Remakes and Sequels!

Valerie: Hello, hello, hello
Valerie: To all my listeners.
Valerie: Welcome back to More than you Think with me, Valerie.
Valerie: This podcast is a podcast about how political, economic, and social events interact with pop culture.
Valerie: Worldwide pop culture.
Valerie: We are going to talk today about one of my favorite topics on the planet.
Valerie: Yay, Disney.
Valerie: Oh, that's not.
Valerie: Everyone's like, oh, she's one of those people.
Valerie: A Disney adult.
Valerie: I'm not a freaking Disney adult.
Valerie: I had a very vicious, very passionate, aggressive Disney phase when I was like, 9, 10, 11, 12.
Valerie: And now I just know a bunch of stuff that I really don't need to know.
Valerie: And specifically, we're gonna get into the whole debacle of, like, live action remakes and sequels and how that's literally the only thing they're making now.
Valerie: And I wanted to talk about this because of the recent news that Milo Manheim are.
Valerie: Manheim.
Valerie: Milo Manheim has been cast as Flynn Rider because they're remaking Tangled, which came out 16 years ago in 2010.
Valerie: Now because it's 2026.
Valerie: Well, welcome back.
Valerie: 2016.
Valerie: But it came out 16 years ago, so it's not even 20 years old.
Valerie: You know, it came out when I was little, and now I'm a little bit bigger.
Valerie: Like, I'm not that much old.
Valerie: Like, I'm still quite young compared to, like, I guess, other people.
Valerie: I don't know.
Valerie: I remember when they first invented chocolate.
Valerie: But, yeah, they are already remaking Tangled, and they are already done remaking Moana, which came out in 2016, if I'm not mistaken.
Valerie: So it's only been 10 years since that one.
Valerie: And they are already remaking it.
Valerie: When I went to go see Zootopia 2, which is also a sequel.
Valerie: But I'm going to get into why that sequel is, like, special and different and perfect.
Valerie: Because I loved it.
Valerie: When I went to go Z to Z.
Valerie: When I went to go see Zootopia 2, I saw the Moana live action remake trailer, and my God, it looked terrible because, oh, my goodness, you can tell that it's a green screen.
Valerie: Like, are they not allowed to go outside?
Valerie: The wardrobe sucked.
Valerie: The music sounded weird.
Valerie: Like, I don't know.
Valerie: The girl, she's probably fine, but, like, they straightened her hair, and I saw a picture of her, like, in her natural state, and her hair naturally looks more like the cartoon Moana.
Valerie: And they straighten this woman's hair.
Valerie: It's like, what the heck are we doing anyways?
Valerie: Yeah, it looked bad.
Valerie: And it's like, girl, we.
Valerie: Moana 2 just came out two years ago, 2024.
Valerie: So probably not even fully two years ago yet.
Valerie: But what I want to talk about today is just how this unfortunate corporate greed that Disney is showing has kind of stopped them from innovating.
Valerie: It's stopped them from being creative and like they're sort of like drifting from their roots.
Valerie: They're sort of like losing what made them special in the first place, you know, which was like how innovative and creative and unique all that, all the Disney movies used to be.
Valerie: And I want to get into just a little bit of history about Disney which, you know, I didn't even have to research because I did all that research when I was like 10 years old and now I know everything.
Valerie: But we're going to start with like the origins of Disney.
Valerie: So it started in the late 1920s with like short cartoons, Mickey Mouse cartoons, black and white stuff.
Valerie: And then in 1937, Walt Disney Animation Studios released the first ever full length animated feature film which was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Valerie: At this time they were only animation studio.
Valerie: There weren't any parks, anything.
Valerie: It was still like sort of a smaller company, not like as big as it is today, you know, but back then, you know, there were like three movies a decade, I guess.
Valerie: I don't really know.
Valerie: I wasn't alive.
Valerie: But back then they were not huge the way they are now, obviously.
Valerie: And Snow White was what sort of propelled them like to be a huge successful company.
Valerie: And then that was sort of the start of what is known as the golden age of Disney movies.
Valerie: So we have Snow White, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, like the lady and the Tramp.
Valerie: And this goes all the way up until like the 60s where, you know, like it continued up until the 60s with Mary Poppins and then late 60s, early 70s, there was this sort of slump where you have movies like Treasure Island, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Aristocats, Robin Hood, Oliver and Company.
Valerie: You know, movies like that maybe you liked them as a kid, but they're not super famous, super successful and they certainly weren't at the time.
