The “what if?”I have always been fascinated by the game of chess. What if Donald Trump was cast in? Shark Tank Instead of The Apprentice (it was Mark Burnett’s call)? He would likely have been president rather than broke.
I cite this to remind readers that Hollywood plays a role in our politics as well as in our pop culture, and hence the town would do well to heed the cultural shift reflected in this week’s election results. The audience is changing — will movies and TV change accordingly?
Hollywood power players were once proud of their ability manipulate political power. Lew Wasserman, along with his friends, helped create Ronald Reagan as a political power. Reagan was repaid many times.
Hollywood was at the Clinton White House. Trump didn’t even run a movie there. Nixon, however, kept running. Patton).
The Kennedys enjoyed their close relationships with Hollywood’s inner circle until it became too much for them.
Wasserman once said that while Hollywood had mastered the skills of casting its movies, Democrats couldn’t learn how to cast their candidates.
He couldn’t believe that George McGovern was the choice to oppose a vulnerable Nixon, who ended up winning 61% of the popular vote (the electoral vote was 520-17). McGovern’s vice presidential nominee had to withdraw because he’d undergone electroshock therapy.
Will this week’s baffling election shifts be mirrored in the TV or film product? Washington produced the most impactful TV show of 2022 in its investigation of the January 6 insurrection, but now it might release the stage to Rep. Jim Jordan’s recycled impeachment hearings.
The pundits are now asking: What is the reason for mood swings? David Brooks is the revered columnist for The New York TimesThe answer is simple. “The gap between the college and non-college communities continues to grow,”He wrote. “America must face the fact of class war.”
J.D. Vance, who was elected to the Senate Tuesday, made a speech declaring that “universities are our enemy.”Vance attended Yale before becoming a politician with Ron DeSantis. However, Vance has not yet declared war on Disney World, unlike the Florida governor.
I once tried to propound Brooks’ theory by fostering a movie titled Being therePeter Sellers was the presidential prospect in this film. I was then president of Lorimar.
When newsmen plied him with questions about wars and recessions, Sellers’ character, Chauncey Gardiner, would respond with vague analogies to the state of his garden. Before being conscripted to politics, he was a gardener by trade.
Problem: Hal Ashby (the director) came to me mid-production asking: How can we end this movie. Peter Sellers was the one who walked on water.
Donald Trump may try it, but it might be too late.