Dennis Quaid Says Movie Quality Has Dipped Because of “Political Correctness"

Dennis Quaid, who stars in the upcoming “Reagan,” was a guest on Patrick Bet-David’s podcast. As expected, the interview was confessional and very honest.

Bet-David questioned Quaid on his formative years as an A-list actor, and the current state of Hollywood, including its political leanings and the decline of filmmaking quality. In terms of the latter, Quaid didn’t hold back in pinpointing his own reasons as to why there’s a lack of great movies this decade.

“There’s a loss of freedom of expression,” Quaid said of the industry. “Everybody’s trying to be so politically correct. Back in the ’70s [Hollywood] may have been skewed to the Left, but everybody was trying to be politically incorrect back then. That was the thing, and it was an exciting time. We had a real dialogue with people instead of trying to fit into a mold.”

Quaid identifies as an independent who has voted for Democrats and Republicans over the years. This year, he’s voting for Donald Trump, which will be the third time he’s done that.

Still, I don’t believe it’s just politics that are at play here. An assortment of filmmakers and actors have recently come out with practically the same conclusions as Quaid, including Quentin Tarantino, Terry Gilliam, Kenneth Lonergan, Paul Schrader, Martin McDonagh, Walter Hill, Vince Vaughn and Jerry Seinfeld, among others, who also railed PC, woke, or whatever you want to call it, as stifling creative expression.

Are all of these creatives correct? Has PC stifled movie quality? It’s no big secret that quality American filmmaking has been struggling this decade, and the major studios’ obsession with franchises has surely not helped. However, it's not just the mainstream— indie filmmaking has also seen a dip in great films. There's definitely the need to be less offensive, less edgy, in terms of storytelling and character. As a whole, people are now too scared to offend.

This is where a film festival like Sundance would come in and deliver counter programming — just look at its immense influence in the ‘90s and ‘00s — but even that festival has turned more towards risk-averse films instead of the edgy programming it was once known to deliver.

Variety’s Owen Gleiberman noticed the dip in Sundance relevance. He blamed it on a lack of “danger” in the films being selected.

IndieWire co-founder Eric Kohn one-upped Gleiberman, in a wonderfully written op-ed, reasoning that it wasn't just Sundance’s fault, but that the filmmakers themselves were as much to be blamed for their fear of cancel culture:

The challenge in making ambitious movies goes beyond budgetary restrictions. It also involves the changing threshold for tolerating discomfort and the encroaching sense that any radical statement could backfire. The presumption of cancel culture may be reductive, but it certainly scares filmmakers from taking real chances.

“Reagan,” co-starring Jon Voight, Nick Searcy, Penelope Ann Miller and Robert Davi, opens August 30 in theaters.