Valerie: But there was like this slump up until the 80s when we have Beauty and the Beast and the Little Mermaid and Aladdin, Pocahontas.
Valerie: This is known as the renaissance in the Disney history books.
Valerie: You know, Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame or as they call it in the movie, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, you know.
Valerie: And this was because they started giving their characters more personality, started writing their characters a lot better and they reintroduced like good music.
Valerie: Bro.
Valerie: Bro.
Valerie: Aladdin freaking music.
Valerie: Hercules.
Valerie: Hercules.
Valerie: Isn't that Popular, but the music I love.
Valerie: And the reason for the music being so good is because they got this guy.
Valerie: His name's Alan Menken.
Valerie: I feel like nobody knows about him but me.
Valerie: But he is a goat.
Valerie: And if you look him up, he doesn't just do Disney movies, he does also other musicals.
Valerie: But he did like Beauty and the Beast.
Valerie: The music for Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Tangled, Enchanted, he did Little Mermaid, he did Hunchback.
Valerie: And then for the Lion King they had like Elton John.
Valerie: And for Tarzan they had Phil Collins.
Valerie: You know, it's brawl.
Valerie: It's so good.
Valerie: It's a freaking good boom.
Valerie: Anyways, this renaissance era started to like shift in the 90s, I guess technically the late 80s, because that's when Pixar started.
Valerie: That's like when they started developing Pixar.
Valerie: But in the 90s was when we have Toy Story, which is like, boom.
Valerie: I think it was the first full length CGI animated film ever.
Valerie: Let me double check.
Valerie: Yep, it is true.
Valerie: And that's probably why the first Toy Story isn't really that long.
Valerie: Because they were like, girl, this is too much.
Valerie: But anyways, Pixar starts sort of taking off.
Valerie: That's happening in like the early 2000s.
Valerie: And then you have, you know, Disney animated animation studios starts also like making CGI movies like Bolt Meet the Robinsons.
Valerie: And then they continue doing that until like, they're still doing it.
Valerie: And the ones nowadays have not been as good, except for like Zootopia 2 and Encanto.
Valerie: But that's kind of where we're at now is just like CGI animated films.
Valerie: I think the last 2D animation film I remember might be the Princess and the Frog, I think.
Valerie: But the Princess and the Frog is amazing also.
Valerie: But right now we're sort of in this age of like CGI animated films and of course remakes.
Valerie: There are not a whole lot of original movies, which is unfortunate because Disney used to make so many beautiful original movies.
Valerie: And you might be thinking, well, they're all based off of fairy tales, right, Valerie?
Valerie: So they aren't really original.
Valerie: But let me ask you this.
Valerie: Have you ever read the original Little Mermaid book?
Valerie: Because it is not like the movie, okay?
Valerie: They were innovating, they were being creative and they were bringing something from the page onto the screen for the very first time in a completely new and beautiful way.
Valerie: They were experimenting with colors with.
Valerie: And they were.
Valerie: In the 80s, they were putting.
Valerie: They were adding diverse stories.
Valerie: You know, they were.
Valerie: They had Mulan, they had Pocahontas.
Valerie: They had Aladdin, you know, they were trying to.
Valerie: They were trying to mix it up.
Valerie: And that was working.
Valerie: And now the most successful movies that Disney has had in the past 20 years, when in terms of, like, cultural significance, probably Tangled, Frozen, Zootopia, Not a single remake has made a lot of cultural noise.
Valerie: Not really any sequels, except for this most recent Zootopia 2 sequel, which, again, we will get into that later, because, oh, my God, it was so good.
Valerie: But not a single remake making noise.
Valerie: This Moana 2.
Valerie: This Moana remake not making any freaking noise.
Valerie: I don't know a single person who has been, like, talking about that has been like, hey, do you think you want to go watch the Moana remake with me next year?
Valerie: Nobody cares.
Valerie: Like, nobody cares.
Valerie: Nobody cared when freaking Mulan got remade.
Valerie: Nobody cared when, like, Pinocchio got remade.
Valerie: The Winnie the Pooh live action.
Valerie: We are seeing unprecedented levels of greed.
Valerie: The Bible, the type of greed that you hear about in the Bible, where it's like, oh, my God, these people are sacrificing my movie theater experience and my film watching experience and my film enjoying experience just so that they can make a little extra dinero.
Valerie: Because the thing about remakes and sequels is that they're a little easier to make.
Valerie: Obviously, on the creative side.
Valerie: Right.
