Whether through ideological soft power or financial manipulation, the core agenda remains intact, albeit masked in new forms.
The question of the relationship between the overall collective Western failure of the ‘Great Reset’, failures in numerous past and current military conflicts, and subsequent signs that they are attenuating their messaging, is of critical significance which offers multiply-connected analytics vectors for development.
This is because of the relationship between Hollywood messaging and the messaging approved globally by the Western elites writ large. Those reflect a phenomenon known as ‘Human Rights Imperialism’, as well as the ‘Pink Washing’ more novel to the 21st century.
Here, we will develop upon ‘Why this Anti-Democratic Anti-Populism in the Age of Big Data Analytics?’
It is beyond a doubt that what is often termed ‘The Message’, as discussed in ‘Why this Anti-Democratic Anti-Populism’, has been placed at the center of the West’s raison d’etre.
Yet Hollywood apparently had to back-off after ‘The Message’ failed to make the numbers happen at the box office and merch sales. Will the WEF, and the political class at large, have to back-off after it failed to make the reset happen?
‘The Message’, as it is known, is a type of indoctrination inserted into mainstream Hollywood film and episodic series which, under the guise of inclusivity, encourages the population to conceptualize social problems as those arising from the thoughts and activities of every-day regular people who are ignorant, and so need to be educated in a top-down manner.
With this approach comes much less a focus on the role that structures of power (like banks, corporations) and institutions themselves have in determining power relations between asymmetrically represented and empowered segments of society.
The consequence is that rather than punching upward at those actually in power, people are encouraged to punch at each other, and also punch ever downward. But it isn’t necessary to present the origins of ‘The Message’ in conspiratorial form, even though it would be accurate.
The power establishment embarked upon this cultural revolution in the collective West (that’s the conspiratorial part) which we can conceptualize as being something like the most cynical exploits that grifters made out of the Civil Rights movement after the 1960’s, combined with a perpetual 1990’s era post Cold War triumphalism.
Finally, transgender and even pro-pedophilia discursive framings have permeated into this motif. Having done so, they had succeeded not so much in convincing many people that this was so much important or even true as they did in convincing other elites that people were embracing this. A strange virtual economy emerged, that would eventually require a correction.
Many Hollywood executives believed they could thrive economically by aligning themselves with grass-roots activist movements (which were actually AstroTurf NGOs) that claimed to represent the future of cultural engagement—asserting that they held the keys to audiences and were on “The Right Side of History.”
However, this strategy has revealed itself to be a niche market, often limiting audience reach and profitability. The realization is dawning that politically neutral films—those freed from the constraints of having to promote ‘The Message’—can resonate with a broader audience than those catering exclusively to one ideological side.
One critical lesson that Hollywood and entertainment companies are learning is that taking a definitive stand on culture war issues often alienates one side more significantly than it attracts supporters from the other.
A pertinent example can be seen in the case of Bud Light, who infamously placed a male Audrey Hepburn impersonator on their cans, which sought to engage a new demographic but ended up losing a considerable number of its long-time customers.
The attempt to appeal to one faction resulted in a backlash from another, illustrating a lose-lose situation. This pattern holds implications for the film industry as well. By attempting to appease either side of the political spectrum, studios risk inciting further alienation, thus compounding their challenges.
For studios, the notion of publicly dismissing their activist-oriented content creators presents its own set of complications. Such a move could trigger a backlash from a significant segment of society, particularly among cultural elites and film critics who perceive such actions as a capitulation to opposing views.
This could foster a narrative that the studios have shifted their allegiance, pushing away audiences that feel betrayed. The lesson emerging from this dynamic is that oscillating between ideological extremes is less effective than adopting a more neutral stance altogether.
Consequently, the trend appears to be moving toward a more subtle, yet definitive shift away from overtly politicized content. The aim is to release films that prioritize storytelling over ideology, thereby allowing for a wider appeal without the inherent risks associated with political polarization.
The increasing success of films that emphasize narrative over ‘The Message’ suggests a growing audience appetite for this type of content.
However, the road to rebuilding trust among formerly alienated audiences may be long and fraught with challenges. Many viewers who felt burned by past productions might be reluctant to engage with new releases from studios that previously prioritized ideological messaging.
This indicates that loyalty to long-established franchises may be irrevocably damaged, as previous fans move on without a new generation of enthusiasts to replace them.
The film industry may be gradually recognizing the limitations of a strategy that revolves around catering to polarized political factions. The trend toward more politically neutral storytelling not only holds the potential for broader financial success but also allows for a return to the core of what makes for good cinema: compelling storytelling.
As studios strive to regain their footing, the hope is that they will embrace this shift away from ‘The Message’ and focus on delivering engaging narratives that resonate with audiences across the spectrum.
Viability of ‘The Message’ – It’s not about the money
In the age of big data analytics, it is highly unlikely that Hollywood is unaware of where it points. Backing off ‘The Message’ be the process afoot now, but it raises questions about the market research into the viability of ‘The Message’.
