Welcome back to What I’m Hearing...

Coming at you mid-Grammys, which we’ll be breaking down on tomorrow’s episode of The Town podcast, with Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw, from Vegas. Speaking of the pod, if you’re not subscribed, you missed last week’s wild Oscars coverage, plus my interview with WWE president Nick Khan, and an emergency pod on Friday about the Will Smith resignation. Subscribe here.

Discussed in today’s email: Barry Diller, Meredith O’Sullivan Wasson, Bad Bunny, Ted Sarandos, Ava Duvernay, Denzel Washington, Dawn Hudson, Bob Chapek, Will Packer, Ari Emanuel, and who’s had it worse, AT&T or the Oscars?   

But first…

Who Won the Week

It’s Chris Rock, of course, but the real flex here would be for Rock to write an hour of stand-up on The Slap, secretly perform it during an off night of his current tour, film the show, then auction it off. What streamer wouldn’t pay $20 million for that, and who wouldn’t watch it? 

Notes on a Scandal: The Worst Week for Hollywood

What I’m hearing about the post-slap resignation, the Will Packer fallout, what happens to Smith’s projects, the race issue, and the Scientology question.

As Jerrod Carmichael noted in his great SNL monologue last night, it’s kinda hard to believe that The Slap was just a week ago. It feels like a different era. Since I’ve now written two long missives on this subject, today I’m emptying my notebook with some brief news and notes…

The upshot: The thinking seems to be that Smith was smart to resign on Friday from the Academy before he could be kicked out or suspended. I agree. After all, it’s mostly a symbolic move, and he needs a lot of symbolism to help claw back his career—the thing he actually cares about. But the Academy should also be smart and go further, revoking Oscar nomination and attendance privileges, certainly for a year and possibly longer. We’ll see what happens on April 18th.    

How the decision went down: There was a big debate among Smith’s team over whether to resign, I’m told. At first, Team Will—CAA’s Richard Lovett, manager Miguel Melendez, and publicist Meredith O’Sullivan Wasson, as well as business partners James Lassiter and Ko Yada, wife Jada Pinkett Smith and others—weren’t sure the Academy would do anything substantive. But once they took the town’s temperature, their tune changed. For instance, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos—who counts comedians among his best friends and actually hosted a dinner party with Rock, Adam Sandler and David Spade earlier this year—was among the influential voices telling people he wanted Smith out. The idea to resign actually came from Smith himself, I’m told. Lovett was initially opposed, according to two sources. But once the team realized a suspension or expulsion was coming, Lovett ultimately endorsed the strategy. (They all declined to comment.)

The fallout, part one: Smith’s favorability rating dropped to 50 percent this week, down 30 percent from a survey in 2020, according to Morning Consult. That actually seems good for this kind of nuclear-bomb scandal, and indicates the complex issues at play in both the Rock joke and his violent response. Half the country still likes Smith, suggesting a solid base on which to launch his personal build back better campaign.  

The fallout, part two: Smith’s acting gigs are almost certainly paused indefinitely, according to producers I’ve talked to. But I’m wondering about his many producing projects, and whether his collaborators there will begin to pull out. I doubt, say, Cobra Kai’s fifth season will be impacted, but I’m less certain about new stuff. He may need to pull a Scott Rudin and “step back” from those projects, whatever that means.   

The fallout, part three: The Academy is furious with producer Will Packer for doing that GMA interview a) without telling them in advance, and b) to try to save face personally by claiming Rock wanted Smith to stay at the show (which directly contradicts what I reported Thursday night). I doubt the board will attempt to discipline him—good luck getting anyone else to produce the show if they did that—but it’s safe to say that Packer won’t be returning for an encore gig next year.

The fallout, part four: I don’t often agree with Bill Maher, and he hurt his argument by also going after Jada’s illness, but he and his guests nailed the lasting public impression of this scandal: Hollywood hypocrites. To put it more succinctly, for a community that often preaches the moral high ground and an enlightened worldview, the images of The Slap, followed by the standing ovation, will forever be weaponized to destroy whatever pulpit power that remained. Look for the Democrats, if they’re smart, to further distance themselves from industry supporters, both famous and non-famous.   

More hypocrisy: To that end, I gotta wonder whether Denzel Washington, who has done so much great charity work for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, would stand in front of young kids who watched The Slap and say, as he did this weekend in D.C., “Who are we to condemn?”    

The Academy race angle: Feel free to skip this item if you don’t think a white male should be raising this issue (I’ll totally understand), but it’s come up so often this week, I’ve got to mention it. Ever since the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy, and its white C.E.O. Dawn Hudson, have been ultra-sensitive about the optics of race. Now cut to backstage after The Slap, where Hudson and Academy president David Rubin, who is also white, wanted Smith to leave, but the three other people in the conversation—Smith, his publicist Wasson, and Oscars producer Packer—who are people of color, all wanted him to stay. I gotta believe the Academy leaders were terrified of the optics of that situation, and how any decision to remove Smith might play with the people of color on the board of governors. Now, of course, their inaction is what’s under scrutiny.  