Valerie: You don't have to be quite as creative when you are just redoing somebody else's work.
Valerie: Obviously, there's still a lot to do.
Valerie: There's still, you know, adjustments that have to be made for live action or, like, new stories that have to be written for sequels.
Valerie: But for the most part, it's like, you know, the characters are basically already designed, the music is probably already written, the costumes.
Valerie: You basically have an idea of what you're already gonna do.
Valerie: You don't have to brainstorm anything from scratch.
Valerie: Everything is already sort of set up for you on a platter.
Valerie: So, you know, it takes a little less time to make.
Valerie: So they can just keep rolling them out.
Valerie: And it costs less because it takes less time.
Valerie: Right?
Valerie: Now, here's the thing.
Valerie: Everyone's going to be saying Valerie, but Zootopia 2, it is now the highest grossing animated film in the history of anything.
Valerie: And it's a sequel.
Valerie: But I want to talk to you about a man named Jared Bush.
Valerie: And if you don't know who that is, well, girl, you should.
Valerie: If you watch Zootopia, because he is the director of Zootopia.
Valerie: And you might be saying, girl, a director.
Valerie: That movie is animated.
Valerie: Yeah.
Valerie: That makes it even more directed.
Valerie: Okay.
Valerie: Hello.
Valerie: This man, Jared Bush, is on Twitter every day of his life, answering fan questions, pointing out little details in the movie.
Valerie: This man doesn't sleep.
Valerie: He doesn't rest.
Valerie: All he does is sit there and think about Nick and Judy, about Zootopia, about the world that he's created.
Valerie: And here's the difference between the first Zootopia movie and all these other movies that are getting sequels, okay?
Valerie: Because Moana 2 sucked, right?
Valerie: I haven't seen it, but I know it sucked, right?
Valerie: Nobody cared about it.
Valerie: You know, Incredibles 2, obviously not as good as the first one.
Valerie: And that's the thing about sequels, is that everyone always says, you know, you can't outdo the doer, you can't out Pizza the Hutt.
Valerie: You're never gonna make a sequel as good as the original.
Valerie: And some people are saying Zootopia 2 is not quite as good as the original.
Valerie: Some people like it better.
Valerie: I think it was right on par.
Valerie: I think it was perfectly consistent, quality wise, with the first one.
Valerie: But the reason that, you know, nobody is really complaining that Zootopia 2 is happening, like, nobody's like, oh, we don't need another one, everyone.
Valerie: When this movie was announced, I remember everyone online saying, good.
Valerie: We need another one.
Valerie: You know why?
Valerie: Because the first movie left space for another movie.
Valerie: Like, Moana did not do that, right?
Valerie: Moana goes, she.
Valerie: She has her problem with her island, she saves the island, and at the end it's happily ever after.
Valerie: And I'm pretty sure at the end, everyone's probably thinking like, well, if she had to go on another adventure because there was some other, like, island threatening or world threatening sort of issue, that would be a crazy coincidence that she would have to do it twice because it seems like everything's fine now.
Valerie: And yet, here we go.
Valerie: There is another freaking issue with her island where she has to go grab the same group of people, same freaking thing.
Valerie: And it's like, okay, like, I've seen this film before, basically.
Valerie: You know, not only that, but the animation style is different now.
Valerie: It's not as good as in the first one.
Valerie: Or at least it's not as, like, consistent with the first one.
Valerie: It's not consistent with the first one.
Valerie: So I'm like, okay.
Valerie: And then, you know, everything is just kind of forced.
Valerie: And it's more of like a quantity over quality situation.
Valerie: It's forced storytelling, low quality, and it's boring.
Valerie: And it's like, obvious that nobody really put their heart and soul into this film.
Valerie: So Zootopia 2 is a sequel?
Valerie: Yes.
Valerie: And Even though I'm over here badmouthing sequels, I'm defending Zootopia 2 because as I said before, the distinction is that there was always like a creative intention with the first movie, like to allow for a second movie to happen if ever they really wanted to do it.
Valerie: And they've done it and it's a box office hit.
Valerie: Not only that, but they didn't force this movie to come out right after the first one.
Valerie: This movie took 10 years to come out.
Valerie: You know, it's.
Valerie: It's been carefully made and it wasn't made just for the money.
Valerie: You know, if you go on Jared Bush Twitter, that man put his whole bush into making the movie.
Valerie: Okay, now these other remakes and sequels, for example, now there have been some other original movies that have not done so well.
