Ask Russian-speakers to recommend a fun iconic movie to watch, and Ivan Vasilievich comes up all the time. I don’t see why, but it does.
Diamond Hand too.
It would be ridiculous if the same were true about Hollywood.
A Russian asks an American what movies to watch, and 8 out of 10 people go back to 1969 to recommend the same one? Impossible.
You’d get everything from Citizen Kane to Hitchcock to Rocky, etc. But you’d also get about 150 great picks from the 80s and 90s, and another dozen from after 2000.
And forget the greats. You’d get Zoolander, Demolition Man, Total Recall, Gremlins, Scream, John Wick, Legally Blonde even… there’s such a wide pool of fun iconic popcorn movies for any person.
Not to mention your Star Wars/Trek/Gate.
These movies aren’t “good” in the sense of being art. They’re good in the sense of people wanting to watch them.
Every n years I rewatch Commando, Con-Air, The Last Starfighter, etc just for kicks. It’s not pure nostalgia- they’re fun movies.
With int’l movies from any given country the list of recommendations is extremely shallow. It’s always one or two iconic revelations from a given decade. Or a couple auteur directors who won all the awards for their think-pieces about the human condition.
This is a remarkable statement when Fellini and Kieślowski exist.
Yes, two directors exist, one who's been dead for 29 years, the other who's been dead for 32 years. I stand corrected then.
Look, this is a losing argument. It’s ok if you prefer stuff like Zemeckis (who I might add, made a lot of melodramatic films himself) over international films, but that doesn’t them objectively better or more watchable for everybody.
I’m just going to leave this random link here: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls003889355/
Look at all those top non-American films on that list:
1. Once Upon a Time in America
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
3. The Great Dictator
4. Lord of the Rings
5. Chinatown
If there's one thing you can't associate Charlie Chaplin or Jack Nicholson with, it's Hollywood.
Number 9 on your list is famous non-Hollywood filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock.
> Look at all those top non-American films on that list:
That’s not a list of non-American films, it’s a list of non-American directors.
To answer what I assume is your every so snarkily delivered point: Yes, about a third of the directors on that list ended up successful in Hollywood. Does that mean international films are bad? Probably not! Does it maybe mean even Hollywood recognizes that there is a lot of international talent, and very good international films being made? Probably yes?
What’s the relevance of non-American directors?
Nicole Kidman and Chris Hemsworth, say, are as Hollywood as it gets.
Heck so is Salma Hayek.
The point is that intl can’t compete with Hollywood because Hollywood is widely appealing and relatively very good.
It doesn’t matter that Alfred Hitchcock became a naturalized US citizen.
I hoped you were trolling but now I doubt it.
Not trolling. Having lived in many countries and had the TV on, this happens to be my unpopular opinion.
American movies are popular globally not because they're American but because they're so damn watchable/enjoyable/varied.
Granted that becomes less true every year, since Hollywood appears to be broken. Other countries haven't figured out how to pick up the slack though. 1994 Hollywood will likely never come again.
Ah yes, the 'slop, melodramatic vaudeville, or tear-jerking gut-punches' of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Wong Ching-Po, Stephen Chow, John Woo, Emin Alper, Win Wenders, Pedro Almodóvar, Sylvain Chomet, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Jacques Demy, Lee Chang-dong, Shunji Iwai, Wai Keung Lau, Wong Kar-wai, Hirokazu Koreeda, Park Chan-wook, Tran Anh Hung, Nadine Labaki, Santiago Mitre, ...
Yes, the US is a wealthy country, with a big population, a healthy movie industries and a lot of consumer. It does mean that the US produce a lot of movies, from auteur movie to holywood blockbuster. Disproportionally more than any other country in the world. But dismissing every non-US movie industry just show your ignorance about cinema in general.
Predictably, commenters read the word "most" as "every".
Most non-American movies are melodramatic slop, vaudeville slapstick or heart-wrenching soul-destroyers.
Oh really? Well I found one in China that isn't. And here's one from 1970s France that isn't.
There were several from China to be exact (Hong Kong to be precise, which had its own cinema golden-era between the late 80'and early 00'), and more than one from France also, some of which are more contemporary :) .
Most movie everywhere are not masterpiece, incredible contribution to the art, tasteful and original. They are easy, made to profit, amateurish, etc. That is true for every art form.
