The tap of (practically) free money has gone dry, and it’s not clear what will replace the golden age. But it’s apt to be something more like the past, circa 2007 or so. Streaming movies will need bigger audiences, as did the mass-market films they replaced. And partly for this reason, studios are likely to dial back on their social justice initiatives.
This retreat is already underway — from the heady days when #MeToo was unmaking the casting couch and Frances McDormand was exhorting an applauding Oscars audience to demand inclusion riders on all future projects. Last summer saw an exodus of executive women of color who had been leading diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at companies including Warner Bros., Disney and Netflix. As Variety noted, “When corporations tighten their money belts, DEI initiatives are often first on the chopping block.”
Nor is money the only reason that Hollywood might be backing away from diversity. Disney’s public feud with Florida over LGBTQ+ issues, which saw the corporation stripped of lucrative tax breaks, has clearly spooked many companies, including Disney. Bob Iger, its chief executive, has been very clear that it will no longer be taking such stands, telling CNBC that Disney is “there to manufacture fun.” “The last thing I want is for the company to be drawn into any culture wars,” he said.
In its latest annual report, Disney notes that “consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brands.”
As it happened, the day after that report was released last week, I found myself watching “Hollywood,” a 2020 Netflix miniseries from television veteran Ryan Murphy. It’s a fascinating cultural artifact on many levels — I marveled that this sweet, glitzy take on golden-era Hollywood was created by a man who somehow also brought us “American Horror Story,” “Ratched” and “Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
In fact, there’s a sort of horror element — a major plot element is Hollywood’s mid-century sexual exploitation of the aspiring by those who had already arrived. But this is played for laughs rather than disgust, and, more important, it starts to change after a female studio head, in this decidedly alternate history, casts a Black woman opposite a White actor in a major studio release. In short order (spoilers ahead), her interracial drama is a critical and financial success; its Black, gay screenwriter comes out publicly as Rock Hudson’s boyfriend; and American morality is abruptly catapulted 50 years ahead of its time.
All this is set around the period when the real-world House Un-American Activities Committee was gearing up its red-hunting and Hollywood was doubling down on censorship. And this is another reason the series is such a fascinating artifact. It tells a story not just about Hollywood in the late 1940s but also about Hollywood as it saw itself five years ago — a place where major social change hung on the decisions of key power brokers.
The show is not quite as naive as I’m making it sound — the final episode is titled “A Hollywood Ending” in what feels like a bit of a wink, suggesting the creators are well aware that what they are spinning is fantasy. The writers are aware that what they are spinning is fantasy. Yet, like all good fantasy, it tells us a lot about ourselves — and especially about folks in Hollywood who believed, or at least wanted to, that so much could be different if only the Dream Factory would retool to manufacture consent.
This belief isn’t entirely wrong. “Will & Grace” probably did more to advance the cause of same-sex marriage than a thousand protest marches. But, at best, Hollywood can race ahead of a cultural consensus that is already shifting and beckon us to catch up; it cannot force change that people aren’t ready to make.
It takes a lot of money to make movies and television shows, and most people turn to entertainment for a fantasy that reflects their own lives, only bigger and better. If they can’t see themselves on the screen — or, worse, if they find themselves cast as the villain — they won’t pay. This didn’t matter so much in the era when viewership was often almost an afterthought. But the easy money is now gone, and without it, unfortunately, a lot of other things will also turn out to be much harder than they once seemed.
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