This week, The Hollywood Reporter ran a smug editorial by Patrick Brzeski blaming President Donald Trump for the film industry’s diminishing appeal on the world stage. The argument? That the rise of Trump-era foreign policy has made international audiences recoil from American heroes and, by extension, American movies.
Let’s be clear: this wasn’t a market analysis. It was a political screed — a clumsy attempt to tie Hollywood’s ongoing failures to a politician they already hate. Instead of looking inward, the author chose to project the industry’s woes onto a convenient scapegoat.
Harrison Ford as the Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World – YouTube, Marvel Entertainment
But the box office doesn’t lie. And neither does audience fatigue. Hollywood’s problem isn’t “America First.” It’s “Content Last.”
What Brzeski Claims
In his Hollywood Reporter editorial, Patrick Brzeski argues that international audiences are turning away from American movies because of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. He claims Trump has damaged U.S. soft power by alienating allies, undermining democratic institutions, and cozying up to dictators. According to Brzeski, this global disillusionment is now reflected in the box office, with audiences supposedly rejecting American heroes who once symbolized freedom and virtue.
Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Captain America in Marvel Studios‘ CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD. Photo by Eli Adé. © 2024 MARVEL.
Brzeski cites falling favorability ratings of the U.S. in countries like Germany and Denmark, suggests that Liberation Day tariffs are souring global sentiment, and points to the underperformance of Captain America: Brave New World as a reflection of this broader decline. He also floats the idea that major studios are self-censoring politically sensitive films, such as The Apprentice, out of fear of government retaliation, and closes by celebrating the rise of international content that distances itself from American cultural identity.
In short: Brzeski blames Trump for Hollywood’s global decline, not the industry’s own creative choices.
What’s Really Going On in Hollywood
Captain America: Brave New World didn’t underperform internationally because it has “America” in the title. It flopped because it’s a lifeless, neutered franchise entry where the supposed hero stands for nothing but corporate virtue signaling and DEI checklists.
The Nexus Mod of Donald Trump as Captain America in Marvel Rivals – YouTube, AsmonGold Clips
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Marvel isn’t hemorrhaging interest because of Trump’s foreign policy. It’s tanking because its stories are lazy, its protagonists are bait-and-switch gimmicks, and every script feels like a lecture written by committee. Audiences around the globe are tuning out not because they’re mad about tariffs—but because the movies just aren’t good anymore.
That’s not political. That’s product failure.
The Projection Game
Brzeski’s article tries to pin declining international sentiment on Trump while completely ignoring the rot festering inside Hollywood institutions:
- For years now, Hollywood has openly mocked the values that once made American films aspirational: strength, faith, sacrifice, family, heroism.
- It embraced globalist pablum, identity quotas, and ideological purity tests in the writer’s room—killing the universality that once made U.S. stories resonate worldwide.
- Instead of showing America leading by example, today’s films show America apologizing for existing.
Chris Evans as Captain America in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Marvel Studios
And then there’s the gall to claim studios were savvy for removing patriotism to gain access to China’s market—before admitting that gamble blew up in their faces when the CCP lost interest. Now, rather than blame cowardice and creative bankruptcy, the narrative is that Trump somehow spooked Denmark out of watching Captain America. Give us a break.
“America” Is Not the Problem — Hollywood Elites Are
The article laments the decline of “the great American dream narrative,” acting as if Trump himself strangled it and Hollywood by extension. But that dream didn’t die in a red hat. It died when the elites in Hollywood decided they hated what America stood for.
Mark Hamill at the Star Wars: The Last Jedi Japan Premiere. Photo Credit: Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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They replaced inspiration with degradation:
- Morally gray “heroes” who mumble through therapy sessions
- Storylines that wallow in shame and self-hatred
- Characters written by ideologues who believe patriotism is a punchline
Rob Reiner in ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013), Paramount Pictures
You can’t poison your stories and then complain that the world lost interest in your values. You threw those values away.
Remember Top Gun: Maverick?
Let’s not pretend the audience disappeared. When Top Gun: Maverick hit theaters in 2022, it was everything Hollywood claims can’t succeed anymore: patriotic, confident, emotionally grounded, and unashamedly heroic. No lectures. No apologies. No identity politics.
Tom Cruise plays Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: Maverick from Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
And it was a massive hit — $1.4 billion worldwide. International markets didn’t run from American symbolism—they cheered for it. Why? Because they still admire America when America remembers what made it admirable.
Top Gun: Maverick succeeded where Brave New World failed because it knew what story it wanted to tell—and believed in its hero.
Final Take
Brzeski’s piece isn’t journalism. It’s a tantrum disguised as critique. It’s written by someone who can’t accept that the global decline in Hollywood dominance isn’t the fault of one president or political movement—it’s the inevitable outcome of an industry that betrayed its audience.
Hollywood didn’t lose its soft power because of Trump.
It lost it when it stopped believing in heroes.
Carl Weathers as Apollo Creed in Rocky IV (1984), MGM
It lost it when it replaced courage with cynicism and heart with hashtags.
And if the industry keeps pushing out lifeless, preachy slogs while blaming voters and politicians for its failures, then it’ll continue fading not just internationally—but at home, too.
Want to fix it? Stop scapegoating. Start storytelling.
How do you feel about The Hollywood Reporter blaming Trump for the film industry’s decline? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
I agree completely. Hollywood’s job was to provide entertainment to the masses to relieve their stresses of every day life but the hollywood elites have completely veered off course in that regard and believe themselves to be higher beings who need to “educate” us “plebeians” and it’s about time we showed them that they’re the jesters meant solely to entertain and if they can’t do that then we’ll find others who can and will.
Operation Mockingbird didn’t end, they are trying to manufacture reality for social engineering.
“the narrative is that Trump somehow spooked Denmark out of watching Captain America. Give us a break.”
Gold.
Thank you!
There are what? A hundred significant race swaps in blockbusters recently, mostly to the African race from the white race. And, guess what, no one wants to watch that stuff. They’re still doing it, e.g. with Snape.
He didn’t start it but contributed to make them die faster. But that isn’t a bad thing.