Again, yes the US being the wealthiest country in the world means that they can afford to produce more, and therefore, in your own word "can afford to swing at more pitches and consequently get more hits.". That much is true. The rest of your message is just dismissive of non-US movie in general, and again just show your ignorance and unwillingness to engage with different movie.
> And don't get me started on "let's yell at each other for 120 minutes" Russian cinema.
Just because you don't like it does not make it slop.
> American movies are by far the most watchable, especially when you don't feel like going on a heart-wrenching journey of despair, which is all international cinema excels at.
If you were to look at US movies that win awards, they tend to be "heart-wrenching journey of despair". That is just a bias of the perception of "awardable" cinema. Good light-heated comedy rarely wins award (altough stories of hope also often do). That is not specific to "international" cinema. You want some fun slapstick comedy from hong-kong, watch Stephen Chow movies. Some light hearted romance from France ? Jacques Demy might tickle your fancy. A more action horiented movie, Wong Ching-po wight interest you.
Just because you don't know them doesn't mean they don't exist.
> https://youtu.be/R5eefu7wjbw
Vaudeville slapstick
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq9wIQ243f8
Melodramatic poorly acted, over-choreographed, stunt wire work. Might as well be a dance or a cartoon. At least in the Matrix homage to this genre, there was some diegetic explanation for why the characters appeared to be throwing each other around on wires.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z0XBq74c0w
A 1964 film where every line is sung? You got me there. Chalk one up for the appeal of international cinema over Hollywood.
predictably, summing up the entire worlds cinema as inferior to one nations cinema provokes disagreement.
you can simply say that you were wrong to make such a sweeping judgement and have no actual notion of the entire worlds cinematic output, nor speak anything besides english to properly understand anyone elses films, but yey, feel free to dig in your heels and be wronger.
Or... I might speak multiple languages and have lived in multiple countries. Enough to see not only the movies that break through into Oscar contention, but also whatever random movie is playing in cinemas for 2 weeks over the rainy season, and will never be heard of again.
There's a universe in which one nation is a cinematic powerhouse that dwarfs not just the average quantity but also the average quality of the cinematic output of any other nation.
My argument is this is the case. Less so every year, since Hollywood is broken now, but still.
Was the USA's movie industry really under threat from abroad? In my local cinema here in Europe the great majority of popular movies is American ..
To me this move seems more a kind of cultural censorship. Similar to how many foreign movies can't be shown in Russia or China.
That's not what this is about.
Most American movies are shot outside of the US these days because among other factors Hollywood unions have made it way more expensive to shoot in the US.
> That's not what this is about.
Of course. It's clearly about the fentanyl emergency.
Think of the children! The foreign movies might expose them to something other than American English!
Well these were the words from the horse's mouth:
“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” Trump said in the Truth Social post. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”
To me this seems to motivate the tariffs as a battle against foreign propaganda.
Well, yes. American films obviously have been soft on China because they've been desperate for access to the Chinese market. You don't bite the hand that feeds. In a similar way, if a significant amount of film production moves to the UK, it's likely that criticisms of the UK would be more muted. In the long run, this creates a national security threat when our media is inundated with non-neutral messages about other countries that are not acting in our best interest.
The easy way to see this is to reverse your lens. We've been the beneficiary of soft power from Hollywood for a century. It'd be ridiculous to lose that power without at least trying to preserve it.
> if a significant amount of film production moves to the UK, it's likely that criticisms of the UK would be more muted.
Have you watched British television or movies sometimes? They're not exactly sparing their country from criticism .. E.g. (the original) House of Cards, Not the Nine O'Clock News, etc.
The other country you mention, China, is a better match. But is that the kind of society that the USA wants to be?
Are you intentionally missing the point? Our films made in the US are already neutered from a free-speech perspective because we're chasing opinions that are politically correct in China. We don't want to worsen that by bending to every foreign tax break. We should be making unapologetically American movies, and if foreign consumers still watch those movies, all the better. But we shouldn't be writing these to a lowest common denominator of politically correct speech. It's how we've arrived at a point where all we produce is Marvel slop.
Finally: movie adaptions of paris are done in vegas.
So movie tickets go up either way.
Does the First Amendment preclude the US from imposing prohibitive taxes on media?
It'd be clearly unconstitutional to ban them outright; so, where and how's that line drawn?
late edit: I just want to note the text of POTUS' announcement includes this: "It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!" The overtly expressed motive here is animus towards the content of the speech (not some content-neutral factor like trade balances).
