The Cravenness Report: Hollywood’s Trump Hall of Shame

It may be shocking to read after a decade of horrors that don’t need recounting, but the culture is shifting; optimism is back.

Gen Z is “hopemaxxing”; millennials are reembracing cringe. Last week, the country’s electorate gave its verdict on the past two years of Donald Trump’s cronyism, menace and cruelty — as it turns out, that kind of stuff went over about as well as Howard the Duck or Battlefield Earth.

And now, with the political winds shifting, you can practically hear the sighs of relief coming from Hollywood’s executive suites. Time to move on! Nothing to see here! Let’s all pretend the last two years never happened!

Not so fast.

Because if there’s one thing this era has demonstrated, it’s that Hollywood’s most powerful people have remarkably little trouble surrendering their principles when there’s a merger to approve, a tariff to dodge, a government contract to secure or a president whose good graces might be worth a few billion dollars.

Some merely buried their heads in the sand; others dove into the marauding head-first like Scrooge McDuck; few covered themselves in anything resembling glory.  

So before the broom comes in, let’s sort who stood where for this period that is, now, amazingly, behind us. (Considered here are not purely political or even business actors — but people who are all or part leaders of Hollywood and the media world.)

So who were the partners? Who were the enablers? Who were merely pathetic? And who, against all odds, emerged with their dignity intact?

Let’s start with the people who didn’t just bend the knee. They helped build the throne.