What Does It Mean to Sell Out?

 

The topic of selling out seems to be coming up rather frequently in class, so I decided that this would be an appropriate topic for this blog post. I think that perhaps we are creating a definition in our class of selling out that is not entirely correct. It seems to me that we are in danger of creating an idea of selling out that is rather skewed towards our own perspective. Namely, we seem to think that selling out means going from making movies that we (Leeper and the class) think are more mature and engaging, to big blockbusters, that we think are less, for lack of a better word, art. While I do agree that this happens quite often, I wonder if our standard is also somewhat hypocritical. We seem to think that if a director goes from making a movie that is more mature and thought-provoking to a movie that is less engaging but quite popular, he has in essence sold his soul to the devil and is worthy of nothing but contempt. An example of this is Spielberg, who produced Gremlins, and then later directed Schindler's List. These movies are polar opposites. One is a movie about little monsters terrorizing children, and made buckets of money; the other is a war movie about the monsters that reside within men, and won many awards, but was not what we might call a blockbuster. My question is, "Should the fact that Spielberg can create a movie as powerful and moving as Schindler's List take away from the enjoyment of the fun of Gremlins?" I think that the answer is "No." Should we get upset with Spielberg simply because he wanted to make a raucous comedy that more people would enjoy, rather than a bleak (but beautiful) tragedy? This I think would be unfair. While I don't doubt that Schindler's List was a more personal story than Gremlins, I do not condemn Spielberg for wanting to make a different kind of movie every once in a while.

I will close by saying that I do understand that selling out is indeed real, and has become all too popular in Hollywood. I myself have a beef with Pixar, who stated that they don't believe in making sequels unless they are sure they can make it better than the original, in which case I must say they must feel quite sure of themselves these days. There are indeed directors who create junk to make a buck, and I don't think their actions reflect well on the industry. However, I do think we must be careful when considering movies, and not come to the conclusion that just because it is not as personal or moving a movie as some of their other movies, that the creators simply sold out.