The merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. has uncorked mass hysteria reminiscent of 2016. The deal has been approved. At the moment, the “Resistance” is out in force trying to stop it for only one reason: Trump.
Probably nothing has killed Hollywood more than its ten-year war on Trump and anyone who voted for him. They destroyed themselves trying to destroy him, and they’ve not given up the fight. I say “they” because I parted ways with them about six years ago, after I saw the wreckage that became of American culture at the hands of the “resistance.”
Even now, they’re not telling the truth to themselves or to anyone else. They pretend its an ideological monopoly or some kind of 1984-like takeover. The truth is that it’s exactly the opposite. It’s a challenge to their power, their monopolistic control over Hollywood and all culture for the last 15-20 years. The film industry became a desert, with many of its creatives locked away in a utopian paradise without box-office or ratings pressure, thinking everything was going well.
Well, everything was not going fine. It took Elon Musk buying Twitter for $45 billion, Paramount taking over CBS, and now, this merger of Paramount and Warner Bros., which will now be in the hands of people who, at the very least, have one foot in the real world. Remember when movies were for everyone? When were movies really great? We all just accept the fact that they suck now, but for a few exceptions.
Hollywood doesn’t have to care because streaming has given it the option to never have to stress about the numbers. They can hide away and trip the light fantastic for themselves, and they like it that way. What they’re fighting against now is the loss of their monopolistic hold on film and television. They liked having a full-time propaganda machine to drive the messages they wanted to sell to the public.
They said nothing about the $71 billion merger between Fox and Disney, which was just $10 billion less than this one, if you count pure equity. They said nothing about Barack and Michelle Obama becoming a part of Netflix, blurring the lines between power and art because the truth is that line doesn’t exist on the Left. Hollywood and the Democrats are one and the same.
The ideological capture of Hollywood and all American culture by the Democrats created a bottleneck, rendering movies and television unwatchable slop, with very few exceptions. They couldn’t tell the truth about any of what we just lived through, not in any critical way. Not Me Too, not 2020, not the Biden debacle. Every so often, a piece of dissent might slip through, as with Eddington, but it is rare.
They claim Trump is an authoritarian, and now they have to fear speech, but of course, that’s been the status quo in Hollywood for over a decade. Blacklists are here. Most actors know they are one comment away from career ruination, and for some of them, there is no coming back.
Look at how Trevor Noah treated Nicki Minaj at the Grammys, celebrating the fact that she wasn’t there. So yes, women of color matter unless they step out of line.
We know the game.
Jane Fonda’s Women’s Media Center hired me to write their annual Oscars report. I was good at it, and I did it on the cheap. When the Hollywood Reporter story broke that I was no longer on Team Blue and outside the utopian bubble, that was it for me. They didn’t want me working for them anymore.
These folks are afraid of losing their power. That is why they care about this one merger, this one monopoly. They are used to getting what they want as members of the ruling class. They are used to special treatment, and they can’t believe this is happening to them. Except that it’s not happening to them. It is a survival move in hopes of salvaging something out of the wreckage that Hollywood has become.
Trust me, they don’t care about monopolies.
They didn’t care when Jay Penske bought the Golden Globes, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Rolling Stone, and Gold Derby. This monopoly now decides much of the awards race. There is no audience anymore—not for the shows, not for the movies. They are satisfied with their tiny utopian bubble, which has become a dystopian doomsday cult. They have no problem with late-night comedy—Kimmel, Colbert, Oliver, SNL—playing only to a shrinking minority of the wealthy ruling class. They don’t care that almost no one can stand to watch their movies or shows anymore because they detest the majority of the public that voted for Trump.
They don’t care because they don’t have to. Everywhere they look is a flattering mirror telling them they are the greatest. Jane Fonda, Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, and the 4,000 Hollywood types who signed that petition do not care about you or me. No one calls them out for their shit, not even Jon Stewart. Occasionally, Bill Maher will hit back at them, but it’s rare.
The public looks at this, and unless they are No Kings protesters and Blue Sky users, they understand that it’s been a very long time before any of these people thought about them, made movies for them, made TV shows for them. They’ve just been marinating in their own precious messaging, and it’s turned the public off. We don’t care. We want great movies back.
Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro have a movie coming out soon. They expect half the country to buy tickets to see it? Why would they when they can detect their open disdain?
What delusional fantasy is Jim Acosta living in? Seen the news lately, pal? What it doesn’t have is ideological diversity. That is why you are all in this mess. Someone had to rise up and challenge you, and thank god for that.
You can’t even tell the difference anymore between art and politics. They have merged under the Left’s ideological monopoly. Things can’t possibly get any worse. The only reason these folks care now is that they think Trump is involved. That’s it. They have said not a word for years while power has been concentrated at the top.
Even their favorite Democratic Socialist is in on it, like he’s become some kind of de facto imaginary president for the side that lost.
We are desperate for great movies, great comedies, and real art. We are sick of consuming what amounts to propaganda for the progressive Left day in and day out. The Paramount/WB merger offers some hope that power and money might once again be directed not at celebrities and the Democrats, but at us—the audiences.
Hollywood used to care about people because it had to. Box office mattered, so the people mattered. Ratings mattered, so the people mattered. But something shifted in the past 15 years. Hollywood walled itself off and began to feel like politics and ideology, identity-first dogma had to be more important than just about anything else.
In 2016, the Democrats waged a “hearts and minds” campaign on the American public. It was their own “color revolution”—a “whole of society” effort to block Donald Trump from serving after his shock election victory, which they deemed illegitimate. Hollywood was just one of the tentacles that pumped out propaganda for the Left, legacy media being the other.
We called it “The Resistance,” but really, we were always The Empire. We held all the power. When we drew a line saying that voting for Trump meant you were out, we had the power to destroy careers, status, friendships, and relationships. In other words, it was soft totalitarianism: do what we want, or else. All rules had to be followed, or you were an “ist” or a “phobe.” Only one message could be delivered, so we had to see the same story playing out over and over again.
That story will never be told unless the empire collapses, which it already has, or at least it’s getting there. I don’t know whether the merger will be good or bad, but I do know the industry needs a dramatic shake-up so we can bring back great movies, and we have to at least try to save it. We so badly need that as a country, too.
We need a shared culture. Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Jane Fonda, and Mark Ruffalo do not have the right to claim American culture for themselves, just as they don’t have a right to claim American democracy for themselves. Trump is in power because the people voted for him. Again.
So yes, the merger will consolidate power just as all of the media companies have been consolidating power for years now. Things are changing fast. The one thing we desperately need is for writers and thinkers to be free without worrying about destroying their careers because they aren’t politically correct enough.
I’m not happy about monopolies in Hollywood. I saw what happened to me and how swiftly I was cut off by Netflix, Disney, Fox, and Apple—all of them —because I was no longer ideologically compliant. I worried about the future if nothing changed. It turns out it takes a lot of money just to free speech and ideas. It took $45 billion to buy Twitter and now, $81 billion to buy WB. Will it live up to my hopes? I have no idea, but I do know that whatever we have now has to change.
