Hollywood will stop fueling racism when audiences demand better

Exploiting racism has been a profitable strategy in Hollywood since the dawn of filmmaking: 111 years ago, D.W.

Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” was incredibly popular and influential, while also being so racist that it was considered controversial even in its own day.

The industry saw immediately just how lucrative fear could be.

More than a century later, there is always someone in the entertainment media willing to trade in racist tropes for money, as well as an audience ready to receive them.

Two new films, “Citizen Vigilante” and “Run, Fight, Hide: Infidels,” demonstrate that streaming platforms and social media no longer simply distribute controversial content but in fact thrive on content that provokes, polarizes and sustains attention, regardless of the social cost.

Both of these xenophobic and Islamophobic films are being pushed as “anti-woke” vehicles, deliberately engineered to bypass traditional critical reception and capitalize on a fractured media ecosystem.

“Citizen Vigilante,” which features an American protagonist killing dark-skinned immigr ...