The showbiz trade press reveals its partisanship.
The show-business trade press became politicized sometime during the Obama administration, around the release of the guilt machines Precious and 12 Years a Slave. I learned this from personal experience of how liberal self-righteousness overpowered fairness, yet I must point to a recent instance of straightforward reporting by trade media: On July 28, Variety detailed the news of an industry-wide pro-abortion stance, but the article stopped short of saying that this is Hollywood’s most authoritarian gesture since its infamous 1950s anti-Communist blacklist.
Kate Aurthur reported that a collective of more than 400 television creators and showrunners, responding to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, sent an open letter to top-level executives at Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros., Discovery, NBC Universal, Apple, and more, demanding specific “abortion safety” protocols for pregnant employees in states where abortion laws were challenged.
This letter transformed the old blacklist into new blackmail. (In 2019, several studios considered halting production in Georgia to protest that state’s “heartbeat” abortion ban.) The July letter is the most imposing political document to come out of Hollywood this year. But the trade press overlooked its moral significance and consequential impact on entertainment content. That letter should have rung alarms across the media landscape but did not because, like the rest of mainstream media, the trade press found itself completely in lockstep with far-left politics.
Activism practiced by journalists goes ignored by consumers who cling to the fantasy that media are objective and innocuous. The letter’s outright partisanship is unsurprising given the slant of many recent films and TV shows produced by its signatories. Aurthur calls them “A-list talent”: Shonda Rhimes, Issa Rae, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Natasha Lyonne, Ava DuVernay, etc. They put “the U.S.’s biggest content creators on notice that [after Dobbs] the companies need to outline specific protections for those working in states that have outlawed abortion.” Variety never clarified that the Supreme Court, by overturning Roe v. Wade, did not make a prohibitive decree on abortion but simply reinforced states’ rights.
Such disingenuous reporting reveals the same subtle bias that has characterized corporate, legacy media since the 2000 election, which then went full bore, upholding Hillary Clinton’s grievance against Trump for his 2016 presidential victory. In terms of mis- or disinformation, the trade press sides with Hollywood decision-makers, supporting their motives, usually by promoting a social agenda. Cowardice like this put many professionals out of work during the Fifties and threatens to do the same this millennium unless content-makers conform. Consumer taste will likely follow.
According to Variety, the letter demands
published policies for how the companies will subsidize employees’ travel to obtain abortions, as well as how employee privacy will be protected. They want protocols for medical care for “ectopic pregnancies and pregnancy complications that require medical treatment.”
The letter avoids setting artistic outlines yet suggests “criminal and civil indemnification for anyone helping an employee obtain an abortion.” This jargon tells us why such movies as Never Rarely Sometimes Always and The Janes side with “pro-choice” activism. There can no longer be any such thing as purely artistic filmmaking in this partisan environment. The letter explicitly petitions Hollywood to “stop all political donations to anti-abortion candidates and political action committees immediately.” In total, 594 men signed on in “solidarity,” including Adam McKay, Ryan Murphy, Jordan Peele, Brad Falchuk, Neil Gaiman, and Chuck Lorre, an unsurprising gang, considering their woke output. The stressing point: This pro-abortion mandate implicitly blackmails any content-makers who defy it.
We can recognize the lack of creativity in so much contemporary media content from the letter’s restrictions and dictates:
It is unacceptable to ask any person to choose between their human rights and their employment. This situation raises basic matters of equality, health, and safety in the workplace. Many of us would not have the careers and families we have today if we had not been granted the freedom to choose what was best for ourselves. We are committed, as a group, to protecting our fundamental human rights and those of our colleagues.
Authors of the notorious blacklist journal Red Channels shared similar convictions. Variety’s lack of historical recall and insight presents these new peremptory requests as industry advances. No wonder “progressive” shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Euphoria seem outright left-leaning and unrepentant. The trade press is nonchalant about Hollywood’s new abortion mandate, but it’s real, not innocuous. It determines the content we watch and demands our compliance.