The culture has been swallowed up by a singular ideology that everyone must obey or else. Can we stop pretending there are any people within the industry who disrupts any of it? They do not. Least of all, the cover girl, Scarlett Johansson. Being political and voting for the Democrats is the status quo. True, they lost the election because much of this country can’t stand them anymore (and they feel the same way about Hollywood because they are one and the same) but cultural power still belongs to all of them. They are not disrupters, they are conformists.
There are disrupters on the list – like Ang Lee and Vidya Balan. But Scarlett Johansson, Bono, and Alex Gibney? No. All three of them are very compliant and conformist to the dominant cultural group, the Left. Even protesting Israel doesn’t really count because you’re not unpersoned and disappeared from the in-group for that. You’re praised.
If they were disrupters, they would not be on the magazine’s cover, they would not get deals, they would not be accepted into the club, nominated for awards, or attend award shows. They would be exiled to the digital and virtual gulag, like me, Jeff Wells, David Mamet, and others.
I know it’s only publicity, designed only to sell them as products. I get that. But still, when I saw it, I rolled my eyes. Get back to me when you put a real disrupter on the cover. That’s not to say Scarlett Johansson isn’t valid as an artist, but nothing she has done has disrupted anything. And that’s fine. She sells cosmetics. She stars in movies. She advocates for the Democrats. Standard person of the Left who happens to be very beautiful. I do not think anyone in Hollywood proper right now, in 2025, counts as a disrupter telling dangerous truths.
The two admirable things Scarlett Johansson has done that I would count as disruptions would be not throwing Woody Allen under the bus and fighting against AI using her voice. Maybe people see that as enough to call her a disrupter, but I don’t think so. You can’t really be a true disrupter and be popular, unfortunately. Not on today’s Left anyway.
If you want to know more about the era we just lived through that Hollywood COMPLETELY ignores — all of the great stories exist outside the bubble — watch this:
Lionel Shriver has just written a book called Mania. Hollywood — the side with actual balls, should any such balls still exist — should make it. They won’t, but they should.
The counterculture does not yet have a platform in the mainstream, and even if Deadline is less extreme than most, I’m still waiting for this house of cards to collapse. And it will.
