February 13th 2025 will no doubt go down in
posterity as the day the revolution officially began. It happened when a brave
woman of color chose to stand up to a tyrannical, fascist President who was
corrupt, venal and determining to destroy everything the country stood for.
Someone of principle had to take a stand against tyranny that would inspire the
masses to react.
And so Shonda
Rhimes bravely resigned from the Kennedy Center.
I have little doubt
that because the ability to pick up sarcasm is something that extremists have
demonstrated they are unable to do, some people will say I am mocking Rhimes. I
don’t. I hold her in the same respect I always have. (That is sarcasm as
anyone who’s read anything I’ve written about the kind of TV she produces.) I
should mention I have as much foreboding about the next four years as many
people do and I do believe that things need to be done. But the fact that
Rhimes no doubt believes in her heart of hearts that this is a gesture of
resistance – and will no doubt be praised immensely in some circles -
shows that Hollywood has more or less learned nothing not only from the
last election but the entire decade since Trump arose at a political force.
No one will deny
that ever since Trump entered politics the illusion of civility that has
surrounded the GOP’s political discourse in the past is now completely gone. It
was never really there for a long time – the dog whistles of Fox News and the
right for the last twenty years before this were perceptible – but Trump’s
electoral success has given the GOP rank and file to basically give in to their
worst angels of their nature with no real consequences. There’s an argument for
much of the last several years that the worst parts of their agenda has been
halted as much due to their own demand for purity and organizational
incompetence but the manner in which they behave now speaks to the worst nature
of our society.
But having spent as
much time in the last several years very close to the left-wing involving not
only progressive newsletters but so much as Hollywood it’s also clear to me
that the rise of Trump has essentially allowed the left that same leeway. As
with the right, it’s been there all along, though because it is measured
fundamentally in academic journals and shows more contempt with both political
parties than just the GOP, it has been harder to see. But in the aftermath of
Trump’s upset victory in 2016, the Democratic Party, desperate to regain power,
has made alliances with the far left in a way they haven’t since the end of the
Vietnam War. This has helped the far left infinitely more than the
Democrats - the last three elections
clearly indicate how badly it has hurt them across the board – but the Party
seem willing to learn from this mistake. It’s clear to me that in the last few
months members of its coalition – particularly Hollywood - haven’t learned anything from it.
The alliance that
the Democrats have had with Hollywood during the 21st century has
done more good for Hollywood then its helped the Democratic Party. The reasons
should be obvious: far more than the Republicans the Democrats have struggled
with labels of elitism and being out of touch. When one of your biggest
benefactors is a bunch of millionaires dispelling that image becomes that much
harder. There’s never been any evidence – certainly not last year – that
Hollywood can influence votes in swing states and their influence in California
has always been negligible in a state that has gone Blue for nine straight
Presidential elections. Yet somehow the Democratic Party has been convinced
that celebrities mere presence will make them more popular. Politics has never
worked that way.
There’s also an
argument that Hollywood has been so angry at Trump not so much because of all
of his racist and angry tweets but because they look down on him the same way
he does them. They’ve been making Trump a punchline for thirty years and he’s
never fit into their circle the way so many of their rich friends do. When he
chooses not to attend Correspondents Dinners or the events of the Kennedy
Center, it offends them on a personal level. They’ve been mocking politicians
for decades and they’ve made it very clear that they think Republicans are
beneath them. For all we know every single political figure who attends these
dinners really has been offended by the jokes they make or the attitudes they
hold, but they’re just civil enough to be polite about it. Trump’s decision not
to attend these events isn’t nearly as big a violation of so many of the norms
he’s shattered but Hollywood considers it the most grievous because it
demonstrates he doesn’t care about them the way other elected officials claim
to.
And it’s worth
noting many of them were fine letting Trump appear in commercials, letting him
give cameos in TV shows, letting him be part of the system WHEN HE WAS JUST A
BILLIONAIRE. They were fine with him hanging out with him then. It’s
only now that he’s made it clear how much he hates them that they’ve made it
clear how weird he was behind the scenes, how fragile he was and how much of a
prick he was. Perhaps they feel guilty about putting him in the public
consciousness; more like they’re ashamed that they actually once thought it was
cool to hang out with this guy who turned out to be a bad friend – and who
didn’t need them the same way other political figures had.
