The Day of the Vulture is Here
A different kind of bird has descended upon Hollywood for Thanksgiving
There are so many things that don’t make sense these days in Hollywood — choices being made on the field that are confounding if you happen to care about the future of this game, this team, this sport.
As I mulled the question, “If they cared about the future, why would they…?” it suddenly occurred to me how wrong I’d been looking at this whole thing. Yes, if they cared about the future, they wouldn’t kill off movie theaters, stifle innovation and risk-taking, or let huge swaths of the creative spectrum, like drama and comedy, just die.
But what if they didn’t care about or believe in the future? How much wider do the horizons become in terms of what they can get away with today?
And it occurred to me that there’s a term for this. I’ve seen it before. The whole nation has seen it plenty in the last couple of decades, but I was blind to it because I never thought it could apply to Hollywood.
The term is Vulture Capitalism.
I had thought, in honor of Thanksgiving, it might be good to find something uplifting to write, something positive: 25 Reasons to be Grateful (or something like that).
And of course, we should all be grateful that we get to make our living in a creative profession and spend our lives in a community of creative people. I feel thankful every day to those who built this community, those who have moved it forward and helped it survive for 100 years, and those whose support allows me to do this for a living. To them, yes, I give lots and lots of thanks.
But many other people and forces are actively working to undermine this industry, and at this moment, they appear to be winning. Already, the changes wrought would have been unthinkable a decade ago — Depression-era levels of unemployment, the mass flight of production, theaters starved out, progress in the industry gone into reverse, the great consolidation finally at hand.
And it’s not like these are the painful but necessary steps that have to be taken to restructure for a stronger, more vibrant industry. All of this has been for no clear goal, with no turning point ahead. Instead, it’s just pain in the service of surviving until it’s time for more pain — probably sooner than later.
So as the scales fell from my eyes, and I felt like I was stepping through the gates of paranoia and grappling with what is really happening here, I wasn’t in the mood for a little homily about how lucky we are. I give thanks for this industry, which is why I am unlocking heretofore unknown levels of rage towards all that is tearing it down.
My apologies if you were looking for some Thanksgiving pleasantries. Maybe next week. Maybe Christmas.
But in the meantime, let’s take a look at a new paradigm for understanding Hollywoodnomics circa 2025: The Day of the Vulture.
Vulture Culture
In properly functioning capitalism, people create things of value, companies sell those products to consumers and the amount paid beyond the cost of production is the company’s profit.