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Company and Affiliates, price and coverage

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match limited by state law. This

0:18

is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. On

0:20

the cover of the May issue of

0:22

Harper's Magazine is a provocative image, a

0:25

black and white clapperboard, the kind we see

0:27

in movies during the filming of a scene

0:29

where a director yells cut, with the words,

0:32

the end of Hollywood as we know it.

0:34

Cover story writer Daniel Besner makes

0:37

the argument that seven months after

0:39

the strike that essentially shut down

0:41

Hollywood, the industry is now facing

0:43

an existential threat like never before.

0:46

And television and film writers, Besner says, are

0:49

the ones losing out. And there

0:51

is no one reason why. The merging

0:53

of big studios, the continued disruption

0:55

of streaming services, and the lack

0:57

of regulation have all created an

0:59

environment that has displaced workers, with

1:01

top talent making more than ever

1:03

before, and the nuts and bolts

1:05

workers losing out dramatically, writes Besner.

1:08

One of the biggest disruptors, the merging

1:10

of big studios, continues to impact the

1:13

industry. Just this week we

1:15

learned news that three separate entities

1:17

are in talks to acquire Paramount,

1:19

one of Hollywood's biggest studios, which

1:21

experts say will cause even more

1:23

disruption. Daniel Besner joins

1:25

us to talk about what this all means

1:27

for workers and for us, the consumer. He's

1:30

an associate professor at the University

1:32

of Washington's Henry M. Jackson School

1:35

of International Studies. His

1:37

work is focused on U.S. foreign relations,

1:39

the history and theory of liberalism, and

1:41

most recently, the history and practice of

1:44

the entertainment industry. He's

1:46

the author of Democracy in Exile, Hans

1:48

Speer and the Rise of the Defense

1:50

Intellectual, and the co-editor of

1:52

several historical books on domestic histories

1:55

and foreign relations. Daniel

1:57

Besner, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank

2:00

you so much for having me. It's a real

2:02

pleasure and honor. Daniel,

2:04

you teach foreign and US policy,

2:07

and you most recently began writing about

2:09

the entertainment industry. What

2:11

is it about this moment that has caught

2:13

your attention that you think speaks to a

2:16

greater issue? So what got

2:18

me interested in exploring the subject more

2:20

broadly was effectively the decline of journalism

2:22

and the decline of academia, which

2:25

have different causes, although journalism, I think,

2:27

a lot of what happened rhymes in

2:29

terms of private equity, entering

2:31

in hedge funds, entering and destroying newspapers,

2:34

and traditional media. A lot of that

2:36

rhymes with what's happening in Hollywood. But

2:38

what fascinated me about Hollywood is that

2:40

it's really the last place in the

2:43

United States, perhaps the world, where you

2:45

could, at least until very recently,

2:47

get paid to be a writer.

2:49

That's not really possible in other

2:51

spheres. You read about people writing

2:53

science fiction stories in the 1940s and 1950s and making

2:56

a living off that. Harlan

2:59

Ellison, people like that. That's simply impossible.

3:01

And the only place that you can

3:03

still be a writer is in Hollywood,

3:05

partially because it's unionized, but partially because

3:07

it's in an industry that made money.

3:10

So I'm ultimately interested and was

3:12

ultimately interested in exploring that idea

3:14

of the writer in contemporary capitalism

3:16

and how the writer's fortunes have

3:19

changed in the last, roughly, century.

3:21

The article kind of begins in

3:23

the 20s. Daniel,

3:26

as we see all of these

3:28

changes to the industry, the merging

3:30

of companies, the struggling of creatives

3:33

and what they're experiencing, how

3:36

much of the bad guy is streaming? Netflix,

3:38

Hulu, and all of the others? So

3:42

it's interesting. Walter Lemon, I think

3:45

it was Walter Lemon, once had a quote that, you

3:47

know, a pump is a pump, and it's how you

3:49

use it that matters. Streaming in

3:51

and of itself could

3:53

be anything. It could actually have been a boon

3:55

to the industry. But I think the problem is

3:58

that there was a gold rush. That mentality

4:00

when it came to the famous

4:02

streaming wars as they're called because

4:04

the goal of the companies and

4:06

particularly Netflix and I just you

4:08

know, you have to hand it

4:10

to Netflix. They really did succeed

4:12

and disrupting a business. And they

4:14

are. They are profitable and they

4:16

are doing quite well and they

4:19

have entered the culture. But the

4:21

notion was that a particular streaming

4:23

service would become the dominant force

4:25

in Hollywood. just like Number and

4:27

Lift have disrupted/has killed that the

4:29

Taxi his and Amazon. Has effectively

4:31

destroyed a lot of medium and

4:33

small businesses. Yes, but you know

4:35

there are many disruptions to the television

4:38

and film industry. I thought it was

4:40

interesting how one his story and told

4:42

you that with each major technological innovation

4:44

for instance, From cable to Vhs tapes

4:46

to D V D's. On and

4:48

now streaming. There's always been a

4:50

disruption of some kind with advancements,

4:52

so what I'm trying to understand is

4:55

whether what we're seeing as an

4:57

extension of something that happens every

4:59

decade or so, or is something more

5:01

alarming, an irreversible happening? And is

5:03

it happening in combination with everything

5:05

else you're telling us about. And

5:07

it's it's a great point. And and me

5:10

know when that Vhs was introduced to run

5:12

Dvds her introduced or initially when Internet stream

5:14

content was introduced the studios always claimed they

5:16

have no idea what's going on so they

5:19

can pay writers enough cetera. The difference is

5:21

that the internet is a regulated that the

5:23

that the cables that carry Netflix are not

5:25

regulated in the same way that the cables

5:28

that carried a traditional cable bundle were regulated.

5:30

And that's really simply it's is that in

5:32

this era of deregulation which began and reagan

5:34

him a solidified under Bush and Obama a

5:36

hint of course. Trump com that it's

5:38

just not regulated in the same way.