Valerie: They're not even sequels or remakes, but they still didn't do so well.
Valerie: So that would be like Raya and the Last Dragon, Elemental or Wish.
Valerie: And I remember when Wish was coming out, I think that was like last year or two years ago.
Valerie: Everyone was on freaking TikTok posting clips from the trailer, being like, this movie looks like it sucks.
Valerie: Ain't nobody watching this.
Valerie: And then Riot and the Last Dragon.
Valerie: That was like during sort of a harsh part of COVID So like nobody could really go to the movies.
Valerie: They had to put it on Disney plus and it was like, eh, it wasn't that good either.
Valerie: You know, it was a lot like Mulan, which is kind of disappointing because those are like the two Asian sort of stories that Disney has made movies about.
Valerie: Which, you know, except for Turning Red, but that's like an Asian American but making two movies about Asian girls who go on like a side quest, who go on like a quest with their like Goofy Dragon sidekick.
Valerie: It's like, okay, I think we can probably come up with something a little more nuanced than just like reinforcing this same thing of like Girl and Goofy dragon Sidekick.
Valerie: And guess what, it's a dragon.
Valerie: Because they're Asian.
Valerie: I feel like they could have put in a little more work for this movie because they have.
Valerie: It was their first movie about a Southeast Asian and it was just too much like Mulan.
Valerie: I think they could have given it a little more distinction, a little more uniqueness, put in a little more effort.
Valerie: They didn't.
Valerie: And that's also why it flopped.
Valerie: Nobody really cared about that movie.
Valerie: And then you have also the fact that it wasn't a musical so there was nothing there to be like stuck in anyone's Head.
Valerie: And then you have encanto, which came out also sort of during COVID It was sort of like the.
Valerie: The decline of COVID And they had Lin Manuel Miranda on the freaking track, bro.
Valerie: So you already know that it's about to go crazy, crazy.
Valerie: You know that Lin Manuel Miranda is gonna go crazy on the freaking track.
Valerie: And I remember when they announced this, the movie, I saw an interview with Lin Manuel Miranda, and he was like, yeah, I'm researching, like, Colombian music.
Valerie: I'm, like, really working hard on this.
Valerie: And I'm like, of course he is.
Valerie: Like, he puts in his whole moran dussy into that thing.
Valerie: I think that's the correct way to say that.
Valerie: Yeah, I'm not going to really try to.
Valerie: I'm not going to try to correct that because I think I'll just probably make it worse.
Valerie: Anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say here is you need to put in a little extra work.
Valerie: Disney doesn't want to spend any money on these freaking movies.
Valerie: But it's like, girl, if you want to make.
Valerie: If you want to make freaking money, you have to spend freaking money.
Valerie: This is like something that I'm learning in my business classes, business school.
Valerie: Yeah.
Valerie: You have to invest.
Valerie: Hello?
Valerie: You have to invest either a heck ton of money, a heck ton of time, or a heck ton of both.
Valerie: It doesn't really matter how much money you want to make.
Valerie: If you want to get something, you have to give.
Valerie: You have to give.
Valerie: You have to pay people to think of a good story, to design good characters, to develop good character personalities.
Valerie: Like, you have to put effort into this to make the stories good, to make the stories relatable and relevant and make the characters likable.
Valerie: Do you think Nick Wilde was invented in a day, My glorious king, Nick Wilde?
Valerie: No.
Valerie: No.
Valerie: Do you think they woke up, that somebody woke up one day and said, oh, my gosh, Jason Bateman should voice this fox?
Valerie: Well, actually, maybe that could have happened.
Valerie: But, bro, Flynn Rider.
Valerie: Flynn freaking Rider, bro.
Valerie: The way they worked on that, man.
Valerie: Everybody knows the story of Flynn Rider, right?
Valerie: How the.
Valerie: How he came to be.
Valerie: The writers and animators, they, like, got in a room and they put pictures of, like, handsome men up on the walls.
Valerie: And they sat there and they asked all the ladies in the office at Disney Animation Studios what makes a man attractive?
Valerie: And they got everybody's freaking answers.
Valerie: And they did their research and they developed that character.
Valerie: And who doesn't love Flynn?
Valerie: Fucking liar.
Valerie: What a character.
Valerie: What a great character.
Valerie: And Rapunzel is also A queen.
Valerie: Well, she's a princess, but whatever.
Valerie: Jokes.
Valerie: Okay, now we're here with freaking remake.
Valerie: Snow White.
Valerie: Freaking remake.
