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It’s the Week of the Jerks here in Hollywood. Not that every week isn’t the week of the jerks.
Some takeaways from THR’s blockbuster Scott Rudin piece:
• First of all, a lot of investigative journalisms can get lost in details and suits and counter-suits and NDA’s and make for some tough slogging to figure out what’s happening. Not in this one. You’re not going to find a more leaps-off-the-page piece of Hollywood reporting with no question who is the bad guy here.
• As the piece notes, Rudin’s eccentricities, shall we call them, have been public knowledge for a long long time. Decades in fact. But they were only an “open secret” because no one had the guts and took the time to meticulously chronicle it all until now. So, secret no longer.
• An Ankler friend pointed out, the most shocking thing about the key potato throwing incident is not just its violence, but its unfettered consumption of carbohydrates. Has any Hollywood power player been seen openly eating a baked potato since the late ’70s?
• It’s the lasting spillover of the Me Too era. The Harvey revelations were the first time, perhaps in Hollywood history, that an entertainment Poohbah faced exposure and consequences for his personal behavior – a journey the rest of the business world had made 20 to 30 years before. Poohbahai had been had been held accountable for their business performance, or financial misdeeds, a la, David Begelman. But for bad personal behavior that didn’t have a giant pricetag attached? Possibly unprecedented pre-Harvey.
• Since that door opened, the creep of exposure has been steadily making its way to accountability for behavior which, let’s be clear, would be totally, immediately unacceptable just about anywhere else. Behavior that wouldn’t just get you fired but possibly arrested or committed in the rest of the world. Now the eye of exposure has made it to from sexual assault and racism to garden variety cruelty and nastiness and abuse of employees. A few decades late, but glad to have it.
• Another part of the open secret thing is that for 100 years here, bullying, abuse, lechery, and discrimination were all part of the charming profile of the iconic studio boss or producer. They were our homegrown “characters.” Well, this era is about finally seeing the business, not as the swashbuckling executive’s hero’s odyssey but through the eyes of the folks on the other side of the desk. And from their perspective, now that we notice, it’s not quite so charming.
• As for what will be the consequences, in terms of deals and career, I’m betting on not so much. Whatever our daily moral dudgeon, Hollywood doesn’t dissociate themselves from anyone until they absolutely have to. And if we think we might make money with someone, not even then. Sexual assault, harassment, racial discrimination – these have entered the pantheon of the radioactive, run as far as you can from this person lest you be tarnished with their brush. I’m not so sure bullying and workaday abuse are seen in that category yet in the eyes of the industry, despite all that was laid out here.
• I’m certainly not seeing any rush of industry titans to condemn this behavior or declare they won’t work with someone who treats employees and colleagues that way. As for the advocacy groups out there, once again, the paragon of Hollywood activist courage, Time’s Up has chosen to sit out a fight until the outcome is all but certain.
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BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED SONY!
WARNER MEDIA THROWS WARNER UNDER THE BUS!
TED TALKS!
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Ankler Recommenderer: Martini Shot!
Here’s a little something The Ankler is truly proud to recommend to all readers. For years now, Rob Long’s Martini Shot stories on KCRW have been our most delightful, insightful guide to the ways and mores of this zany business.
Each week, amazingly in under five minutes, Rob told a little story that illuminated some ridiculous and inexplicable corner of our world. Hilarious, profound and most important – I say with a writer’s envy – short! Martini Shot is a wonderful companion through the Hollywood journey. A voice in the darkness, you’ll feel like someone understands the agonies you’re going through for the first time.
Rob has taken the Shot on the road, and set up shop as a standalone podcast, and The Recommenderer could urge more highly that you subscribe and listen at martinishotpodcast.com.
The Ankler’s Got People Talking!!
Talking the state of things on Sonny Bunch’s Bulwark podcast!
Talking the Rudin fallout or fall not with the AP.
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