5:41

So you essentially had a frontier of

5:43

technology that was able to be taken

5:45

advantage of by the capitalists who run

5:47

the entertainment industry and see American political

5:49

economy as a whole. What?

5:51

Are some of the ways that streaming

5:53

has disrupted the traditional model self. From

5:56

writers and producers pitching an idea to

5:58

working on it, to being paid. For

6:00

it to sing it out in the world. It's

6:03

a great point because initially people welcomed streaming

6:06

very much so, particularly Netflix. Because what Netflix

6:08

would do is that they would Often times,

6:10

I think, actually always guaranteed creators that if

6:12

if the show was purchased and greenlighted after

6:15

dinner several stages of development, they would make

6:17

an entire season of the show and he

6:19

didn't have to worry about things like nielsen

6:21

ratings. For example, I talk to a couple

6:24

of producers and they were like yeah, we'd

6:26

wake up over and we'd We'd look at

6:28

the Nielsen ratings and at first and we're

6:30

dealing with Netflix. It felt so freeing to

6:33

not. Have to do that so their

6:35

own I out There were significant benefits

6:37

to Netflix initially, not only in the

6:39

fact that they didn't focus on ratings,

6:41

but they'd be greenlighted. Quite quite adventurous

6:44

shows and not only Netflix, but other

6:46

streaming services. Netflix famously had both Jack

6:48

Horseman, but other services have had things

6:50

like Island Dick or Dickinson G a

6:52

show based on our odd nineteenth century

6:54

poet with probably would have been greenlighted

6:57

in the Nineteen eighties or Ninety ninety.

6:59

So there were some benefits. however, over

7:01

time and as often happens in. Gold

7:03

rushes and gold vs aren't good. Are

7:06

working conditions because a lot of

7:08

people are trying to strike that

7:11

gold vain and get rich quick?

7:13

So it created for a variety

7:15

of reasons at downward pressure first

7:17

on riders wages and then then

7:20

on writers, working conditions and in

7:22

particular are people have spoken about

7:24

medieval rooms which are. Basically.

7:27

Writers' Room said are convened. Before.

7:30

The production of a show as the

7:32

show is being developed. usually they don't

7:34

last very long. About eight to ten

7:36

weeks I spoke with someone who's writers'

7:39

room actually lasted only four weeks. And

7:42

how are the many rooms different from how

7:44

it was done? Before. right? So,

7:46

and a traditional pilot season, or when

7:48

you're writing a show that has been

7:50

greenlighted, you know, And and eighty nineties

7:52

or two thousand for thirteen or twenty

7:54

two episodes? A Writers' Room Coop would

7:56

be convened for that show throughout production,

7:58

and it's really important. set of room

8:00

lasts throughout production because that is effectively how

8:03

the industry reproduced itself. When you're a young

8:05

writer writing on a show that's being literally

8:07

made, you would oftentimes go to set, you

8:09

would learn how to talk to actors, you

8:12

would learn how to stay within budget, you

8:14

would learn what it was like to be

8:16

on an actual set. But in a mini

8:18

room that is often dispersed before a show

8:21

is put into production, you don't get that

8:23

experience. And you're also might be added, you're

8:25

usually employed for a far less amount of

8:27

time. Traditionally in a pilot season, writers would

8:30

have been employed for like eight months, let's

8:32

say. Where in a mini room, you're employed

8:34

for two and a half months, and then

8:36

it's very difficult to get another job. So

8:38

you have to go back and work at

8:41

the Apple Store or drive lift, which means

8:43

you're not working on your craft to the

8:45

same degree, which means you're not getting the

8:47

experience that you would have done in a

8:50

traditional writer's room. So it's the industry kind

8:52

of cannibalizing its future in the search for

8:54

short term and medium term profits, which was

8:56

partially the result of the entry of high

8:59

finance in this financial incentives into

9:01

film and television production. I

9:04

mean, this is

9:06

significant, because I think that

9:08

those who may not know how the industry

9:11

works, may

9:13

hear writers in a creative industry and

9:15

think, well, these people are privileged.

9:18

I mean, these are not regular working

9:20

people, but there are

9:22

reports that there's food insecurity now

9:25

within a huge contingent

9:27

of writers in Hollywood

9:29

who now have no work

9:31

or limited work, or they're working in the way

9:33

that you are describing here. What are some of

9:35

the stories that you've heard? I

9:38

think that's a great point. And it

9:41

reflects a broader proletarianization of creative fields.

9:43

You might have also heard that many

9:45

professors are mostly, roughly three

9:47

fourths of them, according to some studies,

9:50

are adjuncts. And you see something happening

9:52

similar in Hollywood. So

9:54

when I would talk to young writers

9:56

in particular, and frankly, not that young,

9:59

people in there. who had

10:01

broken into the industry about 10 years ago, it's just

10:05

very difficult to make a stable living.

10:08

Moving from show to show is not especially

10:10

easy. You're employed for less

10:12

amount of time. There are fewer people

10:14

employed at each job. So

10:16

you're actually not living the high life

10:18

of what one would have imagined a

10:21

Hollywood writer lived in the 1990s and

10:23

into the 2000s, which

10:25

is, again, I want to emphasize this is

10:27

just American capitalism doing what

10:29

American capitalism does, except now it's

10:31

coming for white collar workers. If

10:34

it happened for blue collar workers in

10:36

the 60s and the 70s, it's now

10:39

happening in the last 20 years for

10:41

creatives, again, journalists, academics, and Hollywood writers.

