A (Very Incomplete) Chronology of Upbeat and Commercial

 In the Next Century, We're Still Working on It Department:

In Hitchcock's I Confess (1953), one line spoken by a lawmaker goes,

“Equal salary for female school teachers would bring disaster to our whole economy.”

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Monty Python predicts Social Media—

Jn Cleese: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.

Mike Palin: But that isn’t just saying, “No, it isn’t.”

Cleese: Yes, it is....

1955: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black man, is lynched in Mississippi. Rod Serling writes a screenplay which is not produced, as TV censors try to compel Serling to change the script so that it wouldn’t make certain white people uncomfortable about White Supremacism. In his desire to address such social ills, Serling realizes that such issues can be made abstract via science-fiction, and he develops the anthology television series, The Twilight Zone.

1980: Woody Allen releases Stardust Memories, in which he plays filmmaker Sandy Bates, the ending of whose movie studio suits, insisting that the movie be “upbeat and commercial” intend changing to an incongruous arrival at “Jazz Heaven.”

1982: The Ladd Company releases Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott having been coerced into both making the ending a romantic escape, and adding voice-overs which are roughly equal parts intrusive and baldly expository.

1985: Brazil is released as the film Terry Gilliam wished, the director having at last prevailed against the suits at Universal, who wanted the film cut down to a sanitized “Love Conquers All” version.