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More Wood than Holly

Is the free market failing us in Hollywood? We thought the free market automatically gave the consumer what they want. It's not, at least according to the following information that we gleaned from the March 2005 issue of Touchstone:

"Movies with a 'strong moral content' made an average of $92.5 million, six times the sales of those with 'immoral, negative content,' according to the Christian Film & Television Commission. 'Movies rated G and PG consistently earn two or three times as much money on average as movies rated R,' said the group's chairman Ted Baehr.

"Only one of the ten most popular movies in 2004 was rated R, and that was The Passion of the Christ, which ranked third, having taken in $370 million. Of the others, one was rated G, four PG, and four PG-13."

What's more disturbing, this type of thing has been going on for years. It seems Michael Medved was pointing out the market-resistant ways of Hollywood at least ten years ago.

We're not market mystics, but we believe in the general efficacy of the free market and think it works best when clogged least. In the case of Hollywood, it's plausible that, as Medved and others have alleged, a political and social ideology has bottled up the market's workings.

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