When Hollywood Gets Political: Partisan Profits

Entertainment celebrities and businesses alike risk losing customers and thus revenue by taking positions publicly on political issues. Fearing a surge from political parties on the far-right, some large businesses in the E.U. took the unusual step of coming out against those parties, labeling them as “extremist,” prior to the E.U. election in June, 2024. Typically, businesses there limit their political stances to particular issues that bear on core functions. This is a prudent policy, for human beings, being of bounded rationality, can easily translate ideological disagreement into switching brands. Even universities can get bruised by becoming embroiled in a domestic or international matter that is controversial. Hence after the contentious spring semester of pro-Palestine protests at Harvard (and other many other universities), the university’s administration enacted a policy not to take positions on issues in which the core functions of the university are only indirectly touched or are not affected at all. In creating a “marketplace” for academic freedom, universities themselves are best positioned by staying neutral. Although it is tempting for anyone (for oneself or one’s institution) who has access to media to sway public opinion on a political issue, I contend that the immediate self-gratification is usually outweighed by lost revenue and the reputation of being partisan. Applying strict scrutiny to one’s foray into controversial issues is harder to do if some vocal customers are demanding that a position be publicly taken. The silence of other customers, who would “vote with their purse or wallet” were an opposing position to be taken, should not be overlooked.  The singer Taylor Swift and the actor Robert De Niro provide us with two illustrations. Stepping out of their respective domains comes at a cost in those domains, and thus should, I submit, be done prudently and seldom.

The full essay is at "When Hollywood Gets Political."

On the Allure of Popular Suffrage

In the European singing contest/show in which Susan Boyle competed, she lost the top spot to a teenage rap group. The method of selection made all the difference. Rather than having a three-judge panel of experts on singing determine the winner, the general public could “text” via cell phone or other device to vote. That one of the judges explicitly advocated for Boyle after her final performance (just before the voting) was no never mind to the general public that submitted a majority of the votes. To be sure, there were certainly non-music reasons to vote against her. Most notably, the suggestive comments she made on stage just before her first performance, including, “I’m 48, and that’s not my other half” (as she was swinging her hips as if she were sexy), were downright emetic, if not utterly bizarre. So it is possible that the voters put her personality defect above her excellent singing. It is also possible that the “texters” responsible for a majority of the votes simply preferred rap music. I do not like rap “songs” that include shouting and swearing; I do not even regard such “songs” as music. Otherwise, I could sing a song simply by yelling at you. From what I saw, the rap group in the competition was not swearing, but the “singing” did sound at times like shouting to me. Moreover, the group members seemed more oriented to dancing than singing. It is possible that the votes for that group went for any of the fads being represented rather than to singing per se.

The full essay is at "Popular Suffrage in Democracy."

Hollywood’s Conflict of Interest in Trade Negotiations

At the intersection of business and government, a conflict of interest can be indicative of plutocracy, the rule of wealth, at the expense both of balanced public policy and democracy. That is to say, where the regulated have disproportionate influence over regulators and said influence places the regulated in a conflict of interest, the unethical dimension is dwarfed by the distortive impact on the political system. The disproportionate influence of the content industry (i.e., Hollywood) in the U.S. position on the Pacific Trade negotiations in 2014 is a case in point.

The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

Hollywood Bribes China

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, known as F.C.P.A., “forbids American companies from making illegal payments to government officials or others to ease the way for operations in foreign countries.”[1] The practical difficulty facing American companies doing business around the world is that in some cultures bribes are so ubiquitous they are simply a part of doing business.  For American companies to refuse to participate in what is generally expected can be a competitive disadvantage, particularly if substitutes exist and the practice is widespread.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. Edward Wyatt, Michael Cieply, and Brooks Barnes, “S.E.C. Asks if Hollywood Paid Bribes in China,” The New York Times, April 25, 2012.

Hollywood on Risk: Snubbing Lucus’s “Red Tails”

When George Lucus showed Red Tails to executives from all the Hollywood studios, every one of the execs said no. One studio’s executives did not even show up for the screening. “Isn’t this their job?” Lucas said, astonished. “Isn’t their job at least to see movies? It’s not like some Sundance kid coming in there and saying, ‘I’ve got this little movie — would you see it?’ If Steven (Spielberg) or I or Jim Cameron or Bob Zemeckis comes in there, and they say, ‘We don’t even want to bother to see it.”[1] According to one newpaper, the snub implied that “Lucas’s pop-culture collateral — six ‘Star Wars’ movies, four ‘Indiana Jones’ movies, the effects shop Industrial Light and Magic and toy licenses that were selling (at least) four different light sabers . . .  — was basically worthless.”[2] As a result, Lucas paid for everything, including the prints, to enable the film’s opening. What can explain this bizarre snub?

The full essay is at "Hollywood on Risk." 

1. Byran Curtis, “George Lucus Is Ready to Roll the Credits,” The New York Times, January 17, 2012. 
2. Ibid.

A Dangerous Method

The method being referred to in A Dangerous Method (2011) is psychoanalysis, as pioneered by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). The danger referred to is that of freeing people from their sexual repressions. The film revolves around the relationship between Freud and his younger colleague, Carl Jung (1875-1961), and the relationship between him and Sabina Spielrein, his former patient and eventual lover and colleague. She also had an affair with Freud, but it was not shown in the film. Keira Knightley plays the Russian woman a bit too strongly in the first few scenes. In terms of the acting, Knightley exaggerates facial contortions as if fishing for an Oscar out of sheer emotionality. In terms of the narrative, Spielrein’s “transformation,” or cure, is hard to take as credible because it is so drastic within a year or two. Before long, she is behaving completely normal and even attending medical school. The film’s merits lie not with the acting, but, rather, with the intellectual content, whose salience and integration into a good narrative is rare in Hollywood. It is due to this feature that the film is apt to stay with a viewer for some time.

The full essay is at "A Dangerous Method."