Netflixized: How the Trajectory of Film is Being Swallowed By the Likeness of Television

Television and cinema as a whole are becoming further disconnected from their original notions of artistic expression to a place for mindless entertainment. A streaming service like Netflix and recent all-consuming attention inventions like smartphones have the capacity to keep us amused for hours on end. The phrase for this behavior is “brain rot,” the result of endless doomscrolling to the point where you forget you’re even a living person. It can be dissociating, and over time, by practicing “non thinking,” it becomes harder and harder to actually think and use our brains. How many times a day do we almost run into someone who’s walking straight into us because they’re so engrossed in their phones? You begin to question whether they would walk right off a cliff. Brainrot is real, and it has colossal effects on the industry of art and entertainment, namely cinema. For directors and other types of artists, this could mean  obsoletion for the future of their jobs. 

Via Netflix

The point here isn’t to demonize watching television, Netflix, or any other platform of mindless entertainment. There’s nothing wrong with winding down and turning off our brains once in a while. But the problem is that there’s something here going on outside of our knowledge and control. It’s the way these types of platforms have diluted the art of cinema to a degree that we may not be able to go back from. The constant stimulus and fragmented cheap plays for our attention have pushed us to the point where few people can even still sit through a two-hour movie comfortably, but they have no difficulty sitting through five hours of back-to-back episodes of a show in bed or even hours of mindless doomscrolling on social media consuming “reels” that last less than 5 seconds each. 

This idea isn’t new. Even in 1982, illustrious film directors were pondering the future of cinema. In Wim Wender’s documentary “Room 666,” he gets several renowned directors, such as Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, and Steven Spielberg, among many others, to answer a question for the camera that they turn on and off themselves. The question: "Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?" The answers they give are chilling, an omen of the current situation we’re in 40 years later.

Jean-Luc Godard in Room 666 by Wim Wenders 

This documentary proves that even in the early 80s, directors and artists alike were already predicting the future extinction of cinema. Several of the directors mentioned the idea that people will gradually become less and less interested in public spaces for film watching, as well as bigger screens from farther away. Some alluded to a future in which screens will be smaller, hand-held size, and closer to us than our televisions. 

There’s an even more significant issue here regarding society’s change from watching videos from one way to another. It’s more than just watching videos; the entire language of cinema may be lost. Cinema is becoming engulfed by the production, design, and influence of television shows.  The natural lighting, symbolic visuals, and unconventional framing of traditional cinema are quickly being replaced by uniform lighting, clear-cut visuals, and an emphasis on the continuity of television programs. Cinematic production is starting to lack space for creativity, which dismantles the very notion of art. 

David Lynch filming via Shotonwhat?

Even Netflix shows are being “Netlixized.” The whole industry is actually orchestrating the thoughtlessness of people consuming television, not the other way around. Netflix screenwriters have been told that the characters must announce what they’re doing in case the viewer is busy doing something else, catering to the vapid consumption and imprisonment of television viewing. It’s all predicated on the notion that the audience is only halfway involved with the fuzzy background noise of their soap opera, crime show, or sitcom. To quote the article: “Focusing your time on a 90-minute movie is certainly not an option for the token Netflix viewer.” This spoon-fed way of consuming television, art, and media is far from even the definition of “watching” something. 

Again, everyone is entitled to enjoy what they enjoy and to watch what they want to watch. So binge whatever it is you want to binge—but keep in mind the trajectory of art, the death of cinema, and your role in the thoughtless waking state we are entering. 

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