I'm sorry, but I just disagree. Kathleen Kennedy and Lucasfilm have driven Star Wars into the ground since her ascension. You'd be hard pressed to find any fan of Star Wars who is happy with the state of the franchise since Disney took over. Yet, she's still there, still making bad decisions, still damaging the brand. Someone earlier in the thread made reference to a Hollywood "cool kids table" which isn't that far from the truth, actually. I've seen far too many examples over the past 5 years of companies exchanging profits for woke points in order to believe that it's just a coincidence that they're making bad judgement calls.

Anyone with two brain cells to rub together know that injecting divisive identity politics into entertainment is going to be divisive. You know it and I know it. So it would be hard for me to believe that marketing managers who work for mega corporations with salaries in the millions do not know it.

It isn't only right wing people that are annoyed or turned off by this. My entire life, I would have identified myself as left wing. That has changed over the last decade as the left wing has lost the plot and radical left wing ideas have become mainstream. I've taken various political compass tests in recent years that have all placed me in the center-left. So I'm not right wing by any means and I think these divisive politics are a major turn off that are ruining many forms of entertainment. It shocks me that you believe there are NO people within the entertainment industry who aren't willing to sacrifice some of their profit in order to make a political statement, as if you believe that all of these people are robots hardwired to view the world through a purely capitalist lens with no personal ideas impacting their decision making.

Do you remember Gillette's catastrophically tone deaf marketing where a company that primarily sells men's shaving equipment thought it would be a brilliant idea to attack men and tell them to "be better"? This brilliant marketing campaign cost the company billions of dollars. Afterwards, the CEO claimed that it was "a price worth paying" in order to make their point.

Moving over to the realm of gaming, let's take a look at Battlefield V. DICE and EA's marketing took a feminist approach, which was criticized heavily within the gaming community, mainly for the unrealistic approach the developer took by having a female amputee solider fighting for the British on the front lines during WWII. Amid the backlash, the CEO of EA had a simple message to their potential buyers of BFV: if you don't like it, don't buy it. Ultimately, the community listened to him and the game underperformed EA's expectations.

TL;DR - Yes, there are people in the world, working for mega corporations who are NOT perfect capitalists and seem perfectly fine with sacrificing some profit in order to send a message. I don't understand how this is even up for debate, given how plainly obvious it is. They say it themselves. lol

 I'm not really interested in arguing any of the points you're bringing up. If I was, I'd have replied in the first place.

I'm also not interested in arguing with whether my assumptions about your posts were correct. I was explaining for your benefit why someone would see the posts and not want to reply, beyond being a hypocrite. 

Not gonna reply any further cause it'd be derailing. But, that's for my part why I didn't choose to engage. Don't assume everyone is a hypocrite because they don't want to respond to you. If someone else wants to respond to your questions, they're free to do so. If not, they're free to not.

This is what they said in response to the Gilette ad-

"I don’t enjoy that some people were offended by the film and upset at the brand as a consequence. That’s not nice and goes against every ounce of training I’ve had in this industry over a third of a century," he said. "But I am absolutely of the view now that for the majority of people to fall more deeply in love with today’s brands you have to risk upsetting a small minority and that’s what we’ve done."

So, clearly what he's saying is he thinks that it's better for the brand. It's like you didn't read the article. Neither company is saying they don't care about profits at all and only care about sending a message. They're saying that you can't please everyone, and they made the choices they think will please more people and make more money. Whether they were right or wrong, I dunno. 

Not every product that fails is because its too social justicey. Rise of Skywalker made 65% of what the Last Jedi did. Attack of the Clones made 66% of what the Phantom Menace did. The Empire Strikes back made 63% of what A New Hope did. Remarkably consistent eh? Maybe Anakin was pandering too much when he decided to kill the sandmen and the sandwomen and that's why the box office dropped. #Allsandlivesdon'tmatter 

You have dishonestly changed your argument completely to avoid the absurd contradictions. So, thumbs up for realizing how bad the argument was, but thumbs down for trying to pretend you weren't making it.

Before it was social justice pandering and virtue signaling. Now, it's because they want to make a point. That's entirely different.

So, are the executives doing what they're doing because they want to pander to the evil rabid leftist mob, or are they doing it because they genuinely believe these things and want to take a stand? 

If they're doing it to pander to the cancelmob, why the fuck would they be pandering to a group that serves them no possible benefit?

If they're doing it because they themselves believe in it, then doesn't that mean the evil rabid left cancel mob actually doesn't have any power at all?

I eagerly await the non-answer I'm sure is forthcoming.

