The first real job I had was working at a bowling alley. As well as the lane marshaling duties — a role that largely entailed telling people not to run down the alley to retrieve their balls; and re-blow up bumpers on the children’s lanes — an unsolved mystery remains why they would deflate when you turned your back — I was also required to do an occasional shift in the diner and the bar.

This being the early 90’s companies still provided formal staff training, and so this was an opportunity to learn the art of pulling a pint and memorise the ingredients for a few classic cocktails (there was no Tom Cruise style showboating unfortunately). I was also given guidelines on how to interact with the customers. This meant what to talk about and more importantly, what topics you were not to proffer up opinions.

Sport was in — I grew up in Liverpool, so of course this meant football. I am a Blue, rather than a Red though — so for large periods of my life, including this season, this has meant a degree of playing second fiddle. Music was fine, as was television. It was the time of MTV & Madonna. A decision to show Madonna’s Justify my Love on the bar screens caused no end of controversy! The video tapes came from Head Office, and there were formal complaints made! They had to be written in those days, rather than tweeted. The whole pace of outrage was much slower. And Movies were fine. Wayne and Garth ruled the roost at that time.

But the three topics to avoid under all circumstances were sex, politics and religion.

There is no doubt we live in a political age. I mean right now. Last week, today and tomorrow. Times they are a-changing. Canada has just elected Mark Carney — this election has been headline news in the UK — when for most of my life, international elections were relegated to the pages in the supplement. But in today’s world, these things matter, are of interest — not just for local countries, but for many around the world.

But it seems to me that the movie industry in the 21st Century has reconciled itself to sex and religion — but politics still seems to be approached with a little discomfort.

The 1970’s — the time of Nixon and Watergate saw the Hollywood studios churn out so many great mainstream political films. From All the President’s Men through to the paranoid thrillers of Alan J. Pakula — The Parallax View is a personal favourite for the astonishing montage of violence sequence. But Hollywood had a view and was not afraid to express it. The new waves that sprang up across Europe were happy to be on the front line of the hot topics of the day. Without politics there would be no Jean-Luc Godard.

Growing up as a teenager in the UK, a time of social turbulence and change driven by the embrace of Thatcher and Reagan’s market economics, the film industry again was keen to express it’s opinion. Film makers such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, as well as a suite of smaller Channel Four funded films such as Remembrance, My Beautiful Launderette, No Surrender and many, many more actively engaged with and had views on who were the winners and losers of the tidal wave of change sweeping through our worlds.

These trends continued throughout the 80’s and 90’s. From Wall Street to Do the Right Thing mainstream dramatic cinema had a view point to offer. Film was an active part of the debate going on across the globe.

It strikes me that the world approaches another phase of polarisation and a significant shift in global power-bases, dramatic cinema has not had too much to say about it. It has largely adopted the mantra of Sullivan’s Travels — that Movies are here to enable people to forget their troubles, not remind them of them. It is an area of the mass media industry that has been a little sidelined.

But there are signs this could be changing. This year’s crop of Oscar nominees did do more politics than usual. With perhaps the exception of Wicked and A Complete Unknown, the other eight nominees all at least had some opinion about the times of Now. Conclave did sex, politics and religion — I wouldn’t have been able to talk about that behind the bar in 1991!

In 2024, there was Oppenheimer and The Zone of Interest — clearly political films. But dramatic cinema still seems to want to engage with the present through the protected veneer of the past. It comments obliquely, rather than directly. I am all for a variety of approaches. Subtle commentary is valid — as is slipping in modern commentary via staple genres — heck there is a doctorate to be gained from all the perspectives proffered up in Barbie!

But I also long for a few more films that attack the state of the world head-on. Come on studio film makers — give us a few more direct critiques on the state of the modern world. All perspectives welcome — right or left wing Boomers or Gen Z — the haves and have-nots, winners and losers.

I have my own opinions of course. But I’ve been trained not to share them!