10:44

So this is why I think you might

10:46

get, there might be some anger from people

10:48

whose fields had already been

10:50

destroyed. If you were, for example, cutting

10:52

timber or working in mines or working

10:55

in a factory, you don't want

10:57

to hear about whiny Hollywood writers. But to

10:59

me, we're all kind of in this together

11:01

as laborers. But it is

11:03

difficult work that takes a lot of skill

11:06

to accomplish, and one should be

11:08

properly remunerated, especially when the high

11:10

level executives are making so much

11:12

money. So one thing that

11:14

I hope to do for people who just

11:16

view this as a bunch of Hollywood writers

11:18

is to actually see that there's solidarity to

11:20

be built across class lines, because if capitalism

11:23

isn't coming for you today, it's coming

11:25

for you tomorrow. Danielle,

11:28

I want to get to some

11:30

of what you've written about how we got here.

11:32

So to understand it, you take us in your

11:34

article all the way back to the 1920s and

11:36

30s, when there

11:39

were a handful of studios and

11:41

screenwriters, they made careers out

11:43

of this versus the model that we

11:45

see today, which is a significant number

11:47

of people are now freelance writers. This is

11:50

not a full time gig, as you said.

11:52

They have other jobs. What

11:54

was the average salary back then for a

11:56

writer compared to today? So

11:58

maybe just to give some context. before I

12:00

talk about salaries is that there

12:03

was something called the studio system where writers

12:05

were actually employed by specific studios and they

12:07

had stable work and the studios were producing

12:09

enormous number of movies each year over the

12:11

20s 30s 40s and into the 1950s and

12:13

when you were working for a studio

12:18

in 1931 you were making more than $14,000 a year

12:20

for a full-time if you were

12:26

a full-time salaried employee on average which is

12:28

about $273,000 in today's

12:31

money so it was really quite yeah

12:34

it was quite good and more importantly

12:36

even than good paid work it was

12:38

stable work you knew where you were

12:40

going every day into work and

12:42

believe me the writers complained I don't want to

12:44

paint this as some golden age there was a

12:46

lot of complaining from the the writers who were

12:49

working in Hollywood at the time they felt that

12:51

their bosses didn't respect their art they

12:55

expected them to do a lot of work they

12:57

weren't necessarily in control of

12:59

their of their artistic vision but

13:01

in exchange for that they had

13:03

good salaried work well

13:06

something happened in 1933 both MGM and Paramount Pictures

13:08

cut screenwriters

13:11

pay by 50% why

13:15

so basically Hollywood actually did

13:17

fairly well for the first

13:19

years of the depression which of

13:22

course started in 1929 people wanted

13:24

to escape the full unemployment hadn't yet

13:26

hit the entire economy but by 1933

13:28

things were getting a bit hairy so

13:30

there's a very famous story of I

13:33

believe Louis B Mayer going in front

13:35

of all the contract workers the salaried

13:37

employees of MGM and basically a hat

13:39

in hand you know kind of not

13:41

literally crying but you know saying we

13:44

need to we need to take a cut

13:46

otherwise you're all going to

13:48

the business will

13:50

close and so you know Some

13:52

actor got up and then writers got

13:54

up and they all said they would

13:56

agree to take the cut. But then

13:59

some writers found out that the executives

14:01

didn't necessarily take the caught and more

14:03

importantly the below the line workers who

14:05

I believe we're in Prado I artsy

14:07

at that point up also didn't take

14:10

a cut. So there had been something

14:12

called the Screen Writers Guild that had

14:14

been percolating for some time in Hollywood.

14:16

It was somewhere between the union and

14:18

a social club but I'm after at

14:21

this distance by and Gm and Paramount

14:23

in early Nineteen Thirty three are A

14:25

bunch of writers came together and decided

14:27

that they need to actually former union

14:29

which was eventually certified later in the

14:31

nineteen thirties and after could quite a

14:34

few years of of a of of

14:36

negotiation finally got it's first contract in

14:38

nineteen Forty Two. But inept have been

14:40

a long story short of pay right that that's about

14:42

it. Have a plan. To pay yes have beside

14:44

a pay of one hundred twenty five dollars

14:47

a week if you are are a salaried

14:49

employees which is about twenty five hundred dollars

14:51

today since have quite good at particularly when

14:53

you're guaranteed work as a salaried employee. so

14:55

is it. The old story is it that

14:57

the capitalists went too far and know that

14:59

labour decided to fight back. Can

15:02

you explain the Supreme Court ruling and

15:04

Nineteen Forty A which I'm bringing up?

15:06

It's important to note as we think

15:08

about today and because this ruling sound

15:10

that. These major motion picture companies.

15:13

Had conspired to six prices and

15:15

monopolize the industry and what was

15:17

happening that brought this all the

15:19

way to the. Supreme Court. Sure,

15:22

so there was a studio in the

15:24

studio system was dominated by size big

15:27

companies and three smaller companies. but it

15:29

was effectively the smaller studios who came

15:31

together to accuse the larger companies have

15:33

effectively making get a non competitive industry

15:36

and they were right on Did that

15:38

that that Big Aids or the Big

15:40

Five and a smaller three or affectively

15:42

had monopoly power in Hollywood and one

15:45

of the major reasons that they were

15:47

able to have that power was that

15:49

they owned the distribution networks. but most.

15:52

Importantly, In this is what the Paramount

15:54

decrease that's what they were called of of

15:56

Nights and Forty Eight was about are they

15:58

owned the movie theater chains and. And so

16:00

effectively what the Supreme Court did is that

16:02

if I recall, they basically said you had

16:05

to either get rid of distribution or

16:07

exhibition and the major companies

16:10

got rid of the exhibition

16:12

part because they ultimately decided that they were

16:14

truly in the distribution business. So

16:16

you get the movie

16:18

theater companies, movie theater chains essentially

16:21

being spun off as

16:23

a result of this param,

16:25

these paramount decrees in 1948, which was effectively the

16:29

outcome of decades of capital

16:31

P Brandeisie and Louis Brandeis,

16:33

the Supreme Court Justice, thought

16:36

about anti-monopoly, antitrust legislation. And now Hollywood had

16:38

been a monopoly for a long time, but

16:40

during the 30s, during the depression, during World

16:42

War II, it wasn't considered to be a

16:44

major concern. So it was only really after

16:47

the war that Hollywood

16:49

was demonopolized. So

16:52

for a time you write screenwriters for many decades.

