I think killing a dog in a film is cruel and offensive

Personally what I thought was interesting about that aspect of the story was the disproportionate focus on the dog scene and the careful decision to not contextualise it in the rest of the film. I thought part of the satirical point was that in reality changing something like that to appease audiences is the height of insincerity and lack of integrity, but so is the audiences need for one or the other. AND so is the director's opinion (whether induced by drugs or not) that the dog thing is sooooo crucial.

Of course it would be quicker if I'd just said the film is commenting on the divide and the self imposed gulf between Hollywood, Hollywood arthouse, non Hollywood arthouse, Hollywood indie, non Hollywood indie etc etc... But what made me laugh was the fact we have no idea what the context is behind that dog; it could be that saving the dog had been an integral part of the plot throughout and subtextually mined as a throughline on the nature of humanity, compassion and weakness. Or it could just be there to do exactly what it does as far as we can tell - a token heart tugging element, exploited to make the audience shocked and hopefully make them think harsh is synonymous with harsh, brutal, gritty, real, authentic. Blah.

But that's just me. I'm hard to shock, and I don't shy away from shocking things just because I'd like to only see nice things and not have to think about all the bad things that happen in life. I wouldn't go around telling everyone to their face, I find it a little hypocritical when people find something offensive when they have to see it in fiction, yet if you ask them what they do about that sort of thing in real life it's never occurred to care when it actually happens. If it turns out someone was offended because they had to see something, but they don't care once it's out of sight = out of mind, then it's not really a moral reaction.

Back to the point though - that's why I find it funny. I know other people do think that sort of thing is really important, but the idea that a graphic scene of the dog dying, a really graphic scene of a dog shot or no dog death would make all the difference to the success of the film either means Hollywood doesn't give a *beep* about integrity or the film is so bad (the film within film I mean) that any little thing can tip the viewer into disregarding it altogether. A bit of both I guess, since the film within a film is obviously supposed to be a totally self indulgent, subpar trying too hard piece of trash with a self indulgent director but a good cast. Love Sean Penn being it - he just gets more and more awesome...

You can't kill a dog in Hollywood. That's the joke.

It's not real. The dog doesn't really get injured or killed in real life. So who cares