In the maelstrom of media over-saturation we are inundated with concern. The press is full of alarms, each headline begging for attention to endless cares – social justice, economic woes, racial iniquity, environmental catastrophe. The urgency with which each alarm is no longer the sole occupation of the press, or public relations departments, or innumerable special interests, but has been democratized. The public taking stock, buying in, replicating the endless stream of cares. What used to be bumper stickers are now memes, reposts, retweets and hashtags. The public, now branded carriers of care, has little refuge from the torrents of alarm.
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One would be forgiven from being totally fed up with the whole thing. People more or less expect their entertainment be free from political content. Films that are overly preachy and too direct in political content tend to break the spell of the story, and … well … no one really likes them. And lately, and there is no shortage of evidence to point to, there has been a reactive cultural backlash against the social messaging from limousine liberals of Hollywood.
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This reaction, however, is as old as Hollywood itself. A century ago, during the silent film era, the evangelicals of the prohibitionist movement like Billy Sunday railed against the loose morals of libertine Hollywood. A century later, while some of the specific moral issues may have shifted, the reaction against a cultural industry is the same. Hollywood is one of those bubbles of neoliberalism, a craven techno-boomtown insulated from flyover country. The stereotype of the smug elites and movie starlets and Instagram influencers with their token concerns glowering over the world imposing their values through the television has taken a form worth mocking.
The real wonder about Ricky Gervais’s five times roasting the room at the Golden Globes is that they keep bringing him back. Rating for award shows are down across the board, and ironically, Gervais, the thorn in so many sides is the guy keeping the televised show afloat. And for about a week in January 2020, we were all recovering from Gervais’s brutal takedowns of celebrity culture, the kowtowing to corporate power and acquiescent to the abuses of plutocrats and corporate executives. Like all good laughs, the humor comes from a kernel of truth. That behind the ostensible identity politics and woke veneer of Apple and Disney and Amazon lay immense crimes against both society and nature too long to mention here. If Gervais had a thesis statement it would be something like this,
“So, well, you say you’re woke, but the companies you work for, I mean, unbelievable – Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service, you’d call your agent, wouldn’t ya? So, if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thurnberg. So if you win, come up and accept your little award, thank your agent and your god, and fuck off.”
It was sort of like Laura Ingram who told LeBron to “shut up and dribble.” Of course, this didn’t really have much of an effect on the winners, who would say what they want.
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But was Gervais right? Was this fair? Well, yes, and perhaps no. Is there a societal hipocrisy in Hollywood culture? Sure. Is there inequality? Sure. Are there corporate abuses? Yes, of course. Are there certain famous, powerful, and influential abusers? Absolutely. In fact, some of the films being honored (Bombshell, Chernobyl, Succession, Parasite among them) are about these themes. Do some celebrities use issues? Perhaps. Or perhaps there is something else afoot.
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There is another side to this story that isn’t just the cynical rantings of Gervais. Just because there are corporate abuses in Hollywood, just as there is on Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Tech, the Pentagon, K Street, and so on, doesn’t mean that those who work within the system don’t have relationships with the so-called “real world,” and don’t have their own feelings about things.
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Actors, it seems, are the easy punching bags for resentment. They are the most visible cultural figures, the ones who get their picture taken. When most people think of an actor, they think of George Clooney, or Tom Hanks or something. Someone very successful and influential. What people don’t think of are the 98 percent of the actors in the screen actors guild who are working class – folks who struggle and only get small parts, if anything. These folks don’t earn much money from acting. Many hold other jobs. The same is true for writers, film makers, and the thousands of other people who work in technical jobs – be it in the studio or those many businesses hired to help support the film and television industry. Their names aren’t in lights, but are listed among the thousands at the end credits which everyone skips.
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But what of the actor activist? The one who, because they have garnered celebrity, attract pop cultural attention. Celebrity, though, is a beast that has nothing to do with talent, as the Kardashian family will demonstrate. And it’s been argued many times by actors, notably recently by Robert DeNiro at his SAG lifetime achievement award, that “because of their situation” they have influence. And he used the most of his speech to call out speaking against corruption in all its forms (meaning the President, but also perhaps those executives of the Weinstein ilk). But there is something more here.
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Now, I should say that in addition to watching this industry, I’ve done some acting myself and I am a screenwriter as well, so let me say this of actors. Successful famous actors know well more than anyone the difficulty of being famous. How fame can be lonely. That they’ve lost the anonymity that most people take for granted. That people are always snooping in on their lives. That their private lives can easily become fodder for public consumption. There is an inherent danger in this. And it’s why famous people largely hook up with other famous people. It’s actually a small world they circulate in. Beyond the publicity hounds, you will find in actors brave and sensitive people. While everyone else in the industry hides get to hid behind the camera, these folks will expose themselves for the world, baring their deepest emotions, to communicate deep emotions in us. It takes tremendous guts, and even more to be really, really good. And to get an industry award is a great honor, but in a way, the actor feels humbled because he is just a vessel for the craft, and in a sense is perennially unworthy. Because while, yes, they are thankful people acknowledge their performance, they know that audiences are reacting to their own fantasy, not the actor themselves. And it’s in this position that an actor is inclined to deflect this adoration away from themselves and onto an issue they care about, something more important than the guilded trifles of a bullshit award.
If there was an award for best actor-activist speech this year, it would go to Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar speech. It ran long. Very long. While watching it, I had Gervais in my memory, and watched it with the cringe I imagined Gervais was feeling at the moment. Phoenix though, we understand, is one of our very best actors. He is one of those next-level guys. And when he gave his speech, it was not that off a phony, scripted, Instagramable meme. When Phoenix talked about how we Frankenfood our cows for the milk industry, he fought back tears. This is not the speech of an out of touch limousine liberal living in a bubble – the truth is far more complicated. This is the speech of a man with astonishing and great empathy. He’s talking about a subject that most people don’t want to know about. To take the time to stretch out the speech, to emotionally say this in front of twenty-five million people, this itself is in fact a talent. It is a matter of vocation. It isn’t one of self-indulgence, but has the effect of self-denial. In this way, it is much like acting itself where the dramatic weight loss, the physical and emotional toll of a roll like Joker is astonishing.
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One has to know that for an actor, for a true actor, the vocation of acting, is to be a vessel, a medium. It means to put one’s own self aside in order to serve a character and a story. To do this well, certainly as well as Phoenix, it takes enormous capacities of emotional intelligence and empathy. When Phoenix talks about ego-centrism, and the human sins of power and control, and how love and forgiveness must overcome these sins, we are not listening to a mindless meme but to a spiritual message. It resonates with the deeper esoteric techniques of acting. And in a real sense, this is the true vocation of the actor, to bear witness, to internalize the emotions, and give voice to the voiceless. In a sense, this sort of activism is entirely within the vocation of an actor and I for one have no problem with that … if it’s this good.
A Fragile Dignity 