16:54

They were still able to make a living though.

16:57

There were even interventions from the

16:59

federal government to institute a minimum

17:01

pay until the Reagan

17:03

Revolution of the 1980s. How

17:05

did Reagan's governing impact Hollywood? Sure.

17:09

I think it's actually important just to

17:11

pause very quickly on the 50s because

17:13

the 50s is an important decade because

17:15

it's a transitional period where the studio

17:17

system, like it just happened to paramount

17:19

decrees. So there's still writers on salary,

17:21

but there's more and more freelance work.

17:23

So there's a 1960 strike

17:25

with the WGA and

17:27

the Screen Actors Guild,

17:30

and it's as a result of

17:32

these strikes that a stable gig

17:34

work life is created. So

17:36

even though you're a gig worker like a writer,

17:39

unlike other industries, you get health

17:41

benefits. The studios agree to contribute

17:43

to a pensions, and there's increased

17:45

minimums for work, and you got

17:47

more and more residuals for material

17:49

that was rebroadcast. So what happens

17:51

is at a moment when, Tanya,

17:54

as you probably know, journalism was quite a stable career. You

17:56

know, you go and work for the Baltimore Sun, and you

17:58

could stay there for four years. 40 years, that

18:00

wasn't true in Hollywood by the middle of

18:03

the 20th century. But nevertheless, if you worked,

18:05

you were able to have some

18:07

of the benefits that you would have had in a

18:09

traditional salary job. What changes

18:11

in the 1980s is the rise, and this

18:13

is really the work of

18:15

Jennifer Holt, who wrote a wonderful book

18:18

called Empires of Entertainment, who really goes

18:20

into the details of this, which

18:22

is that there was a new ideology,

18:25

what might be termed in today's parlance,

18:27

a neoliberal ideology that began to permeate

18:29

elite spheres as the so-called New Deal

18:31

order of the 1930s to the 1970s

18:34

began to come apart. And

18:38

so you see with the rise of

18:40

Reagan a very strong embrace of

18:43

deregulation, most famously with the Air

18:45

Traffic Controllers Union, which Reagan effectively

18:48

broke, but also in Hollywood. There

18:50

was a new ideology that began

18:52

to permeate the American elite. That

18:55

was very pro-derigulation, and there's a lot of

18:57

tensions and contradictions about how this affected writers,

18:59

but that's a long, a short

19:02

story long. Well, I mean,

19:04

what happened was the combining of cable

19:06

and film and broadcast network interest in

19:08

direct violation of antitrust

19:10

law. Why was

19:12

this allowed to happen? Tony

19:15

what you're referring to, of course, is in

19:17

1983, the Department of Justice allowed HBO,

19:19

which already existed, Columbia Pictures and CBS

19:21

to form a new company called TriStar

19:24

Pictures, which like you said, combined these

19:26

cable, film and broadcast interests in

19:28

direct violation of antitrust law.

19:31

So what happened was that the Reagan

19:33

administration, particularly the DOJ is of course

19:35

an executive institution, did an end run

19:37

around Congress. Without Congress actually

19:40

deregulating the economy, which would

19:42

come later, the executive department

19:44

said we're no longer going to

19:46

enforce elements of antitrust and

19:48

antimonopoly law, which basically allowed

19:50

the formation of enormous conglomerates

19:53

in the 1980s. And in 1985,

19:55

the DOJ said we're not going to

19:58

enforce the paramount decrees any longer. So

20:00

that is a big shift in the

20:02

history of Hollywood from being a very

20:04

regulated industry to where we are now

20:07

a almost totally unregulated

20:09

industry Our

20:12

guest today is writer and associate

20:14

professor Daniel Bessner We're talking with

20:16

him about his latest article for

20:18

Harpers about the existential crisis film

20:20

and television writers are now facing

20:22

Post-strike and what it means for

20:24

the entertainment industry. We'll be right back after

20:26

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21:24

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yourself at whyy.org/Fresh

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Air. So

22:28

learning this history certainly puts what

22:31

we're seeing today into focus. You

22:34

write about how the rollback of protections

22:36

continued into the Clinton administration. And

22:39

around this time, we're talking

22:42

about the 90s. Cross-ownership,

22:44

as you write, flourished. Viacom

22:47

merged with Blockbuster Video and

22:49

took over Paramount. Disney merged

22:51

with Capital Cities ABC. Time

22:53

Warner joined Turner Broadcasting. What

22:56

did all of this merging then set

22:58

in motion? Clinton did two

23:00

things. He got rid of the

23:03

financial interest and syndication rules, which

23:05

were initiated by the FCC, the

23:07

Federal Communications Commission in 19th century,

23:09

in which in effect barred networks

23:11

from holding ownership stakes in the

23:13

primetime and syndicated programs that they

23:15

air, which in effect not specifically

23:17

prohibited film studios from owning TV

23:19

networks and vice versa because it

23:21

didn't really make business sense,

23:24

and so you actually have increased competition.

