Is the market crashing? As an American, I've long taken for granted that I control my own destiny. Hard work, talent and unrelenting commitment make dreams happen. That's the formula for the American dream. If making dreams come true is difficult in an economic boom with no major security threats (no Cold War or fascist dictator clouding up my career fantasies), how much harder would it be when the market bottoms out and terrorist attacks come in droves? Perhaps a little easier?
When an environment is static, the general apathy and lethargy of the populace plays into the hands of the powers that be. In regards to the entertainment industry, they just keep on turning out the same potboilers, hoping to duplicate the success of past innovators. Yet the entertainment industry has always done this. Can there be any crisis that effects the entertainment industry. All I have to offer is to conjecture and baseless speculation, but the answer that leaps from my tongue is no. Hollywood has always been the same. Maybe the mood changes, but the films just keep on coming. There were a ton of movies that came out in the 30s. Gangster movies, detective movies, screwball comedies, safari adventures, Garbo flicks and smalltown romances spawned in numbers comparable to those in prosperous decades. Maybe they were a bit louder, cruder and more fantastical then the ultra-conservative, patriotic offering of the 40s and early 50s, but they were all just entertainment at their cores, and often employed the same people.
Entertainment changes only with the tastes of the people. People will always crave entertainment. In bad times, they may want some outrageous flavors to distract them, in sad times, some sugarsweet stuff to release the seratonin, in boring times something spiked to give them energy, or entirely new to give them direction. The entertainers are just chameleons.