Not sure how you even tarif movies. I guess Netflix will receive bills based on viewership?
Anyway, as usual other countries will retaliate. American movies will become both more expensive to make and taxed abroad. Meanwhile, we can expect more people will turn to piracy to cope with rising inflation. I can't imagine any scenario where this isn't backfiring.
The tariff would apply when Netflix pays for the distribution rights to a movie or TV show.
My uninformed assumption is that most licencing arrangement have per viewer component? Not just a lump sum that can be taxed once?
I don't think so. Netflix guards viewership numbers like they are nuclear secrets.
Soon he'll want Wallace & Gromit with American humour.
I'm sure some in EU loves this. Many politicans in EU wants an excuse to prop up european cinema and this will give them the perfect excuse.
It's not just "evil greedy production companies want to save money", as some other comments imply.
There is EU regulation requiring that 30% of content available on streaming services for European customers are "European works". The definition is a bit complicated, but this is definitely a big part of why plenty of production has moved to Europe and the UK.
If this goes through it could bring some problems for Netflix et al. They can always artificially restrict the low-value content content from customers in EU countries though. As if the arcane licensing and availability landscape wasn't crazy enough for media...
(See the "Audiovisual Media Services Directive")
Was something actually been written up or is this just some rally ranting ?
Because I would love to read the National Security justification for imposing a tariff on foreign movies.
In fact I'm sure some US companies are gonna be hit by this such as Netflix ? Disney ?
This is;
1. Media spin or early reporting, it is nothing in stone yet. This should be the understanding for any "new policy" announced m-f for this admin.
2. Even if it is to be set in stone, likely will be rescinded.
3. It is vague on purpose ^
4. Assuming it becomes set in ston, it is a direct pander to Disney, Universal etc. from the current admin. Chinese film making (animation in particular) is now outperforming Disney in every metric in every market.
5. Disney et all. stand to lose either way. This is capitalism at work and american film studios will see costs skyrocket as local and foreign competitors silo resources.
So far only the dictatorial threat has been made. The Secretary of Commerce says he’s working on it, so presumably he’ll fabricate a justification for it soon.
This might have an interesting effect on the kind of movies produced in the US. Presumably other countries will hit American movies with reciprocal tariffs which will hurt the international market for Hollywood. But some genres play much better internationally than others. We might see a decline in fantasy and action blockbusters and a resurgence in wordy comedies and baseball movies.
We're really close to him issuing an executive order demanding that crops be watered with Gatorade, aren't we?
Wes Anderson is positioning cinematographers on American soil with extremely powerful telephoto lenses, filming actors performing in meticulously designed miniature sets across the Canadian border. The film will be titled "The Asymmetrical Tax Avoidance" and will star Bill Murray as a customs agent with daddy issues.
Guy is mad at seeing too many subtitled films on NFLX
Doesn't realize he has closed captioning turned on.
This is more about placating the union workers.
I doubt he cares about any (generally) blue state/city/industry union workers as much as he cares about some random business leader with a vested interest in this outcome that talked to him this weekend.
Not only are the US the biggest film exporter in the world by far, with Hollywood being a pillar of American soft power, but you can't even apply “tariff” to movies as it is IP, not physical goods (on which tariffs apply). Sure you can imagine schemes to tax these anyway, but that's a huge can of worms to open for the US, are they are net exporters of everything IP related.
The EU has been struggling with base evasion and profit shifting (BEPS) from US companies because it was all about IP and they never dared to tax it in fear of upsetting the US government. But if the move comes from the US first, then they will follow suite with a lot of enthusiasm.
What about the context of IP content piracy between countries?
Can you give any examples of IP piracy (outside of China) because IP in the US doesn't automatically transfer outside the US, they need to be registered in other regions also..
Next up, all software produced in foreign lands would be subject to tariffs.
For movies that have heavy CGI / blue screen reliance, it is almost irrelevant where it is actually shot.
It bodes very badly for everyone that the entire Republican Party is fine with having an entire federal government policy based on the random TV-driven whims of a bitter, broken and clearly ailing old man. Would they even try to stop him pushing the button?
It is not random. These are not some lucky people who got the lead of the world most powerful country. These are targeted at blue states/demographics. This should have been obvious from Section 174(c)(3) but somehow everyone seems oblivious to it?
