Changing times, changing culture
Courtesy Bo McCready (@Boknowsdata)
Just as marketing and culture can be intertwined, so is art and culture. In that light, the graphic above about film genre popularity (from 1910-2018) is fascinating.
Thrillers and Horror movies have steadily increased in popularity over the years. Documentaries have rocketed in popularity since about 1990.
Westerns were extremely popular until the early 1950s, then again in the late ‘60s. Since then they have been all but non-existent.
War movies were extremely popular right after World War II and at the time of the Vietnam War, and they have steadily declined since then.
Musicals used to be wildly popular. Not anymore. (In The Heights, excepted, apparently).
Fantasy is pretty consistent, except for a remarkable drop-off during the Depression and World War II.
But Depression-era people really loved Romance, Comedy, and Musicals.
SciFi started going bonkers in the 1960s.
It’s interesting to think about what was going on in American society at these times. Sometimes it is obvious. World War II, atomic power, and the space race ushered in a new fascination with science and technology. People in the Depression wanted to escape their miserable circumstances. You might be more apt to watch a War movie if you have actually experienced war.
Other things are harder to explain, perhaps. Like why Documentaries, Horror, and Thrillers are so popular right now. And why no one is into Musicals or Westerns anymore.
What are your explanations for some of these shifts? What is happening in the culture that creates these changing preferences?