Keen On America Hollywood's Last Dance: Time Warner and the Death of the American Dream Machine
Dec 15, 2025
Daniel Bessner, a historian and host of the American Prestige podcast, explores the collapse of Hollywood and its implications for American capitalism. He argues that Hollywood's decline signals a broader crisis across industries, linked to deregulation and financialization. Bessner critiques the naive optimism surrounding tech abundance and highlights the threat of AI displacing workers. He predicts worsening inequality and notes that mass revolutionary change in the U.S. is unlikely, while emphasizing the alienation felt by many in today's labor landscape.
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Hollywood's Rapid Collapse
- The traditional Hollywood entertainment business is essentially dead and collapsed within a few years rather than decades.
- Daniel Bessner warns most writers, actors, and directors won't return to steady careers because the industry has fundamentally changed.
Cultural Industries Declined Together
- Academia, journalism, and Hollywood declined as cultural industries after deregulation and financialization concentrated wealth.
- Bessner links this to oligarchization that closed opportunities for people without inherited wealth.
Liberalism Eroded By Capitalist Imperatives
- Bessner argues liberalism has faded as capitalist imperatives dominated social and political life.
- He sees AI and technology as amplifying people serving technology rather than technology serving people.