> This should have been obvious from Section 174(c)(3) but somehow everyone seems oblivious to it?
If you want to change that, i.e. make people aware of it, don’t just name the section; link to it and briefly explain what it is and why people should be against it. Even doing just one of those three would help your cause.
>If you want to change that, i.e. make people aware of it, don’t just name the section; link to it and briefly explain what it is and why people should be against it. Even doing just one of those three would help your cause.
I'm not sure why this (Section 174(c)(3)) [0] is relevant to our discussion in any way, but here it is for everyone's perusal:
>(3) Software development
>
>For purposes of this section, any amount paid or incurred
>in connection with >the development of any software shall
>be treated as a research or experimental >expenditure.
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/174
Edit: Fixed quote formatting.
I don’t understand why we (in the US) were taught about separation of powers and checks and balances in elementary and high school.
Apparently, the president has had the power to change the price of anything at anytime.
No, they very much want the button.
I don’t think they’re all fine with it, but they are almost all terrified of his sway over the primary voters, and scared to lose their jobs.
Letting party members rather than party elites choose the head of party always sounds good in practice but often ends up badly (Truss, Corbyn, etc)
it s impressive that , despite the US deciding to self-implode there is nobody willing to step in to compete for their place. It's as if the species has culturally peaked after its demographic peak. Europe is already in retirement and US seems to follow. Maybe we'll see African dynamism in a few decades
> there is nobody willing to step in to compete for their place
China has been stepping on a number fronts. They are working on trade deals that exclude the US, and I'm sure are excited about the soft power vacuum left when USAID shutdown.
Maybe?.. If China had some sort of open minded Taiwanese government instead of the CCP, the US would be already buried by now. The problem of China, besides its concerning demography, is the authoritarian regime and its expansion views, which are both not very appealing for many Asian neighbors and Europeans.
China as a huge manufacturing hub shows that while people may talk about China's internal policies, the economics are what really matter in geopolitics.
Then there's Africa which China has been actively engaging and the USA has all but left at this point.
The global south will be interesting to see who engages there.
When it comes to trade and geopolitics, I don't think countries would care about morality or authoritarian rule etc. As long as they are able to protect themselves against China's expansion views, countries will happily do business with the Chinese. They just wouldn't care what China does at home or elsewhere, as long as they aren't affected. I can't think of any country that has such high moral standards that they would give up cheap goods and a 1.4 Billion people market, because of Taiwan or uyghur situation
In other words there is only profit/loss and strength/weakness, not right/wrong when it comes to global politics. There might be some exception cases like material support for Ukraine, but that is limited. Even in that case, there is a bit of selfishness - countries like Poland know Ukraine is acting as a buffer, if they don't help the Ukrainians, they themselves will be next on Russia's list
China's cultural influence is somewhere between a dwarf and zero
Isn't this because Europe stepped up over the last 20 years and now has an industry making "American" films here?
Look at the list of films made at Pinewood Studios in England, there are plenty of films I'd consider American: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_productions_filmed_at_...
(I'm sure there are other examples, this is just the studio I'm familiar with.)
How quickly do you expect a country to 'step in to compete for their place'? I'm pretty sure America didn't get to where they are overnight.
The world will adjust to this, it just takes longer than a few months...
America got there pretty swiftly with bretton woods. Maybe the competing threat of ussr helped
I don't think something that happened more than 80 years ago is a great example of how the modern world might adapt - not to mention that involved more than just America.
> step in to compete
Not sure how that looks - probably starts with not imposing tariffs.
China?
China is in a similar problem to South Korea where pretty soon they'll be in a rapid population decline. Or so some have been saying. I believe their official census data supports this.
You have to ask yourself why nobody wants the role. This role has only been a thing for 81 years and the USA is the only 1 dumb enough to ever try to do it.
The EU could do it; basically nobody else is in the ballpark to try. No chance though.
Everyone is looking at Nigeria. More than doubling their population by the end of the century. Extremely healthy population pyramid.
India is soon to be the new Asian superpower. Which sure is wrecking their neighbours with their slower urbanization that is avoiding the WW2 blight.
These 2 are the likely next world order candidates; if they play their cards right.
> This role has only been a thing for 81 years
Queen Victoria would like a word.
Any chance Trump could do this for software 'produced in foreign lands'?