The vast majority of these CEOs, specially in entertainment and technology ARE far-leftists themselves. You're so disingenuous that I'm embarrassed on your behalf. These people pander to each other because they are addicted to the false sense of moral superiority they get when they do things like this. They get off on it, like one big circle jerk. Most far-leftists don't believe the shit they say either. Socialists don't care about the poor. They just hate the rich (or anyone that has more than themselves). Their entire ideology is based on moral grandstanding. Perhaps try educating yourself instead of LARPing as a keyboard warrior on VGC.

By the way, what do you expect the Gillette CEO to say? "Yeah, our marketing team is moronic and should have known better." These people double and triple down on their stupidity all the time. And frankly, it doesn't matter what he says anyway. His company lost billions of dollars because of their piss poor decision making regarding marketing. So your statement of "idunno" if it was a good call or not is laughable. It clearly wasn't a good call. Also, I never said that they don't care about profit at all. What I actually said is that they're willing to sacrifice SOME profit in order to make a political statement and they clearly are. I made that very clear, so perhaps it's you who needs reading comprehension lessons, eh?

You: "Afterwards, the CEO claimed that it was "a price worth paying" in order to make their point. " "They say it themselves lol!"

Also You: "By the way, what do you expect the Gillette CEO to say? "

So, you brought up the CEO's comments as evidence and then you're criticizing me for using what he said. XD 

I got the non-answer I was expecting, because obviously there is no sensible way to answer those questions without showing how ludicrous your position is. Try to prove me wrong!

And I got a rant about how socialists hate the poor cause, that's what we were talking about apparently? Are you saying CEOs are socialists? Cause... I'm pretty sure they're actually capitalists. OOOHHHH! And I got some flaming! HAT TRICK!

Apparently the vast majority of CEOs are far leftists that just want moral superiority, and shareholders and investors are just like "Definitely not going to vote her out! I AM HAPPY TO FUND YOUR EGO TRIP COMRADE!"

Thanks for being embarrassed for me. It's sweet that you care <3 But after this bit of brilliance you might want to practice some self-care first before worrying about others.

This is what they said in response to the Gilette ad-

"I don’t enjoy that some people were offended by the film and upset at the brand as a consequence. That’s not nice and goes against every ounce of training I’ve had in this industry over a third of a century," he said. "But I am absolutely of the view now that for the majority of people to fall more deeply in love with today’s brands you have to risk upsetting a small minority and that’s what we’ve done."

So, clearly what he's saying is he thinks that it's better for the brand. It's like you didn't read the article. Neither company is saying they don't care about profits at all and only care about sending a message. They're saying that you can't please everyone, and they made the choices they think will please more people and make more money. Whether they were right or wrong, I dunno. 

Not every product that fails is because its too social justicey. Rise of Skywalker made 65% of what the Last Jedi did. Attack of the Clones made 66% of what the Phantom Menace did. The Empire Strikes back made 63% of what A New Hope did. Remarkably consistent eh? Maybe Anakin was pandering too much when he decided to kill the sandmen and the sandwomen and that's why the box office dropped. #Allsandlivesdon'tmatter 

You have dishonestly changed your argument completely to avoid the absurd contradictions. So, thumbs up for realizing how bad the argument was, but thumbs down for trying to pretend you weren't making it.

Before it was social justice pandering and virtue signaling. Now, it's because they want to make a point. That's entirely different.

So, are the executives doing what they're doing because they want to pander to the evil rabid leftist mob, or are they doing it because they genuinely believe these things and want to take a stand? 

If they're doing it to pander to the cancelmob, why the fuck would they be pandering to a group that serves them no possible benefit?

If they're doing it because they themselves believe in it, then doesn't that mean the evil rabid left cancel mob actually doesn't have any power at all?

I eagerly await the non-answer I'm sure is forthcoming.

You: "Afterwards, the CEO claimed that it was "a price worth paying" in order to make their point. " "They say it themselves lol!"

Also You: "By the way, what do you expect the Gillette CEO to say? "

So, you brought up the CEO's comments as evidence and then you're criticizing me for using what he said. XD 

I got the non-answer I was expecting, because obviously there is no sensible way to answer those questions without showing how ludicrous your position is. Try to prove me wrong!

And I got a rant about how socialists hate the poor cause, that's what we were talking about apparently? Are you saying CEOs are socialists? Cause... I'm pretty sure they're actually capitalists. OOOHHHH! And I got some flaming! HAT TRICK!

Apparently the vast majority of CEOs are far leftists that just want moral superiority, and shareholders and investors are just like "Definitely not going to vote her out! I AM HAPPY TO FUND YOUR EGO TRIP COMRADE!"

Thanks for being embarrassed for me. It's sweet that you care <3 But after this bit of brilliance you might want to practice some self-care first before worrying about others.