Last year, when Jimmy Kimmel incurred President Trump’s displeasure over a joke, it came at a time when every major institution was caving to presidential bluster.
Disney — the parent company of Kimmel’s home network, ABC — yanked the late-night host off the air immediately. The instant consensus was that, with FCC threats hanging in the air and the administration’s full displeasure turned on them, Kimmel had to be sacrificed for the good of the company.
When Disney found its backbone and put its star back on the air, it was a turning point not just for Hollywood but for the whole country and marked the end of a much-too-long stretch of total fecklessness by opposition forces.
This week, amidst notice of a deeply suspect FCC review of Disney’s broadcast licenses and Trump’s pronouncement that “ABC Fake News Network” should fire “seriously unfunny Jimmy Kimmel, who incompetently presides over one of the lowest-rated shows on television,” the company is saying — and more importantly, doing — nothing.
If it’s not a full-throated, provocative defense of Kimmel’s right to mock the age difference between Trump and the First Lady (she had “the glow of an expectant widow,” Kimmel said during his show last week, before the White House Correspondents’ Dinner), the company is nonetheless standing by its star and staring down empty threats.
That’s a huge leap forward. So far, in response to the bluster, Disney has been stalwart in its implied, “Oh yeah, big boy? What’re you gonna do about it?”
So that’s on the good side.
But on the other end of the ledger, among the tech overlords of Hollywood, they don’t even need threats to fall in line.
They are still lining up for the chance to fall in line.
For starters, and most impressively, there is this little piece of news…
Don’t stop here
Unlock the full story — and the no-spin reporting Hollywood trusts
Already a subscriber?