The Scientology angle: A number of people pointed out to me that Smith’s actions felt like “a Scientology move,” namely the pretense of moral superiority in his speech, the profanity directed at Rock, and the violent outburst itself, which was similar to incidents that have been widely reported involving the church’s leader, David Miscavige. But the Smiths have denied any connection to Scientology, despite past reports of gifts to a school with connections to the controversial church. It also could just be pure narcissism. 

The Golden Globes angle: If there’s one group that is enjoying this scandal, it’s the embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., especially after the Oscars hosts joked on stage that the Globes belonged in the “in memoriam” segment. Wasson has been heavily involved in the P.R. boycott of the Globes over its diversity woes, so there’s no sympathy from the H.F.P.A. over role in the Smith scandal. “Is she now canceled?” one jokingly asked me. No, she’s not. It’s a very different situation, but the fact that the industry-wide war on the Globes continues, while the Oscars allowed that to happen onstage, seems pretty silly. Glass houses, people. 

And finally, the worst press release subject line I received this week, attempting to capitalize on the scandal: Black People Are Tired Of Being Slapped In The Face By Racism From Enterprise Car & Truck Rental!

Quote of the Week

“No. I would have sent a car for Chris Rock, though.”

–Graydon Carter, the former Vanity Fair editor, when asked by New York whether he would have let Will Smith into the V.F. Oscar party if he were in charge.

Runner up: “My ego’s always waiting there. I call him Bjorn.” –Mel Gibson, explaining on Fox News his troubled, years-long effort to achieve “complete abandonment of self.”

Now, in non-Oscars news (yes, other things are happening), here’s a sensitive item about a hot-button topic…

How to Get Fired for ‘Cultural Insensitivity’ By Netflix

A white showrunner working with Ava Duvernay hired a diverse writers room for a Matilda animated series. Then the staff turned on her, becoming the latest flashpoint in Hollywood’s culture war.

It’s no secret that a quiet culture war is raging in Hollywood. The forces of inclusion and greater accountability are squaring off against those who believe the pendulum has swung so far that otherwise good people are being marginalized and, in some cases, purged. Check out this cautionary tale of a TV showrunner who was fired after an investigation into “cultural insensitivity” in a Netflix writers room. Your reaction will probably depend on your side in the battle.

Netflix has quietly been developing a show based on Roald Dahl’s Matilda property. Conceived and pitched by filmmaker Ava Duvernay, the animated series will follow a grown-up Matilda and an 8 year-old, gifted Black girl who travel the world, X-Men style, and recruit other special kids for their boarding school. Duvernay hired a white female showrunner (I’m not using her name, or the names of the other writers on the show, because they aren’t influential people and I don’t want this story to follow them around), and developed a pilot with her. The showrunner—who, admittedly, was not the most worldly person—then hired a diverse, five-person staff, with writers representing the global backgrounds of people who might be featured on the show.     

Pretty standard these days, right? Representation does matter, and Duvernay, who is Black, and her Array FilmWorks, have been at the forefront of this movement. Problem was, once the room assembled, a vocal part of the staff didn’t feel like the showrunner was attuned to the cultural sensitivities required for the material. (Either that, or they didn’t love that they were hired to work on an Ava show and were stuck taking orders from a white lady.) Some bristled when they were asked to write for characters that matched their backgrounds, believing they should be writing for all characters. Some also thought the pilot script—which, incidentally, was co-written by Duvernay—carried whiffs of a “white savior” narrative, with the British woman and her Black sidekick plucking diverse kids out of their home countries to help them develop their skills.   

Some complained to Netflix H.R., which, per the company’s diversity and inclusion policy, then launched a formal investigation into the showrunner. According to sources, that probe didn’t confirm much. For instance, a writer had complained that, during the development process, the showrunner asked whether people in India “ride goats.” But another writer clarified to investigators that the inquiry didn’t mention goats and was simply about how transportation works in India. That kind of thing. (Netflix, Array and the showrunner declined to comment.)    

Regardless, when Duvernay and Paul Garnes, the president of Array, found out about the writers’ concerns, they moved swiftly. The showrunner would be removed, they decided, even though the Netflix probe hadn’t confirmed anything fireable. Duvernay understood this was a ship captain who survived an attempted mutiny; there was no way for her to lead now. So the showrunner who was cleared by Netflix was nonetheless terminated not for cause, paid out, she signed an NDA, and everything is on pause now until Array can bring in another showrunner—a showrunner who may or may not keep those writers who complained in the first place.

