Hollywood Acceptance Collapses: Only 29% of California Voters View Its Impact Positively
Ahead of the Oscars, a survey revealed only 29% of Californians view Hollywood positively, reflecting growing public fatigue with its perceived arrogance and political bias amid declining Oscar viewership.
After decades of loud activity in the industry, viewers seem to be losing interest in the Oscars.
As Politico noted ahead of Sunday’s ceremony, Oscar viewership was 46 million in 2000. However, last year’s figures dropped to 20 million, with the decline steadily worsening over the past decade.
Californians’ attitude toward Hollywood is proving to be increasingly cautious.
A recent poll from the UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO showed that 48% of Californians believe the industry has excessive political influence in the state, while only 29% view it positively.
The division is even sharper when results are analyzed by party affiliation. Eighty-one percent of Republican voters consider Hollywood to be overly liberal, in contrast to 23% of Democrats who share this view.
“Hollywood’s image is liberal, so liberals and Democrats don’t have a problem with that, unlike Republicans,” emphasized Jack Citrin, a political science professor at the University of Berkeley. “If I owned a studio, I would want to know whether the voice of liberal actors in my films alienates the audience.”
The poll, conducted from February 23 to March 3 among 1,220 registered voters, had a margin of error of ±2.8%.