100% tariff on Linux, we can't have swedes control american software.
Sweden or Finland? Well, since I'm Swedish I wont complain.
As a side note, why does he only get ~21k likes on Truth Social for his post?
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1144521171432...
What is going on there? Why don't they fix the likes for him? :-D
Europe should counter this with 500% tariffs. I (being German) really want to see a comeback of French cinema.
You probably won't. French cinema is americanizing. Good movies are still made, but 'les 3 mousquetaires' showed that most huge french productions are poor copies of 2000 era Ridley Scott (well, Ridley Scott himself make poor copies of his 2000-era films). 'Le Comte de Monte Cristo' was better (way better), but the colour filters,the lack of sound (or the music too loud and too epic), the useless sword fight and the 'reading letter' trick, all inspired by Hollywood action movies pushed it down from Good movie to 'almost as bad as Marvel' imho.
And the dialogs not inspired from the book are as expected, but that's modern cinema, not Hollywood in particular. That noone took the torch from Audiard or Prevert is a shame.
How do you tariff a movie?
Same way you reopen Alcatraz.
You don’t, and hope he forgets about it.
A tariff is a tax - so additional tax on BDs, DVDs, cinema tickets, etc. It's stupid, but it's possible to implement it.
The rumor I heard is that Trump watched _Escape From Alcatraz_ over the weekend, which resulted in this decree in addition to the "we are reopening Alcatraz" decree
Will this simply drive studios to produce with an even heavier eye towards the Chinese market?
There’s a nugget of truth to Hollywood moving production overseas, but I’m not convinced a massive tariff will have the effect Trump wants. Just like all his other economic fuckery.
Trump always hated foreign movies - I remember him disparaging an Academy award winning movie purely because it was non-English language. Wonder what prompted this outburst - the success of Ne Zha 2 (china bad), or No Other Land (can't say Palestine)?
This proclamation and his desire to reopen Alcatraz may be linked to the fact that PBS in Palm Beach aired "Escape from Alcatraz" last night. Presumably the tariffs on foreign movies came from his annoyance at channel surfing.
https://bsky.app/profile/garyalexander.bsky.social/post/3lof...
> Sign-in Required
> This user has requested that their content only be shown to signed-in users.
Oh great, a Twitter replacement that implements worst of it's predecessor features.
I got the warning when I shared, but I think it's ostensibly a security/privacy measure that users can toggle on and off.
Anyways, here's a more direct source that should be publicly accessible, the prior was my first encounter with it.
https://bsky.app/profile/robertandrewp.bsky.social/post/3log...
That's a more logical explanation than all these "4D chess" theories out there that try to sane-wash Trumps actions into a coherent strategy.
It's something that I think has been bubbling up for a while. I've heard a lot of complaints from people in and around the industry, and the complaints are a lot less about Ne Zha 2 and more about stuff that used to be filmed in Hollywood being filmed in Canada instead for cost purposes.
Cool, whatever organic market activities need to take place to make products cheaper is ok by the real gods of sacred capitalism. Trump is acting more and more like an irrational communist dictator each day.
I think tax credits in other countries have a lot to do with the consideration here, so it's not like a free market paradise situation as-is.
I had never heard of Ne Zha 2, but a quick search shows that it only had a limited release in the US and made a tiny $20 million at the box office. Unlikely that Trump is making decisions based on that.
What is your source, I get $2 billions at the box office, which is indeed a triumph.
That’s globally, not in the US. It was barely released in the US at all.
How does one tariff a movie? It’s not like because it’s made in Australia that the blue rays are shipped through there? Not that anyone uses blue rays, like at what point does a movie go through customs
I don't get it? How many non-US movies does the US even import?
I can't think of any country that the US imports more movies from than it exports?
Even if you believe in tariffs what industry in America does this protect that needs protection?
Of is he gambling on recipritoral tarrifs to 'punish' the liberal Hollywood???? Sounds conspiracy-like but I legit can't think of any other reason this makes sense.
Is no one in this administration willing/able to deter the senile old man in charge from worsening the situation through new tariffs? I mean, don't get me wrong, this is music to my ears. Ever since I became an accelerationist last november, I cheer every time I see them pour oil on the fire.
They're the ones suggesting the tariffs.
Last time he let himself be surrounded by people with experience from other administrations. They frequently ran interference. This time he's doing it his way.