Valerie: Like, like they have their moments and then they end.
Valerie: You know, it's not like Aladdin or the Lion King where that's like one of the movies of a generation.
Valerie: You know, they aren't making those movies anymore, Disney.
Valerie: They aren't making classics anymore.
Valerie: They're freaking remaking classics.
Valerie: They're freaking sequeling the dang classic.
Valerie: It's, it's like, make a classic.
Valerie: Make a classic.
Valerie: Well, of course Zootopia 2 is a classic.
Valerie: Not really making those on like the level that they used.
Valerie: They used to make banger after banger, like the 80s, the freaking Renaissance, Beauty and the Beast.
Valerie: Boom.
Valerie: Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Tarzan.
Valerie: Boom.
Valerie: Lion King.
Valerie: Like, are you serious?
Valerie: That many successes is crazy.
Valerie: And it's because, not because they were just rolling out movies, but because they had people who wanted to tell stories.
Valerie: That's what they're not doing anymore.
Valerie: They're not focusing on creativity or innovation.
Valerie: Disney used to innovate.
Valerie: They used to invent things to help them better tell their stories, to help them with their parks, to help them with their animation.
Valerie: They used to get out there and invent.
Valerie: They used to incentivize creativity.
Valerie: I don't think they're really doing that anymore.
Valerie: It's like the point that I'm trying to make with all this useless blabbering is that these movies that Disney is putting out to make more money, that they're rolling out three, four times a year, you know, trying to make them as quick and as cheaply and as efficiently as possible.
Valerie: This is, it's going to hurt them in the long run economically.
Valerie: You know, it might seem like a good short term solution to a lack of creativity.
Valerie: Or, you know, maybe the lack of creativity is the effect of this unfortunate desire to just whip out movies five times a freaking year.
Valerie: Either way, this is going to hurt them in the long run because everyone's already complaining about it.
Valerie: Everyone's already saying Disney isn't making anything new.
Valerie: They're not doing anything interesting.
Valerie: They're just remaking, remaking movies.
Valerie: We don't need Moana to be remade.
Valerie: Okay, you just came out with that lame, Moana 2 movie that nobody watched.
Valerie: How about instead of remaking a movie that came out 10 years ago?
Valerie: 10 years ago?
Valerie: That's not, that's not long enough to remake a movie.
Valerie: How about instead of remaking a movie, you.
Valerie: You design and develop a brand new movie that everyone will love because you worked hard on it.
Valerie: Work hard.
Valerie: Because as I said before, to get something, you have to give, and that doesn't matter.
Valerie: It doesn't matter if you're talking about just like, you want to lose weight, so you have to work out.
Valerie: You want to have successful and happy kids, so you have to put in the time to raise them.
Valerie: You want to buy a house, so you have to work to make money.
Valerie: Like, you know, if you want something, you have to invest.
Valerie: Right?
Valerie: Business.
Valerie: Business school.
Valerie: I'm a business major.
Valerie: Awesome.
Valerie: And when it comes to art, if you want to make art that will, like, make an impact and also make you a good amount of money, if you're already a big company with a good name, then what you have to do is protect your brand.
Valerie: Protect that brand.
Valerie: Because the branding with Disney now is cheap.
Valerie: It is.
Valerie: We are cheap.
Valerie: We are remaking the movies that you have already seen and loved, and we're redoing it because we think you'll like it if we do it again.
Valerie: We're afraid to take risks.
Valerie: We're afraid to do new stuff.
Valerie: Like, Are you kidding?
Valerie: Afraid to do new stuff.
Valerie: Disney, that is off brand.
Valerie: And can we also talk about freaking Marvel Studios?
Valerie: Marvel.
Valerie: It was on top.
Valerie: Where is it now?
Valerie: It's in the literal gutter because they decided to focus on quantity over quality.
Valerie: They said, we're gonna roll out maybe four different movies a year, and everyone's going to be tricked into watching every single one, because we know that they have to watch all the movies to understand the plot.
Valerie: But everyone got bored.
Valerie: We had Marvel freaking fatigue.
Valerie: Do you think anyone would have said that the day that Endgame came out, that I have Marvel fatigue?
Valerie: No.
Valerie: Everybody wanted more, but they wanted it to keep getting better.
Valerie: And instead, they stopped focusing on good stories and writing and even casting the correct people to play the characters.
Valerie: They just were like, you know what?
Valerie: Screw it.
Valerie: Let's come up with the flimsiest stories.