While it was important to work through a more ‘perfect storm’ narrative of ‘The Message’ and why Hollywood is backing off of it a bit, as we did in the above, it is important to understand that Hollywood places profitability behind, not above, other concerns.
One reason is because of Hollywood accounting, it is not really necessary for a film to succeed in order for it to succeed for its investors, as is well known and long established – even parodied in productions like ‘The Producers’.
More importantly Hollywood is a center of Western hegemonic soft power, and should really be considered as a part of the intelligence and/or military industrial complex. In many ways, the profit motive is just a facade.
Typically, some ideological adventure is a facade for a profit motive – here it is the opposite. At the center of everything is fiat and control, not paper bills called ‘money’. Control people’s ideas, and the question of money evaporates.
Projects like Gawker Media went belly-up in 2016 because of their obsession with ‘The Message’, and yet it was subsidized for years since 2003 like this. In reality, it served as a type of ‘issues based political advertising’ that quietly aligned with the campaign talking points of various ‘progressive’ politicians, typically of the DNC.
But Hollywood would continue to promote ‘The Message’ for another eight years, despite big data analytics(!), where only now are we seeing some signs that this trend is waning.
It is, however, about Power
Managerial revolutions, such as that described by post-Trotskyist writer and thinker James Burnham, were a phenomenon of the 20th century – but these were novel developments which were hinged to certain technological advances in the productive forces, but also in particular with communication technologies such as radio.
Yet a significant feature of early to mid century managerial revolutions was the expansive phenomenon of a populism which was then transformed into a mobilization of society.
For decades, experts in the field of IPE (international political economy) and Global Politics (GP) – which together can be considered part of a triad with IR, tried to work through this ‘problem’: how to walk a thin line between manufactured, top-down ‘social change’ (or conversely, a top-down approach to preserving ‘the status quo) on the one hand, and not ‘over-stimulating’ (or conversely, not provoking) the citizenry into some Hitleresque populist pogrom on the other.
The strange connotation in texts of these kinds was that something got ‘out of control’ within the German population that exceeded itself – in essence that the disaster of the Nazi experiment was driven from the bottom-up by a mood of unquenchable fanaticism, leading to the holocaust and war.
Here, ‘people power’ is problematized, which has been a consistent theme of elite-driven academic literature. In other words, they maintain that staying true to a ‘progressive’ agenda is not something which populism can do.
The lesson we are instructed to receive? While elites need to be responsive and understanding of the demands of a population to an extent, leadership means that the ‘patients cannot ever be allowed to run the sanatorium’.
So, how can they deal with economic changes, changes to the balance of power between regions or nation-states of the world, and problematic social changes which arise in a waning global hegemon such as the U.S?
Time to Rebrand: The WEF is Failing at the Institutional Level
What are these changes all about? On February 24th, 2022, my piece on how the self-declared ‘Great Reset’ was failing was published (Is the Great Reset Failing? When Great Narratives Fall Apart).
By pure coincidence, this was the same day that the Russian SMO began in Ukraine. What is not simply coincidence is the relationship between the plandemic/reset and the war in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.
But for the Davos crowd to admit to ‘set backs’ (defeats) was something that was hard for the powers that be to do. And as a humorous aside, we can include that this realization was more than just hard but actually impossible for a number of anti-reset black-pilled blogger types.
Recall it was these who had become little more than zealous peddlers of doom – in other words, unpaid publicists for the very elites these writers are quite rightly opposed to. To wit, their entire identity was based around some trope that the powers that be were getting everything they wanted and their plan was going accordingly.
Schwab, Malleret, and the Davos people as a group, are closer to the story (as close as one can get!) and their recounting is quite different: they faced frustration and set-backs and are displeased with the results so far.
That was an analysis of the 2022 book from Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, in “The Great Narrative,” which highlighted the West’s fixation on “fake news,” information war, and malign actors, revealing both an admission of guilt and a recognition of failure.
The focus on narratives – information warfare as an offshoot of political warfare – is critical. As corporate and governmental cultures merged, we saw leaders like Trudeau and Johnson thrive on unattainable resetist promises, underscoring a dangerous reality: the more grandiose the ambition, the more it emboldened such figures.
This state of affairs foreshadowed the role of an equally emboldened Zelensky in fomenting the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the irresponsible roles that various Western leaders would, in virtual unanimity, take in ‘backing Ukraine until the end’.
This carried forward the very same operation ‘lockstep’ which was their approach to Covid, only now the ‘virus’ it seems is Russia itself.
The WEF’s push for narratives serves as a form of soft power, aiming to reshape reality while repressing dissenting voices under the rubric of ‘foreign’ and ‘malign’ actors. This dissenting counter-narrative, however, is gaining traction as the elite’s attempts to control information become evident, revealing their vulnerability.
Finally, we found that the rushed implementation of the “Great Reset” lacked the groundwork necessary for widespread acceptance, hinting at internal fractures within the West’s elite class, and an even greater gulf between the elites and the populations they ‘govern’.