It's not as if this is unexpected. He said what he was going to do. This is what the voters voted for, and his constituents support him.
Huh?
If they disagreed with him, they would have already left the administration.
So of course no one on Trumps team wants to stop trump.
Sure, but what about the oligarchs that put him in place, the Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Thiel... ?
Only Musk got some of his acolytes in the administration and that is only the grunts doing the dirty work at DOGE.
Do you want a European version of Netflix to be cheaper (in the US)? Because this is how you make foreign websites cheaper.
The Trump admin seems to be hastening the day that foreign website are more popular than US websites.
They will just outlaw them. Look at Tiktok or even Deepseek.
I realize it's just another hair-brained scheme likely cooked up on the porcelain throne, but part of me is curious about how exactly they'd implement this train wreck.
Since Trump is relying on declarations of national emergencies for his tariffs, there's the question whether it's even legal given that Berman Amendments to the IEEPA[0] explicitly exempt "informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, *films*, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds" from the President's authority under IEEPA.[1]
Even if we set that aside and ignore the likely legal challenges, how would you actually implement them? It's not like a movie or TV episode "produced" overseas gets transmitted into the US each time somebody wants to watch it. It's a digital file, and you're really only sending it once. So when do you tariff the damn thing, how do you manage to actually do it since there's not exactly a literal port of entry for the internet, and what exactly do you value it at? The system isn't built to track and tariff info being uploaded to random servers, and making it work would require all sorts of new law.
Plus, what's the legal definition of "production" he wants to use? What constitutes foreign production? Can some of the producing just be done remotely? What if raw footage is uploaded instead and then it's edited here? Or a nearly finished copy that just needs something minor done to be considered ready? Hollywood accountants are in a league of their own. Put them in a room with lawyers and accountants whose focus is the creative eccentricities of tariff engineering--hello, chicken tax people[0]--and I shudder to imagine what they'd get up to.
We're only a few months in at this point, and I feel like I'm losing my mind.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom...
1. https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/2333...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
Someone needs to tell Trump about BitTorrent.
A lot of films are produced in the uk, so this should mean no trade deal. It won’t of course but there you are…
What's Trump's agenda? Kiss the ring and we'll waive your tariffs? In what form will Hollywood be asked to kiss the ring here? More pro maga content? Pro maga actors? Remove "woke" content?
So movies will get more expensive and studios will do less.
Seems like Trump is the best ally for all those who want to reduce US influence in the world.
Given how much modern actors and related are freaking out about AI (despite holding "egalitarian" social views), I'm more than happy to see them destroyed. Very bad for US soft-power but great for helping gut hollywood faster.
Huge amounts of the top brass of hollywood are disgusting. Tom Cruise and the rest of Scientologies leadership should be in prison right now, and that's just one tiny example of the sea of shit found in hollywood.
Trump is likely saying this because the new Prime Minister of Canada is visiting tomorrow, and Canada has been fairly successful building a "Hollywood North" industry -- lots of good filming locations, lots of talents that are indistinguishable from Americans, and tax credits on top.
This is 100% targeted at Canada, and trying to threaten destroying the Canadian film industry as another lever against Canada.
And it is laughably silly. Even in Canada alone, "Hollywood" nets far more than it ever spends here[1]. And of course worldwide media is something that the US has an enormous trade surplus. It's yet another harebrained bit of nonsense from the extremely smooth, simpleton mind of Trump and his greasy used-car salesman, carnival barker Howard Lutnick.
What Trump is really achieving in all of these declarations is making the rest of the world ask why do we accept Hollywood controlling the film or music industry, or Silicon Valley controlling the tech industry, or NYC the financial industry, etc? The end result of this is going to be massive decentralization and lowered importance of US industry leadership.
[1] Not to mention that the tax credits quite literally subsidizes the industry. And FWIW, I am wholly against tax credits for film productions, and much like paying a sports team to build a stadium, the accounting of the supposed benefit just doesn't make any sense.
[dead]
[flagged]
Chinese movies are getting better and better. I watched Detective Dee recently and enjoyed it a lot.
The filmmaking industry is constantly flying productions all over the world to avoid paying US labor. Waste of time, money, energy. And the saved money isn't given back to the people making the movie, the unions are still constantly fighting with the industry for basic asks.
