# The District

What happened? Where did all the good movies go? And most crucially, why have our viewing habits changed so much?

Damaged people are always going to twist any message to confirm whatever they already believe. But we have to recognize that those are twisted narratives.

What effect did all of this end up having on Hollywood? A culture of abusive bosses, low pay, and hazardous working conditions that has continued for decades.

"... the country right now is so fucking political and divided that the only safety you have is if you feel that the art is regurgitating your own opinions and political beliefs back at you. I find that incredibly boring."

The way Bukowski has become seated in modern culture likely has a lot more to do with the audience's perceptions than the work itself.

More than one thing can be true at once: you can deeply love and appreciate a piece of art, and deeply disagree with its creator or its impact.

"I just want to put stuff out there that reminds people how we are not only interconnected, but we're codependent. And we won't accept that, like we actually kind of all need each other." - Kemp Powers

The artist’s response to pain is to counteract it with beauty—an urge to affirm life even as we are drowning. Sometimes we make magic. Sometimes we get it wrong.

“There comes a point in our life where we get to an age and see a little less in front of us ... it's about what we are we going to leave behind."

What about good, original storytelling? What about hearing what this generation of cartoonists and filmmakers and screenwriters want to say?

Women have influenced music throughout history—if they’re excluded from the narrative, then we will never have a true understanding of humanity’s current place in the world.

While propaganda can be perpetuated by anyone, regardless of their societal position, censorship is a unique tool that can only be used by those in positions of power.

What happens when that art goes from simply being influenced by politics to explicitly endorsing a political opinion? That, comrades, is when art becomes propaganda.

Jokes can be a weapon disguised as entertainment. And because of their disarming nature, they can be more effective in demonstrating a point about inequality, prejudice, or oppression than a serious speech or dramatic monologue.

For years, the rich and the powerful have been the unseen gatekeepers of art and culture, using the concept of “exposure” as an exploitative currency. And for the first time in human history, that paradigm has changed.