For the last eight
years Hollywood has gone out of its way to paint itself as an official branch
of the ‘resistance’ against everything Trump and the GOP represent. The
Democrats have gone out of their way to embrace them, particularly the more
diverse members of their population, all minorities, women, and members of the
LGBTQ+ community. But even as they claimed that they were what America looked
like, it always had a huge asterisk as its never really been clear if they
actually stand for everything they claim to advocate for – or if they do
though, they haven’t been using it specifically to let Hollywood stand in for
the rest of America.
I will always
applaud the diversity in programming in television over the past decade from
the context of storytelling. But never once did I believe that it was symbolic
of the bigger issues plaguing so many of the minorities involved. And I never
truly believed that, given the fragmenting of television on every platform –
which had essentially been in place long before the rise of Trump – that it was
ever going to have any effect on the national discourse or influence a single
vote.
And so much of what
performers chose to do over this same period has always been a mix of virtue
signaling and a kind of exclusivity. The virtue signaling is seen in many ways
– appearing at anti-Trump rallies, much of late night comedy, an increasingly messaging
from celebrities at public appearances towards social justice – but none of
these actions are anything other than performative. Much as they’d like to spin
it, the Mark Ruffalo’s and Stephen Colbert’s are not risking anything when the
speak out against Trump. They will be rich and famous before and they’re rich
and famous afterwards. It doesn’t have the same power as so many of communities
that have been and will continue to be affected not just by Trump or
Republicans but all politicians if they chose to do. Speaking out against
illegal immigration, for the lives of the LGBTQ+, or the war in Afghanistan
doesn’t cost you as much if you’re a millionaire then everyone else who does.
And it sure as hell won’t change anything for that situation.
Rhimes’ decision to resign from the Kennedy
Center is just the most recent example of this performative motion. For the
record, I didn’t even known Rhimes was the treasurer of the Kennedy Center and
I’m betting most Americans didn’t at all. Compared to everything else in the
new administration the fact that loyalists to the President are now in charge
of a center – that again, he never chose to attend while he was in office the
first time – this barely marks as a ripple on the tidal waves that are coming. I
suspect it doesn’t matter that much even to those in Hollywood or the arts.
So let’s be honest:
Rhimes did this for herself. If you choose to stand for something, then the
more meaningful action would have been to stay on and fight for your causes.
It’s just as likely Trump would have fired her sooner rather than later but at
least she could have convincingly argued that she had fought the good fight.
And to be clear this was a symbolic position for Rhimes, it’s not like her
livelihood depends on bit on being treasurer of the Kennedy Center or that it’s
a burden that she was fired.
No, Rhimes resigned
because if she had stayed both Hollywood and the left-wing would have turned on
her in a matter of days. Because that’s the other part of this that Hollywood
will not talk about any more than the left will. For all the arguments that the
left makes about being inclusive and fighting for the rights of this
disenfranchised, when it comes both to Hollywood and the far left they care
more about being part of their own gated community and they will turn on people
they considered heroes the moment they chose anything less than a devotion to
purity.
We’ve seen this
play out countless times over the last decade, particularly in regard to Dave
Chapelle and J.K. Rowling. Both were darlings of Hollywood when they were under
attack from the right because of what they stood for but the moment they
started to show deviations from that pattern they have been ostracized by so
many of the people who were once their biggest fans. We are seeing the most
recent version of this play out in the ‘controversy’ surrounding Emilia
Perez in the leadup to the Oscars. Hollywood went out of its way to embrace
Karla Sofia Gascon, a transgender actress because they have embraced the rights
of the transgender community as their latest battle cry. The fact that Gascon
is Spanish adds to their level of being an international community instead of
xenophobic.
But when it was
revealed that Gascon had, years earlier, made tweets that were derogatory of
Islam and George Floyd Hollywood immediately turned on her. Her co-stars Zoe
Saldana and Selena Gomez have said nothing supportive of her over the last few
weeks and are now saying the experience that just weeks ago they were joyous
about has been forever tainted – and that they never knew Gascon at all. That
would seem to suggest their own blinders
and they never saw Gascon as anything more than what she represented rather
than as a human being with her own opinions.
