Making great movies in Hollywood is difficult. Anti-white racism will make it impossible

Hollywood’s suffocating new wave of identity politics targets white men, and movies and TV will suffer significantly as a result.

Hollywood, despite its reputation as a liberal bastion, has long been a hothouse of vicious reactionary sentiments.

For example, the anti-communist mania of the late 1940s and ‘50s was a particularly shameful time in Hollywood’s history. It was during this Red Scare that Hollywood studios created a blacklist where any person thought to be a communist or associated with communists, regardless of their ability, was barred from working in the industry.

Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee used the threat of the Hollywood blacklist to force many artists to become informers on their colleagues in order to maintain their livelihoods.

Not surprisingly, as the Black Lives Matter panic now rages, Hollywood is once again succumbing to the hideous siren’s call of dehumanization and discrimination. Except this time the accusation isn’t about communism, but rather, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a white man?” 

The Red Scare is now the White Male Scare. In Hollywood’s current climate of rabid, politically correct, social-justice hysteria, the message is clear: group identity trumps individual talent, skill and artistry, always and every time. 

The black die has been cast, and the end result of adhering to this devout dogma of diversity is that white men need not apply. Any white men who raise issues with this mandate are racist and will, along with anyone who openly associates with them, be canceled.

A recent example of this was when black filmmaker Ri-Karlo Handy put out a call on a Facebook group of film professionals for “black union editors.” When white editors took offense at this rank racialization, they were called racist, and one even lost his job over it. 

Black filmmaker Ava DuVernay responded by tweeting“to the white men… if you don’t get that job you were up for, kindly remember… bias can go both ways. This is 2020 speaking.”  

This is reminiscent of black filmmaker Jordan Peele saying, “I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie.” Imagine if someone said either of those things about black or Jewish people instead of “white men.”

Apparently, DuVernay and Peele feel the best way to fight past racism is with more racism. How ethically and morally repugnant of them.

This whole anti-white-male identity politics revolution began in the wake of the #MeToo movement, where studios, in their typical reactionary style, became adamant about telling female-centric stories, regardless of their quality, and hiring women to either write, direct, star in or produce them, regardless of their talent level or ability.

This approach resulted in the murderer’s row of cinematic garbage that was ‘Charlie’s Angels,’ ‘Birds of Prey,’ ‘Ocean’s 8,’ ‘What Men Want,’ ‘The Hustle,’ ‘Late Night’ and ‘Mary Queen of Scots.’

Now, with Black Lives Matter the movement du jour, Hollywood is even more ferociously committed to disregarding individual talent, skill, experience and artistry (of white men in particular) in their hiring practices in favor of identity politics.

There are many who’ll cheer this anti-white male racism and say that white men have discriminated for years and they deserve the backlash. That may, or may not, be true, but regardless, these folks are cutting off their cinematic noses to spite their white-man-hating face.

The dark secret people working within the industry know, but are too scared to say publicly, is that this aggressive identity politics not only will destroy the careers and lives of completely innocent, ordinary working-class folks in front of and behind the camera, but will be catastrophic for the art of cinema and the entertainment business.

Despite what the uninitiated think, making movies and TV shows is extremely difficult, making good ones is even more difficult, and making great ones is nearly impossible.

Industry professionals understand that talent and skill must be the absolute top priority when hiring, or the end product will ultimately suffer greatly.

No one would dare say this publicly of course, at least not while the Woke Inquisition rages and cancel culture reigns supreme. But just like the vast majority of talented and skilled people in the NBA are black (despite black men making up only 6.5 percent of the US population), the cold, hard truth is that not all, but the vast majority of skilled people in Hollywood are white men. That is not racist. That is reality. 

Unlike the woke cultists, I’m not interested in sacrificing quality on the altar of identity. I don’t care about identity. I only care about cinema.

Like all true cinephiles, I want the most talented individuals to get hired, regardless of their group identity, in order to ensure the best movies get made. 

Recently, black actor Anthony Mackie, the star of Marvel’s ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier,’ unintentionally admitted he felt the same way while, ironically, complaining about Marvel’s lack of diversity.

 “My big push with Marvel is hire the best person for the job. Even if it means we are going to get the best two women, we’re going to get the best two men. Fine.”

I’d like to think that when Mr Mackie says “we,” he means the human race and not the black race, and that he would be “fine” if the “best person for the job” were a white man. But considering the sentiment in Hollywood right now, I sincerely doubt it.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.