As the public increasingly voiced its skepticism, the stability of this reset agenda was called into question. The WEF’s fixation on policing narratives was, paradoxically, a sign of its weakening grip on power.
The solution for the WEF has been to roll out a slow burn of a rebrand. Accordingly, they are transforming “from a convening platform to the leading global institution for public-private cooperation”. In practical terms, they are shifting some of their messaging and focus away from globalization as a panacea.
Increasingly from the WEF we see a more nuanced approach which implicitly acknowledges that the very trends which they used to justify the theory of globalization (as inevitable and good) are now showing a trend back toward the nation state.
Part of this is a still-born attempt to recognize a larger picture which is that globalization (in their model) was always one which privileged and took for granted that the traditional centers of capital accumulation inherited from the colonial and imperial era in Western Europe would also be leading, directing, and likely profiting the most, from ‘globalization’.
In other words, while the WEF and academia have attempted to paint globalization as a kind of ‘internationalism’ (in the sense used by the historical/Marxian left), in reality it has been more like a white-washed (or pink-washed, rather) neo-imperialism.
For them, globalization was just like a force of nature, the gravity of its inevitability could not be resisted. The ‘nation-state’ was becoming, in their view, a thing of the past – the trans-national and multi-national corporation was the future.
The world could rejoice in unity, hold hands, and proceed to nuclear and conventional disarmament – except the U.S., Team America, as this would be the world’s police force. Only dreamers, dangerous reactionaries, populist demagogues, and nationalist-authoritarian movements and its leaders could be crazy enough to believe otherwise.
Well, not so fast, they are now admitting that globalization is not an iron-law process. While the WEF is not completely backing off globalization, it is acknowledging the complexities and challenges associated with it.
There’s a growing recognition of the need to appear more reasonable and less imperialistic, and for a more balanced approach that addresses issues like supply chain vulnerabilities, economic inequality, and national security concerns.
Schwab, for his part, is expected to clarify both the role and the leadership structure, along with new appointments at the executive level, as Schwab has been in a process of transitioning his role.
The WEF Executive Board includes BlackRock’s Fink and former ECB chair Lagarde – and there is also the possibility that in terms of Executive Board leadership moving forward, someone like Tony Blair (and we would say also, Barack Obama) could be seen as one of several public figures, leaders, or spokesmen for the organization given that Borge Brende is considered ‘low key’ – a polite way to say ‘uninspiring’ and lacking any public charisma, you know, the kind that Schwab so excels at.
In truth the messaging that the WEF is trying to quietly back-away from is in all actuality indistinguishable from the U.S.’ and EU’s ideology from the 90’s onward. This is a very big sign that cannot be ignored.
This ideology which involves smuggling in a neo-imperialism within the discursive framework of a ‘business friendly’ leftish internationalism (known as ‘globalization), also used pink washing and other forms of human rights imperialism.
Repressing one’s own population – even abstractly in the arena of minority culture and sexuality – was a legitimate casus belli to overthrow that state.
This would seem to mean that the U.S. and EU are also backing away from this, at least from hammering on it so hard. But is this a change in their overall approach, or simply giving the fishing line some slack?
Towards further research
To what extent is the apparent retreat from ideological messaging in Hollywood and global elite institutions like the WEF a genuine shift in strategy, and how might this rebranding be used to maintain their control over cultural and political narratives in a more subtle form?
We find ourselves at a critical juncture where the failures of both Hollywood’s ‘The Message’ and the broader ‘Great Reset’ raise pressing questions about the future of Western hegemony and its strategies.
The realization that politically neutral content may have broader appeal than overtly ideological films signifies a deeper shift away from the heavy-handed social engineering that dominated the last decade.
Hollywood’s retreat from ‘The Message,’ even as data analytics clearly exposed its flaws, points to a broader cultural reappraisal—yet, crucially, not merely in pursuit of profit. The real driving force behind this shift is power—control over narratives, perceptions, and ultimately, people’s minds.
This is why the West’s ruling elites, embodied by institutions like the WEF, are recalibrating their strategies. Their initial confidence in globalization as an inevitable force has been shattered by internal fractures, public skepticism, and geopolitical upheavals like the war in Ukraine.
The elites’ retreat from once-unquestionable narratives, including their push for a globalist agenda, signals not merely a pragmatic adjustment, but a recognition of their waning control. As the WEF shifts its focus from globalization’s triumphalism to a more cautious approach, it reflects the larger unraveling of Western ideological dominance.
Yet, we must ask: Is this truly a retraction, or simply a rebranding—an attempt to maintain control while adjusting tactics? As Hollywood and global elites scale back, they do not relinquish their pursuit of power.
Whether through ideological soft power or financial manipulation, the core agenda remains intact, albeit masked in new forms. The question is not whether these institutions will abandon their quest for dominance but how they will adapt to maintain it in a world increasingly skeptical of their motives and methods.
By Joaquin Flores
Published by SCF
Republished by The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com