The controversy
over Emilia Perez is just the latest in the last two years in which
Hollywood has done everything in its power to make it clear how entitled,
elitist and bigoted they are despite the myth of inclusivity. It was shown over
and over during the strikes that crippled Hollywood during the summer and into
the fall of 2023; it was shown how they divided over Israel and Palestine after
the events of October 7th -
and began forcing the guilds that had negotiated deals with them as to
uncomfortable positions just days afterwards; it was shown in how George
Clooney wrote an op-ed in which he thought his position as a Democratic
fundraiser qualified him to say that Joe Biden show step down as the Democratic
nominee for President; it was shown in how they did everything to put their
thumb on the scale for Kamala Harris – including publicly excoriating Cheryl
Hines when she refused to denounce her husband for supporting Trump and the later statements by Eva Longoria and
Laverne Cox who said they were planning to leave the country after he won.
And everything
involving so much of the Academy Awards season this year demonstrates how much
the film industry has turned everything else into a polarizing battle – one that
is essentially being driven by the left far more than the right. It’s not just
the controversy of Gascon’s tweets; it’s the way that The Brutalist became
a target for the use of AI, enraging the creative forces in Hollywood who spent
much of the strike arguing against it’s use. It’s the way that Mikey Madison
earned outrage because she said she by and large didn’t use an intimacy
coordinator in her scenes in Anora – a cause célèbres of women in
the film industry for years. It’s how Demi Moore
came under the attack because she kissed a fifteen year old when she was
nineteen nearly forty years ago.
And what solutions do insiders suggest? Not that all
of this is some kind of extreme argument over nothing but rather better vetting
of the stars and directors going forward. For people who seem to claim they are
for free speech, they are arguing that one must do a better job censoring
yourself – as in the fact that there now seems to be a process among celebrities
of ‘scrubbing’ your social media profile. That Hollywood has spent so much time
outraged at every single tweet by Trump over the last decade as signs of him
being a deranged lunatic almost suggests their own hypocrisy and perhaps envy.
They wish they could say the kind of things he did online and not take any
consequences for them and they hold them to a standard for calling him a monster
for saying these things.
There are going to
be serious problems during the next few years; they are already beginning to
form. But the idea that this kind of performative activism among Hollywood is
going to make a difference is not only ludicrous but almost juvenile. You would
think by now that none of the actions they do will make any difference to the
national discourse or even affect the President. But they keep doing them
because they are performers and in their mind, performing is the way to take a
stand.
Hollywood is not
entirely representative of the left but they are by far the worst examples of
its worst aspects. They are a group of millionaires and billionaires who
believe that because they play working men and women on TV or film, they
understand what they go through. They don’t have a clue, and they certainly
wouldn’t trade away their fortunes to live among them again. They exist in the
same kind of bubble that all elitists do: they think what matters to them
matters for the entire world. In that they are just as mistaken as the
conservative talking heads who make their fortunes on cable news and in think
tanks. And at their core, they are just as bigoted, mean-spirited and exclusive
about their membership as the far right is and just as willing to turn on one
of their own when they don’t meet the same standards of purity – standards its
worth noting many academic leftists don’t believe they represent in the first
place.
Don’t look to me
yet for a solution when it comes to either combating Trump or the hold he has
over the GOP voters or elected officials. (I have a vague idea, but I’m still
working on it.) What I know deep down is that Hollywood not only has no part in
it, they’ve been a big part of the problem for a long time and they have no
clue how to solve it. Not performing at the Kennedy Center won’t change a thing
that happens the next few years. But it seems like it does to those there and
that’s why they’re doing it. It won’t help the people they claim to care about
and it won’t upset any of the ‘enemy’. But those are the only stands they’ll
take – the ones that make them look good and don’t hurt them.
And for those who
argue whether Trump will use the Kennedy Center to take revenge by keeping
people out, don’t worry. If the last decade has proven anything, it’s that
Hollywood has made it very clear they hold him in as much contempt as he holds
them. Anticipate a lot of statements along the lines of: “Even if he invited me
I wouldn’t come” or “He’s too thin-skinned to listen to dissent.” The former is
the right kind of virtue signaling and the latter just demonstrates that there
as much like the President then they want to admit. They’re just like him: they
only want to hear applause and they’ll turn on anyone who violates their
covenants. And it’s not like this will hurt them in any way that matters. They’re
as elitist as he is. The ordinary people he’s hurting, they are going to be in trouble.
But honestly; do they care about them any more than the President really? Or is
it just something they say in hashtags and speeches? I have my opinion, of
course, and I expect they’ll tell us theirs – at a distance and with no
consequence, as always.
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