Is rampant sexual harrassment part of the reason for the film industry's decline?

I actually wonder if the culture of sexual harassment and everything associated with it is part of the reason that Hollywood has been pandering to young adult straight men the way they have been. The immature male perspective has been ruling the production, writing, and casting process, and the end result is that female and mature audiences have turned to TV, as have, it seems, all the people capable of real creativity and depth.

Look, I love a good lightweight superhero movie, but the film industry is very much out of balance. It's letting talent fall away and treating creative people like pieces of meat instead of artists. I don't have a lot if hope for real reform, but I hope that someone at the top realizes that the current culture isn't letting the real talent time to the top, and that's costing the company money.

You're under the impression young women don't watch these films.

There have certainly always been relationships between "the talent" and people who might help their careers, but it hasn't always been impossible to break into the entertainment industry on talent alone. Hollywood was founded on the basis of finding and developing talent, not on hiring the easiest lay (okay, nit JUST the easiest lay).

There's a rampant unprofessionalism at work here, people are not only letting their genitals make business decisions, they're letting their subordinates genitals make business decisions, and their subordinates'! How is that good for the bottom line? Sexual harassment doesn't just make life miserable for working people, it's a misuse of company trust and funds and gets people without talent promoted.

A culture where these things are tolerated us the opposite of a meritocracy, and Hollywood needs at least some meritocracy in it's culture to stay afloat.

When has it been "much worse"?

I don't mean to be sarcastic, I've read enough about the history of film to be genuinely interested in your answer. Because I'd say it's absolutely worse now than during the studio era. Sure, the important moguls had their mistresses and Marilyn Monroe could say she didn't have to do any more nasties once she'd signed a studio contract, but there was also room for a Greta Garbo to refuse to play games or a Liz Taylor to play her own games and not those of the power players. Nowadays, there seems to be an acceptance of abuse at every level, and no respect for talent.

Yeah, Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger forcing their beliefs in everyone is getting old.

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Actually, if you read up on the studio era, there was some quid pro quo sexual harassment going on, but it wasn't universal. It was possible for an actress to have a career without screwing her way to the top, because the studios understood then that actors were first and foremost a way to make money!

For every Marilyn Monroe or Joan Crawford that screwed her way through the studio to help her career, there was a Katherine Hepburn or Greta Garbo who did not. And that was okay with the studio, they were in business to make a profit and not to find girlfriends for their power players, unlike modern production companies. My original point was that the modern production companies who only cast those who will put out are missing out on a source of profit, which is dumb of them.