23:26

And it's this reason that someone like

23:28

Norman Lear and someone like

23:30

Lucille Ball were able to become so wealthy

23:33

because these independent producers were actually able to

23:35

compete in a real way with major companies,

23:37

which is something that's simply impossible. And

23:40

then in 1996, Clinton signed

23:42

the Telecommunications Act, which removed

23:44

the statutory restrictions on the

23:47

cross-ownership of broadcast networks and

23:49

cable providers. So you basically

23:52

get a

23:54

regulatory environment where film studios,

23:57

cable stations, broadcast networks, and

23:59

so on. the castations could all be owned by the

24:02

same gigantic conglomerate. And this is the era

24:04

of great synergy, where if you're a conglomerate

24:06

and you own a magazine and you own

24:08

HBO, you could put, let's say, Sex and

24:10

the City, I think this is a famous

24:13

example, everyone uses on the cover of your

24:15

magazine saying this is the greatest show of

24:17

all time, pushing people to

24:19

watch the show on HBO. So this

24:21

is the type of stuff that is allowed in

24:23

this deregulated environment, which simply

24:26

would not have been allowed earlier

24:28

on in American history. I

24:31

wanna talk for a moment about how asset

24:33

management firms became basically

24:35

the largest stakeholders in media and entertainment.

24:38

So in 2008, in

24:40

an effort to stimulate the economy, the

24:42

Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. How

24:44

did that open the door for asset

24:47

management companies and private equity firms

24:49

to step into the industry and

24:51

gain such a hold? In

24:54

brief, two things happened. Companies

24:57

were looking for places to invest,

24:59

particularly after the dot-com crash of

25:01

the late 1990s and

25:03

early 2000s, and the liquid

25:05

capital that was plunged into the system

25:08

and the lowering of interest rates provided

25:10

them with money and access to what

25:12

is effectively cheap credit. And

25:14

so people in finance understand

25:17

that there's more going on there, but that's the

25:19

long and the short of it. And so it's at

25:21

this moment in the late 2000s, early

25:23

2010s, that high finance, private

25:27

equity firms, asset management companies, but

25:29

also hedge funds, really

25:31

begin to invest seriously in

25:33

Hollywood because they're looking for,

25:35

in effect, places

25:37

to invest. And the argument that

25:39

scholars like Robert Brenner and others

25:41

make is that since roughly the

25:43

1970s and

25:46

the era of de-industrialization, that

25:49

there's been fewer and fewer

25:51

places to actually profitably invest

25:53

in the American economy because

25:56

media, as you probably

25:58

know, isn't necessarily the greatest business. It

26:01

depends on hits. Oftentimes

26:03

returns are not

26:05

especially high, but one

26:07

of the reasons that these companies invested

26:09

in traditional media that they tried to

26:11

disrupt and did to a significant degree

26:14

with Netflix, which is very successful, was

26:16

that there really aren't other places to

26:18

invest. One

26:20

insider told you that these

26:23

old large legacy institutions used

26:26

to be able to have a

26:28

longer-term view of the industry. They

26:30

would absorb losses and take risks.

26:32

Now everything is driven

26:34

by quarterly results. So essentially they're

26:36

not making decisions for the future.

26:39

They're just making decisions for what

26:41

is directly in front of them.

26:45

That's precisely right, and I think for consumers

26:47

it's important to view this, or it's almost

26:49

natural to view this from a place of

26:52

the art and the content that is actually

26:54

produced. The greatest shows

26:56

of the so-called prestige TV

26:58

era, think about the

27:00

Sopranos or the Wire or Breaking

27:02

Bad or whatever, what

27:05

have you, were primarily made by

27:07

people who came up in the

27:09

television industry of the 70s, 80s,

27:12

and 90s like David Chase, David

27:14

Simon, Vince Gilligan, and

27:17

others. The only reason

27:19

that they were able to make such

27:21

great art was, I think it's Blake

27:23

Masters had a great quote, is

27:26

because they understood everything about television, as

27:29

Masters said, and hated all of it.

27:31

He was referring to David Chase, but

27:33

they knew how to make television. They

27:35

had done things like been in rooms.

27:37

They had gone to set. They had

27:39

talked to actors. They had over years

27:41

and years and years developed the skills

27:43

necessary to write an amazing

27:46

show like the Sopranos and also to run

27:48

it. But when you focus

27:50

on short-term incentives, when you establish

27:53

a system of mini rooms, you're

27:55

in effect stealing from the industry's

27:57

future because you're not letting the

27:59

next generation... The writer is to the

28:01

skills necessary to create a brilliant piece

28:03

of work like The Sopranos, The Wire,

28:06

Breaking Bad, and this really begins to

28:08

take off after the Two Thousand and

28:10

Eight Recession. Two Thousand and Seven Two

28:13

Thousand and Eight recession as finances we

28:15

talked about for a variety of reasons

28:17

began to seriously of definitely would. Let's.

28:21

Take a short break if you're just

28:24

joining us. My guest today as writer

28:26

and associate Professor Daniel Best. Now we're

28:28

talking with him about his latest article

28:30

for Harper's titled the Life and Death

28:33

of Hollywood about the existential threat film

28:35

and television writers face even after the

28:37

writers' strike last year. Will. Continue

28:39

our conversation after a short break. This

28:41

is fresh air. A

28:44

Dublin of Money podcast We talked

28:46

to anyone who can help us

28:48

understand the economy. Fortune tellers, tango

28:50

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ones are the best totally and

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forth without to the. Smartest economists

28:57

explain everything from inflation and

28:59

disinflation to how many to

29:01

use. Got addicted to fossil.

29:03

Fuel that Is Planet Money

29:05

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29:08

That explain the economy. We love him

29:10

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29:12

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for a solving our we wrap up

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you understand the economy. We find the

29:32

people at the center. Of the story,

29:34

garbage in New York that was like

29:36

a controlled substance. The show you

29:38

how many influences. Everything Tony what

29:40

you liked by telling me how you and

29:43

your money and we did until we get

29:45

answers. I had a bad feeling going to

29:47

bring that up on. Him and he finds

29:49

out oh do you have to do is listen

29:51

the Planet My podcast. From Npr. One.

29:54

Of the things he right about that I

29:56

think was really interesting. The talk about it

29:58

all the time is. We see

30:00

a pattern now. A free package Stories

30:03

like all of the superhero. Stories.