Valerie: Let's not focus on the special effects, and let's underpay our special effects visual effects artists.
Valerie: Let's overwork them, and let's put this movie out and make a heck ton of money.
Valerie: But guess what?
Valerie: People stopped going.
Valerie: People stopped going to those movies.
Valerie: And Captain America, Brand New World.
Valerie: Brand new world.
Valerie: Is it Brave New World, Captain America, Brave New World didn't make a lot of money.
Valerie: Thunderbolts.
Valerie: Not too much.
Valerie: Fantastic Four flopped, and those movies weren't even that bad.
Valerie: But it's like they really.
Valerie: They really got Too comfortable.
Valerie: And they said, we're going to play it safe.
Valerie: They said, we have an audience, they're loyal, so we don't have to work hard anymore.
Valerie: We don't have to innovate anymore.
Valerie: Yes, you do.
Valerie: If you want people to continue liking your stuff, you have to keep going as hard as you were on day one.
Valerie: And Disney isn't putting in the work anymore.
Valerie: They just aren't.
Valerie: And that is why they are going to lose money.
Valerie: They are going to lose money.
Valerie: If they keep going down this road.
Valerie: They're going to keep losing more and more money until they change something, until they start innovating and creating new stories again and developing ways to tell these stories that will grab people's attention to.
Valerie: To pay attention again.
Valerie: And this is something that breaks my heart because I love Disney or what it once was.
Valerie: But it's not like that anymore.
Valerie: It could be they just need to step on the freaking gas again.
Valerie: They have the money, that's for sure.
Valerie: They won't for too much longer if they continue down this dang path.
Valerie: And this is why it's difficult.
Valerie: It's difficult when you try to control artists with money, when you try to balance the two.
Valerie: It's a difficult balance.
Valerie: But Zootopia 2 has shown us that putting in the work is worth it.
Valerie: It's worth it because when you put in that work, when you love what you do, and when you put all your passion into it, like Jared Bush and all of the people who helped work on Zootopia 2, the writers, the animators, the storyboard, like everything, the designers, when you put that work and when you hire people who care, who want to do it, who have fun doing it, who want to innovate, who want to bring the audience in, who want to tell a real freaking story.
Valerie: Because Utopia 2 is a great story, a relevant story that you know, it applies to humanity.
Valerie: When you pay these people, when you give them the opportunity, it's going to give back to you.
Valerie: The storytelling is there.
Valerie: With Zootopia, the storytelling is there.
Valerie: You have to create new characters.
Valerie: You cannot copy Ping from Mulan and then switch from Eddie Murphy to Awkwafina and then call it a day.
Valerie: And then the worst part is, if you keep remaking movies, eventually you're gonna run out of freaking remakes, bro.
Valerie: You're gonna have to start making something new eventually.
Valerie: You can't remake the remakes, can you?
Valerie: Yeah, Disney's going to have to change.
Valerie: And the whole entire point of this episode is just to say that art cannot be driven by money.
Valerie: It cannot be driven by economics.
Valerie: The second point that I've been trying to make throughout this whole thing is that if you really do your best and put effort into your art and you make something that you feel is right and you have worked on it and it tells a story or it conveys an emotion, or it's something really true that people will resonate with, you will get your money back.
Valerie: You will get your money back.
Valerie: Art does make money, as long as it's real, as long as it's not desperate to make money.
Valerie: You know, you might, you know, be painting something or writing a song with the intention of making money.
Valerie: But your primary intention should be to tell that story.
Valerie: It should be to convey that emotion.
Valerie: It should be to release whatever you're feeling.
Valerie: It should be to get that message out.
Valerie: It shouldn't be to make this crap ton of money so that you don't have to make art anymore.
Valerie: You should be making art so that you can keep doing it.
Valerie: It's all economic.
Valerie: It's just.
Valerie: It has.
Valerie: Money is freaking everything, unfortunately.
Valerie: But there is a solution, and if they don't decide on it themselves, then their audience and their customers are going to have to decide it for them.
Valerie: And that is the episode for today.
Valerie: That is today's episode of more than you think.
Valerie: Thank you so much for listening, and until next time.
Valerie: Once again, this has been Valerie, and you have listened to more than you think because all of this political, economic, social stuff matters to pop culture.
Valerie: What?
Valerie: More than you think?
Valerie: I love you.
Valerie: Have a great week.
Valerie: Bye.
Valerie: Bye.
Valerie: I'll see you next time.
Valerie: Or you actually will hear me next time.
Valerie: Bye, Sam.