Of course not, a subculture is still a reaction to a larger whole, so it is fairly impotent from the outset. Kind of like the idea of “alternative” music. Alternative to what? To a dominant mainstream, of course. As a reaction to oppression, it is formulated with this oppression as an implicit assumption.
Doing away with “mainstream” involves creating parallel cultures, which is a significant difference. Which involves creating groups and participation from first principles instead of reacting to what others do or expect of you. For this to be effective, you can’t rely upon the infrastructure provided by others. It involves knowing that whatever apparent mainstream - aka coercive cultures outside - are just that: other, outside. They are not “elites” and not parental authorities to be rebelled against. Not dropping out of The System, but devising your own, equally-valid systems. This involves an art which has largely disappeared over the past century - that of seeing “society(-ies)” as inherently plural.
Consuming as a problem implies a false dichotomy. There cannot be a wholly consumption-oriented society, because it implies that there are hidden producers. It might be more productive to deconstruct the entire concept of transaction itself. Of course different currencies and transactional criteria can be used. Of course money can be used without the philosophy of capitalism. Of course transactions can occur between equals instead of some hierarchal mass-production social structure. How is that transaction would be essentially exploitive? It is an assumption of some societies, the industrial age McGuffin of a captive audience, Consumer as renewable resource to fuel a financial machine. That this has happened might be a fact, but it is a recent example, and not the only one we have to draw from.
The best artists could be said to be dedicated Producers, who produce what they deem as necessary, without concern for who the consumers may be, or how many.
How is it hard to deny? You state it as a fact in monolithic, absolutist terms. But it depends wholly upon the goals of the individual. It’s merely an empty medium. There is the danger of circular logic, assuming that movies as commerce are more successful because those are the kind you choose to recognize. This makes it successful by fiat, because you simply dismiss everything else.
Film was somewhat more expensive than other media, such as paint or print. But the industry created around it inflated this expense with a byzantine guild system designed to generate employment and larger projects. This industry was born of the commercial interests rather than necessities of film itself as a medium. I should trust Hollywood, right, since they know so much about making movies - and they are of such exceptional quality… Well, the Hollywood philosophy has been that it takes many millions of dollars and hundreds of people. Because this is what they deem as desirable for their own invested minority. But the reality is that making a solid movie can be done with ten people and ten thousand dollars. Especially since film has practically disappeared, and been replaced with cheap cameras, free software, along with essentially unlimited storage and distribution.
My problem is not with commerce itself, but rather people using finance to entrench their values into a neutral medium for their own shallow, near-sighted, narcissistic reasons. Hollywood have engineered their own viewers for their own kind of product. And even when the viewers complain en masse about the imaginative bankruptcy of this milieu, they still begrudgingly patronize it, buying into the superstition that This Is How Good Movies Must Be Made. There was almost a reason for it 80 years ago, but I don’t think we can honestly say this today. Musicians have adapted and taken a lot of control back from the moribund “music industry”, and I would love to see something similar happen with the “movie industry”.