30:05

And remakes. Winded executives began

30:07

to make these. Bigger. Bets

30:10

on pre existing intellectual property

30:12

which you been talking about

30:14

vs original content. It's

30:16

a really important question and I hope to

30:18

expand this into a book. And in get

30:20

into this more in detail. but to do

30:22

give a potted history, it's in the mid

30:25

to late Nineteen Seventies. You get the Rise

30:27

of the Blockbuster first with Jaws, but really

30:29

with Star Wars see, get the Rise of

30:31

Tadpole Movies. In Nineteen Eighty Nine, you get.

30:34

Batman. Batman is released And

30:36

Batman is not only a gigantic

30:38

tentpole, but is also based on

30:40

previous intellectual property and perhaps even

30:42

more important, it's able to be

30:45

on. It's in the conglomerate error

30:47

our that really conglomerate era of

30:49

Hollywood. So a conglomerates all of

30:51

it's systems could work together to

30:54

push Batman. You had a Batman.

30:56

Happy Meals, Batman Video games, Batman

30:58

Toys right? Numerous, see course, eccentric

31:00

cetera. So I think that man

31:02

is really this. Crucial turning point

31:05

because it's nuts. Executives realize that there

31:07

could be significant value and intellectual property

31:09

in pre existing intellectual property that you

31:11

don't need to take a gamble on

31:13

someone like George Lucas who may have

31:15

a Star Wars and and you could

31:17

take a gamble on stories and characters

31:19

that audiences are familiar with than that.

31:21

This is like one executive I spoke

31:23

to said it's a dry run for

31:25

story. And you at least have

31:27

a sense theoretically. About how audiences

31:29

will respond to it. you have a

31:32

sense you know audience is like Batman

31:34

so they'll see Batman. And but another

31:36

thing that why did get super charged

31:38

as High Finance enters Hollywood and late

31:40

two thousand sporadically. Of course the Marvel

31:42

Cinematic Universe Iron Man is I believe

31:44

released in two thousand and eight so

31:46

it's happening at the same time is

31:48

that. You have the

31:51

money to basically. Plan

31:53

out dozens of movies and

31:55

you also have I P

31:57

intellectual property as something that.

32:00

is legible to financial investors. It is

32:02

in theory in a business where very

32:04

little is quantifiable because it's based on

32:06

taste and as William Goldman says, no

32:08

one knows anything, you don't really know

32:10

what's gonna be a hit. IP

32:13

is something that could be legible to the

32:15

quantitative guys. You could say this has been

32:17

a comic that's been in existence for 50

32:19

years, everyone really loves Iron

32:21

Man, which wasn't necessarily true, but you could

32:23

say everyone really loves Iron Man, he's such

32:25

a popular character and we're gonna create this

32:28

whole universe of films and we already know

32:30

it's gonna be a success because these are some of

32:32

the most indelible characters in American history. It's

32:35

just crazy, you write about how

32:38

some of the writers have told you

32:40

that working for a show with existing

32:43

IP like a Marvel Cinematic Universe, that

32:45

sometimes they don't even know the full arc

32:47

of the project when they're brought on as

32:49

writers. So they're writing something that

32:52

they don't even see a bigger picture for. Because

32:55

there's a larger vision in terms

32:57

of a cinema, the

32:59

executive is really the creator of

33:01

the cinematic universe, even if writers

33:03

and directors are the creator of

33:05

individual movies. So if you're hired

33:07

to write Thor II or whatever it is, Thor

33:10

II fits into a larger tapestry of

33:13

films that the executive class is more

33:15

aware of than you are as a

33:17

writer. And you're effectively in the hawk

33:19

to whatever they want because one, you're

33:21

being paid a lot of money, and

33:24

two, you don't necessarily know the full

33:26

tapestry and that tapestry is of course

33:29

ever changing. So this again

33:31

makes the writer less important. With Marvel

33:33

in particular, and with many Marvel movies,

33:36

the first thing that's made is not

33:38

even the script, but literally the art

33:40

scenes of fights because that

33:42

is what ultimately sells the movie. That's the

33:44

action, right. And also what you have going

33:46

on here is you get the relative stagnation

33:48

of the domestic box office in the 2000s,

33:51

movies are becoming less and less important to

33:53

culture, everyone knows this. That's a story that

33:56

we are well aware of. And do you

33:58

have a shift to international markets? particularly

34:00

China, because China is really only

34:02

developing its film industry in the

34:04

2000s. So

34:06

there's enormous growth opportunities and something

34:09

that travels well, unlike let's say,

34:11

courtroom dramas or specific American comedies

34:13

are gigantic action films that, you

34:16

know, punching is the

34:18

international language. And so you

34:20

get a focus on these sorts

34:22

of films partially also for the

34:25

international market. The

34:27

Marvel Cinematic Universe is hugely

34:29

popular. You write about how it then

34:32

has become a template, but I'm just

34:34

wondering if it's still working,

34:37

because didn't Disney's The Marvel come

34:39

in more than $60 million

34:42

short of breaking even? What

34:44

does that say, if anything? Is that seen

34:47

as a fluke or is it seen as

34:49

something to be concerned about? I

34:51

think it's pretty clear that there's something

34:54

called superhero fatigue in audiences, that

34:56

audiences aren't necessarily lining up to

34:58

see another 25 films about superheroes.

35:00

The question is how does that

35:03

affect intellectual property? Because

35:05

in Hollywood, everyone's talking rightly, Barbie

35:08

did incredibly well. And is that not

35:10

the ultimate intellectual property? It's literally an

35:12

inanimate toy. But it also is just

35:14

one, it's one. Like

35:16

it's one project that's up against what

35:19

we're seeing as a trend. Yeah,

35:21

there's one project and there's a lot of

35:23

uniqueness about it. Greta Gerwig, you know, a

35:25

bomb back, we're given a lot of freedom.