I don't see a problem here, this is what tariffs are actually for. Broken clock is right twice a day yada yada
eta: one can not like the man and not think this is a bad idea. same as we don't need more dolls from china and it's weird for us to suddenly die on that hill. /shrug
> The filmmaking industry is constantly flying productions all over the world to avoid paying US labor.
Think of all the American jobs that are lost when a film studio chooses to shoot on-location in Paris instead of attempting to build a replica of Paris in Los Angeles. No one ever thinks about all of the construction workers who never get a chance to build a fake Eiffel Tower, or all of the struggling local actors whose attempts to fake French accents will never be heard by audiences, let alone the HVAC technicians who make sure the air conditioners work properly in the indoor studio sets that have to be used to film outdoor scenes in Paris so that the Champs-Élysées doesn't look like Wilshire Boulevard.
mock the actors and builders and hvac technicians all you'd like, sorta reinforces the overall political landscape. not a great look imo
Right, wait till all other countries tariff US movies. Again it is another US thing is more expensive for the average human on Earth scenario. Good luck with that.
It's about the production of movies, not the distribution of movies. I don't think people in this thread are reading the article. The original title of this submission didn't help.
But you agree that EU should tariff any movie produced in US, right?
The "tariff" we're talking about here would be for where the labor comes from. If a EU film company is choosing to film in the US instead of at home for cost reasons, then sure they can put a tariff on that somehow to keep it local. I don't think that's happening in any meaningful way, but it is in the reverse to the detriment of thousands and thousands of local jobs in LA, ATL, NY, etc.
[flagged]
i don't ask ppl who they voted for because i've learned it's not a good signal on whether they are nice or a good person. life is complicated. i didn't vote for trump though, so at least this village idiot has a clean conscience and just isn't interested in reliving 2017
Yes this man was democratically elected. There didn’t seem to be a particularly appealing set of options for the electorate.
As an outsider it seems a lot like groups pulling the political levers in the US only ensure candidates that can be ‘handled’ are put forward and those that can’t will be rooted out.
That’s why the choice was between braindead Biden vs deranged Trump. And when it was clear Biden wasn’t an option, a belated shift to try sell Kamala to the electorate.
I don’t think we’ll see strong presidential candidates - those clearly motivated to better the country and its citizens - in the near future either. The process now seems to suit the corporate and lobby groups who jostle to get their share of influence.
> There didn’t seem to be a particularly appealing set of options for the electorate.
I mean, there was one candidate who fawns over dictators, is a felon, always acts in his own personal interest, and had very public plans to try to dismantle democracy and seize ultimate power. Then there was another who would at worst continue the status quo and not try to overthrow the government.
It feels ridiculous to claim there was no appealing option. It’s like being given the option between losing both arms or being slapped in the face and shrugging that none of the options is appealing. At least try to pick the least unappealing.
> at worst continue the status quo
That’s what you have spelled out but failed to appreciate the significance of. For a chunk of the electorate the status quo wasn’t working for them. I see from all the down votes people seem blind to this.
The ‘status quo’ may have been fine for you hence why you think that was better to continue…
> For a chunk of the electorate the status quo wasn’t working for them.
No doubt. But voting for someone who openly makes the worst parts of the status quo worse isn’t a solution either. If the current situation isn’t working for you, choosing to make it more difficult on yourself is nonsensical.
> The ‘status quo’ may have been fine for you hence why you think that was better to continue
I’m not American. But please do elucidate me on which groups exactly were being handed a bad hand by the status quo and are now better off. I think the answer will be quite enlightening.
This. Some things are going very wrong for the body politic.
> That’s why the choice was between braindead Biden vs deranged Trump.
Why would a political apparatus that only wants to offer candidates that can be 'handled' instead offer up a senile geriatric and a stubborn narcissist, both of whom are severely lacking in their capacity to take direction?
Vancouver and toronto just had a heart attack. london UK and berlin probably far less impacted.
elbows up! Though i dont recommend continuing to antagonize trump even more because it's just triggering his ego and making him retaliate.
China stood up to his tariffs and he was forced to reverse some of them.
In 2020 he reversed some? I dont believe he has reversed anything in 2025.
The de minimis revocation and decoupling level tariffs means china-usa trade is over. There was no standing up.
He did have to reverse on CUSMA protected trade to avoid lawsuits. He's now targeting non-cusma protected trade.
Well, he did exclude a lot of electronics from the tariffs, even for china.