Russ Roberts: belief

Transcript context

…I think the audience is more demanding and has evolved into an equilibrium where it expects something more intellectually substantive from television, and precisely because it’s not economically so viable. The notion that at the margin you get a much bigger audience by pandering to more people just doesn’t go that far in Israel. Now, this may change as Israeli shows themselves become more popular, so I worry about this. That would be my offhand answer: smarter, more demanding audience, plus limited incentives to sell out. That’s certainly interesting. There’s some really bad Israeli TV shows that I’ve enjoyed, that take weird and strange turns. I’ll mention The Good Cop or Hashoter Hatov — which is often in really bad taste and quite, quite amusing — that all of a sudden gets really serious in season two or three. It starts off as a silly comedy. Similarly, The Beauty and the Baker, which is this cheesy — there’s an American version of it too, but in the Israeli version, this baker, he somehow gets tangled up with this movie star, this model. She’s a model, I guess, not a movie star. It’s cheap fun, and all of a sudden it gets really serious. Their families get involved, and it takes these strange and inexplicable turns. I’m sure it’s partly driven by the economics of the business. I think there’s another thing to think about, which is Jews created Hollywood. Jews have been making good movies for a long time. We’re called the “people of the book.” We’re interested in storytelling — just a standard thing Jews have been doing for a long time. Now, why Israelis, per se, are so good at it is an interesting question. It’s obviously a function of wealth and the ability now to market those stories to a much wider audience. I think your point about how subtitles and Netflix allowed that to reach a much wider audience than was available before — it’s really a puzzle. They’re not particularly designed, I don’t think, anymore for the Israeli market. The real puzzle to me is why they’re popular, not why they’re so good. Why do people want to watch Shtisel, which is — not much happens in Shtisel and it’s a look . . . There’s actual romantic tension; that’s the thing with Shtisel and Srugim. In American shows or even European shows, why don’t they just divorce, or why don’t they just go to bed together, or why don’t they just whatever? But in Srugim and Shtisel it’s always a question what the boundaries are, and that’s hard to recreate.…

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