35:27

Greta, I think created like an enormously, incredibly

35:30

visually stunning tapestry

35:32

for the movie. Is

35:34

Jerry Seinfeld's Pop Tarts movie gonna do as

35:37

well? I don't know. If there's

35:39

a Slinky movie, which I believe is coming, is

35:41

that gonna do as well? I

35:43

don't know. Particularly because the pendulum has swung

35:45

so far. But in the late 1980s, I

35:47

think roughly 40% of the money that

35:51

was produced by the top 100 films

35:54

domestically was produced by

35:56

original work, original screenplays. And

35:58

by the late 20. I

36:00

forget the year, but that number had dropped something like 6%.

36:04

So it's such an incredible swing

36:06

in the other direction that it's

36:08

naturally going to return to some

36:10

form of normal. People do want

36:13

original screenplays. What the new

36:15

normal is, though, I think it remains to be seen.

36:17

But if I had to guess, I think audiences are

36:19

a little sick of superheroes and they might be also

36:21

sick of intellectual property more broadly and they might be

36:23

craving something new, remains

36:25

to be seen. OK, Daniel,

36:28

we've been talking this entire

36:30

time about the problems. You

36:33

give your assessment at the end of your piece

36:35

on what you think should happen and then

36:38

what is feasible. What are

36:40

some solutions or interventions? It's

36:43

kind of funny. I tweeted about this today.

36:45

I'm like, oh, why do millennials have to

36:47

deal with antitrust law? We figured out this

36:49

stuff a hundred years ago, but the government

36:52

needs to regulate monopoly at

36:54

base. How realistic

36:56

is the possibility that that would happen? Almost

36:59

impossible. And they

37:01

would also have to regulate high finance. Now the

37:03

question is, and this ties into broader themes, is

37:05

that we do live presently in a gerontocracy. That

37:08

a lot of the people who are making

37:10

the decisions in these institutions, particularly the politicians,

37:13

not all of them, of course, but many

37:15

of them, were politicized and came of age

37:17

in a different era, particularly in the Reagan

37:19

era where deregulation was meant to unleash the

37:21

forces of the political economy. When

37:24

the gerontocracy fades away to a

37:26

variety of natural processes, i.e.

37:28

dying, when younger people

37:31

come in and actually assume positions

37:33

of authority, are they going to

37:35

do things like re-regulate the economy,

37:37

enforce antitrust law, re-regulate

37:40

high finance? That might very

37:42

well happen, but given

37:44

the state of American politics right now,

37:46

it seems very unlikely. And of course,

37:48

we had to take out these numbers

37:50

because there wasn't space to do

37:52

it, but when you take the amount of money

37:55

that all the conglomerates spend on lobbying versus what,

37:57

let's say, the WGA spends on lobbying, you'll

37:59

be surprised. The word that it absolutely

38:01

dwarfs. It's so there's all these larger

38:04

problems in American politics for money, in

38:06

politics to the Gerontocracy that in my

38:08

opinion at least make it very

38:10

unlikely that the most obvious things that

38:13

need to be done for Hollywood to

38:15

become a healthy business from getting

38:17

accomplished arms so effectively that leaves it

38:19

up to labor. And so it one

38:22

of the major solutions that I

38:24

think when did he to be accomplished

38:26

particularly because I believe that government action

38:28

has hundred and monopolies. And finance

38:30

is unlikely to be forthcoming.

38:32

is that All the Hollywood

38:34

Unions, The Writers Guild, The

38:36

Wg A, The Actors Girls,

38:39

Sag, Aftra, The Directors' Guild,

38:41

The W G Eight, and

38:43

also the International Alliance of

38:45

Theatrical Stage Employees, which is

38:47

popularly known as I Artsy

38:49

I H T S Eats.

38:51

They represent the quote unquote

38:53

proverbial sound chi ah, the

38:55

camera man ah are women

38:57

for that matter of stagehands

38:59

gas hers. The people who

39:01

really make the industry go round

39:03

would be for all of these

39:05

unions to come together and do

39:07

in industry wide. First I chile

39:09

a negotiation, but then if the

39:11

A and Ptp doesn't agree to

39:13

various demands that participate in a

39:15

straight that would have as it's

39:17

call the actual restructuring of the

39:19

industry, this is of course very

39:21

difficult to accomplish for a variety

39:23

of reasons Or strike like this

39:25

would have an enormously negative effect.

39:27

To be frank, I in the

39:29

short. Term on many of these workers from

39:31

I asked the on down. And. So

39:34

if I were you know, the God of

39:36

Labor and I was waving around my wand.

39:38

I would say all the Hollywood unions every

39:40

single one de de de a Sag aftra,

39:43

the Wj. But really, really importantly I see

39:45

as well which might very well go on

39:47

strike in a few months. They need to

39:49

do a broad industrywide strike. Daniel.

39:53

Fastener. Thank you so much for this

39:55

conversation! Thank. You so

39:57

much for having me was a genuine pleasure. Daniel

40:00

Besner is a writer and associate professor

40:02

of American foreign policy at the University

40:05

of Washington. His latest article

40:07

for Harpers is titled, The Life and

40:09

Death of Hollywood. Coming

40:11

up, book critic Maureen Corrigan shares

40:13

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comers and icons of culture. From

41:12

Barbara Streisand, you're such a wonderful

41:14

interviewer, to Tracey Ellis Ross, your

41:17

questions were so wonderful, and Christine

41:19

Baranski. Oh, thank you for

41:21

your wonderful questions. Here are the

41:23

questions these icons loved to be asked.

