Aging & Wisdom Quote by Norman Jewison

Jewison is aiming his fire at the factory logic of modern entertainment: not movies as art, but movies as merch. The first move is deliberate narrowing - "an entire industry" that "focus[es] on young male viewers" - a demographic singled out not because it uniquely likes action, but because it’s reliably monetizable. He’s diagnosing a feedback loop where marketing departments don’t just respond to taste; they manufacture it, then cite it as proof. Action and violence become less like genres and more like delivery systems for attention, sequels, and opening-weekend math.

The key phrase is "something that isn't valid". Jewison isn’t arguing that explosions are immoral; he’s saying the worldview being packaged is counterfeit. Violence here is a shortcut that simulates stakes without earning them, offering the sensation of consequence while keeping audiences emotionally and politically unchallenged. It flatters a particular kind of power fantasy, then insists that fantasy is "what people want", as if desire arrived unshaped by decades of repetition.

"They're selling films like a product" lands as both complaint and confession. Jewison came up in a studio era that still talked about commerce, but also about craft, authorship, and risk. By the late 20th-century blockbuster economy, the pitch migrates from story to "content": pre-sold IP, test-screened beats, trailer-ready set pieces. His subtext is protective: if cinema becomes just another consumer good, the audience is treated less like citizens with imaginations than customers to be harvested, and the medium’s capacity to surprise, argue, or unsettle quietly gets written off as unprofitable.