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Who's Fleeing Ye? Not Netflix

theankler.com

Who's Fleeing Ye? Not Netflix

➕ Amazon and Sue Kroll thisclose to the finish line

Peter Kiefer
,
Richard Rushfield
, and
Jeff Sneider
Oct 24, 2022
8
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Who's Fleeing Ye? Not Netflix

theankler.com
YE’S FAITHFUL? Kanye West and former Netflix CMO Bozoma St. John at a screening of jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy in February 2022. (Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for Netflix)

Never say Hollywood doesn’t wait to see which way the wind is blowing before taking action. In the wake of a weekend of alarming antisemitic events around Los Angeles, with at least one directly correlated to Kanye West’s recent remarks, the town lumbered into action 16 days after the rapper/fashion mogul first Tweeted, “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE”, a sentiment he echoed in other interviews and media.

“Hollywood has responded very slowly to Kanye,” said Steven Ross, a USC historian and author of Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, speaking to The Ankler moments after news broke that CAA had dropped West as a client. “Ask yourself if a major star would have made similarly vicious remarks about African-Americans how fast would people have acted? Antisemitism always seems to take a little longer because Jews are seen as being white and not as an embattled community.”

Twitter avatar for @orensegal
Oren Segal @orensegal
Hate in America: Yesterday, the head of an antisemitic and white supremacist group (and his supporters) dropped banners over the 405 in Los Angeles. One banner read, "Kanye is right about the Jews.”
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10:41 AM ∙ Oct 23, 2022
6,299Likes2,512Retweets

CAA, which represented West since 2016, was but the latest Hollywood institution to sever ties with the singer. Over the weekend, West’s calls for violence began to manifest IRL across swaths of Los Angeles. On Saturday, an antisemitic and white supremacist group unfurled banners over the 405, one of which read “Kanye is right about the Jews” while antisemitic fliers targeting Disney’s leadership were distributed in mailboxes on the city’s Westside and at The Grove. All of this has prompted some serious soul searching within the entertainment industry. As of last week, a faction within CAA was growing increasingly upset that the agency hadn’t already parted ways with the artist, who had been dropped by Balenciaga and is being sued by George Floyd’s family for suggesting in an interview that Floyd was not killed by Minneapolis police officers but rather by a batch of Fentanyl. On Monday MRC announced that it was shelving a completed documentary focused on West.

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Shannon Watts @shannonrwatts
A friend sent me images of these flyers appearing in the mailboxes of Brentwood families today.
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9:47 PM ∙ Oct 23, 2022
23,735Likes5,817Retweets

Interestingly, one place that isn’t canceling Kanye is Netflix, whose platform earlier this year bought, for $30 million, a three-part documentary series about West, Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. The Ankler has learned that the platform has no plans to remove the doc as West is the subject, not the filmmaker (though it does feature his own home movies and footage). The streamer has no business relationship with him and no other projects in the works. It’s worth noting that the company’s policy follows similar actions around House of Cards following accusations around star Kevin Spacey, and Dave Chapelle, following outrage over his comments around transgenderism in one of his shows.

Not since Mel Gibson’s 2006 Pacific Coast Highway rant has the industry been roiled by such overt antisemitism from within its own ranks. According to Ross, West’s comments are worse than Gibson’s because he seems to be calling for actual violence. “Kanye has made these types of comments in the past and was dismissed due to questions over his mental health,” he says. “Well that doesn’t matter. You are responsible for what you say and you are responsible for the action that comes as a result of your hate.” - P.K. and R.R.

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MARKETING EXEC COUP? From left: VP of Prime Video U.S. Albert Cheng, now-consultant Sue Kroll, Chloë Grace Moretz and Amazon Studios Head of Television Vernon Sanders at an event for Prime Video series The Peripheral on October 11. (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

Amazon’s Countdown to Kroll

Last month, The Ankler’s Tatiana Siegel reported that Sue Kroll had begun conversations at Amazon Studios to officially become its new marketing chief for Amazon Studios and Prime Video. Now, The Ankler hears that Kroll, the former marketing maven at Warner Bros., is currently finalizing a deal for that role.

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