41:26

Listen every week to It's Been a Minute

41:28

from NPR. April is Poetry

41:30

Month, and our book critic, Maureen Corrigan,

41:32

has been a good part of it

41:34

reading a hefty new collection of letters

41:36

by one of America's greatest poets. Here's

41:39

Maureen Corrigan's appreciation of the letters

41:42

of Emily Dickinson. Among

41:44

the great moments in literary history I

41:47

wish I could have witnessed is

41:49

that day sometime after May

41:52

15th, 1886, when

41:54

Lavinia Dickinson entered the bedroom

41:57

of her newly deceased older

41:59

sister, began opening

42:01

drawers. Out

42:03

sprang poems, some 1800 of them. Given

42:06

that Emily Dickinson

42:09

had only published 10 poems

42:12

during her lifetime, this discovery

42:14

was a shock. Hope

42:17

is the thing with feathers that

42:19

perches in the soul begins

42:21

one of those now famous

42:24

poems. Whatever Dickinson

42:26

hoped for her poems, she could

42:28

never have envisioned how they'd resonate

42:30

with readers, nor how

42:32

curious those readers would be about

42:35

her life. Much of it spent

42:37

within her father's house in Amherst

42:39

and in later years within

42:41

that bedroom. Every

42:44

so often the reading public's

42:46

image of Emily Dickinson shifts.

42:49

For much of the 20th century she was

42:51

a Faye Stevie Nicks type

42:53

figure. Check out for instance the

42:56

1976 film of

42:58

Julie Harris's lauded one-woman

43:01

show, The Bell of Amherst.

43:03

A feminist Emily Dickinson

43:05

emerged during the second women's

43:08

movement when poems like

43:10

I'm Wife were celebrated

43:12

for their avant-garde anger.

43:14

And jumping to the

43:16

present, a new monumental

43:18

volume of Dickinson's letters,

43:21

the first in over 60 years,

43:23

gives us an engaged Emily

43:26

Dickinson, a woman in conversation

43:28

with the world through gossip

43:30

as well as remarks about

43:33

books, politics, and the signal

43:35

events of her age, particularly

43:38

the Civil War. This

43:41

new collection of the letters

43:43

of Emily Dickinson is published

43:45

by Harvard's Belknap Press and

43:48

edited by two Dickinson

43:50

scholars, Kristan Miller and

43:52

Donald Mitchell. To

43:54

accurately date some of Dickinson's

43:56

letters, they've studied weather reports

43:59

and seasonal blooming and

44:01

harvest cycles in 19th

44:03

century Amherst. They've also

44:05

added some 300

44:08

previously uncollected letters to this volume

44:10

for a grand total of 1,304

44:15

letters. The result

44:18

is that the letters of

44:20

Emily Dickinson reads like the

44:22

closest thing we'll probably ever

44:24

have to an intimate autobiography

44:26

of the poet. The

44:28

first letter here is written by an

44:31

11 year old Dickinson to her brother

44:33

Austin away at school. It's

44:36

a breathless kid-sister marvel of

44:38

run-on sentences about

44:40

yellow hens and skunks

44:43

and poor cousin Zabina who had a

44:45

fit the other day and bit his

44:47

tongue. The final letter

44:49

by an ailing 55 year old Dickinson

44:52

most likely the last

44:54

she wrote before falling

44:56

unconscious on May 13th 1886

45:01

was to her cousins Louisa

45:03

and Francis Norcross. It

45:05

reads little cousins

45:07

called back Emily.

45:11

In between is a life

45:13

filled with visitors chores and

45:15

recipes for donuts and coconut

45:17

cakes. There's mention of

45:19

the racist minstrel stereotype Jim

45:21

Crow as well as of

45:24

public figures like Florence Nightingale

45:26

and Walt Whitman. There

45:28

are also allusions to the death

45:31

toll of the ongoing Civil War.

45:34

Dickinson's loyal dog Carlo walks

45:36

with her and frogs and

45:38

even flies keep her company.

45:41

Indeed in an 1859 letter about one such

45:43

winged companion Bella

45:48

Vamhurst charm alternates

45:50

with cold-blooded callousness.

45:53

Dickinson writes to her cousin Louisa

45:56

I enjoy much with

45:58

a fly during Sisters at absence,

46:01

not one of your blue

46:03

monsters, but a timid creature

46:05

that hops from pain to

46:07

pain so very cheerfully, and

46:09

hums and thrums, a sort

46:11

of speck piano. I'll

46:13

kill him the day Lavinia comes home,

46:16

for I shan't need him any

46:18

more. Dickinson's

46:20

singular voice comes into its own in

46:22

the letters of the 1860s, which often

46:27

blur into poems, cryptic,

46:29

comic, and charged with

46:31

awe. A simple

46:33

thank-you note to her

46:35

soulmate and beloved sister-in-law,

46:37

Susan Gilbert Dickinson, reads,

46:40

Dear Sue, the supper was

46:42

delicate and strange. I

46:45

ate it with compunction, as I

46:47

would eat a vision. One

46:50

thousand three hundred and four

46:52

letters, and still there not

46:54

enough. Letters

46:56

estimate that we only have about

46:59

one-tenth of the letters Dickinson ever

47:01

wrote. And on

47:03

that momentous day in 1886, Lavinia

47:07

entered her sister's bedroom

47:09

to find and successfully

47:11

burn all the letters

47:14

Dickinson herself had received

47:16

from others during her

47:18

lifetime. Such was

47:20

the custom of the day, which

47:23

makes this new volume of

47:25

Dickinson's letters feel like both

47:27

an intrusion and an

47:29

outwitting of the silence of death,

47:32

something I want to believe Dickinson

47:34

would have relished. Maureen

47:37

Corrigan is a professor of literature

47:40

at Georgetown University. She reviewed the

47:42

letters of Emily Dickinson. If

47:44

you'd like to catch up on interviews

47:46

you've missed, like our conversation with journalist

47:49

Ari Berman on how minority rule is

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threatening American democracy, or

47:53

with the musician St. Vincent on her

47:55

new album and working with David Byrne,

47:58

check out our podcast. of

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