A bad situation all around. I’m torn on this one. It’s great that employees now have a venue to voice concerns, and that companies are actually following up to protect them from offensive workplaces. However, the point of staffing a diverse room is so that writers can bring unique perspectives and share their backgrounds, presumably making the show better. That’s why these rooms have traditionally operated as creative sanctuaries, and why, these days, amid the accountability movement, many instead feel they are walking on eggshells. To those people, stories like this one likely won’t do much to quell fears of offending, and might actually prevent companies that don’t prioritize inclusion, like Array does, from hiring diverse people in the first place.

The showrunner here was ultimately driven out because the diverse room she hired turned against her. Like I said, a cautionary tale.

My Reading List

• Michelle Goldberg recounts the story of Latoya Raveneau, the executive producer of Disney’s The Proud Family, who became fodder for the Fox News bile machine when she mentioned her “not at all secret gay agenda” at a company all-hands. [NYT]
  
  Bonus: I was on author Derek Thompson’s podcast this week talking about Disney’s unwinnable position in the culture war. [Plain English] 
  
  Double bonus: I talked with Kim Masters on The Business about Disney C.E.O. Bob Chapek and the “crisis of confidence” over the Florida mess and more. [The Business]
  
• The Journal dives deeper into Endeavor C.E.O. Ari Emanuel’s totally normal, totally reasonable $308 million pay package, which “is higher than that of any CEO in the S&P 500 reported so far this year, or last…” The old Endeavor slogan probably needs to be updated to “we fight and we f--- and we buy private islands.” [WSJ]
  
  
• More: My Puck colleague William D. Cohan compares and contrasts the penises—er, paychecks—of Ari, David Zazlav, Bobby Kotick, and GE’s Larry Culp. I’d add AMC’s Adam Aron to the naughty list.   
  
• Barry Diller Zoomed into Brian Stelter’s new CNN+ show from his private plane—sorry, “corporate jet,” he insisted—to defend Disney’s decision to remain politically neutral, just not how it communicated that stance. [CNN]
  
  Bonus: I was one of Stelter’s debut week guests, talking about my Puck piece on Netflix and the “total addressable market” for streaming. It’s not online so you gotta sign up for CNN+ to watch.  
  
• Bad Bunny, the most streamed act on Spotify, is now grossing more per night than anyone else on tour. [Bloomberg] 
  
• Is the music catalog boom slowing down? Inflation, interest rates and even the war in Ukraine may be to blame. [Bloomberg] 
  
• If you only saw the Bruce Willis headlines and didn’t read the story that prompted his family to go public with his mental decline, you should right now. No one looks great here: Not Randall Emmett, who kept making the films, not CAA, which kept booking them, and not everyone else, who (like me) made fun of his recent output. [LAT]
  
  
• Lachlan Cartwright checks in with Sharon Waxman of The Wrap, who had promised to be better after an October expose on her bullying management style. Shocker: An outside consultant found there had “been little/no changes made since” the article. [Daily Beast] 
  
• Some updated rates for private gigs by major music stars: Jennifer Lopez got $1.25 million (plus $500,000 in travel costs) from a Chinese family. Bruno Mars charges “as much as $4 million.” Ricky Martin was paid just $500,000 to sing at an L.A. wedding. [Rolling Stone]
  
• Netflix staffers were told in meetings to watch their expenses. I guess that means only one ivory backscratcher per employee. [The Information]

The Feedback

It’s all Oscars and Will Smith this week, as might be expected. I got a LOT of emails, so I tried to include only the ones that raised fresh or unique points. (And sorry if I didn’t respond!)

“I’m the guy who defends Hollywood when friends in the ‘real world’ say everyone’s full of shit. Now there’s no defending. It’s over. The clip of the standing ovation for Will Smith ended all of those arguments.” –A producer

“Why are you the only one pointing out that the system is what made Will Smith think this was acceptable behavior? For 30 years, people have told him he can do no wrong, so it makes perfect sense he would believe them.” –A publicist

“The [Academy] leadership is spineless and afraid of their own shadows. That’s how we got a Museum devoted to filmmakers of color but not, duh, the Jewish men who founded the industry! Nobody who knows how this deeply troubled group works was surprised at all by the lack of action. And there’s no accountability because Dawn [Hudson] and David [Rubin] have one foot out the door. When the board is considering Will Smith’s fate, they should take a long, hard look at those two.” –An Academy member     

“’A 54 member board’? Say nothing more. No group can be effectively governed by a board that size. Fix that problem, everything else stems from it.” –A non-profit executive

“Who has had a worse 5-6 years: The Oscars or AT&T shareholders? Oscars: Announce the wrong winner, ratings fall 70 percent, train station debacle, no one wants to host, The Slap. AT&T shareholders: Buy DirecTV at the peak, get bid up on Time Warner, get held up by Trump DoJ, lose $10 billion on DirecTV and Warner sales, dividend cut in half, almost miss out on key spectrum, stock is down more than 40 percent while the S&P has doubled.” –An executive

“Wild take: Don’t televise the Oscars next year. Make it a private ceremony and see if people miss it.” –A manager