If one were to measure agate lines and minutes of coverage as a measure of newsworthyness, then Mel Gibson is on par with the invention of antibiotics. Essentially Mel went nuts when arrested in an over-refreshed state. Quotes of his comments start at the intellectual pinnacle of “Goddam Jews run everything!” and go down hill from there. His rant is the winner of the “Please Euthanize My Career” award for the month of July and August.
The part that I don’t quite get is the media fascination with celebrities. I know Hollywood is a mammoth PR factory that will occasionally put out a film and the measure of a celeb is the number of minutes or lines they get in the various trade publications. For most, if they aren’t being talked about, they don’t exist. Paris Hilton would be another skanky party-girl if she wasn’t an heir to the Hilton fortune. Tom Cruise would be a street trolling Scientology pamphlet pusher in Ottawa if he didn’t make films. Owen Wilson would be the drone behind the counter at a video store who collects Traci Lords videos. Keanu Reeves would be a stoner bassist in a Vancouver garage band. Mel Gibson would be a house painter in Tasmania.
Now Mel is doing the Apology 2.0. There is a sound reason for this: Money makes movies. Scripts and properties and options are not the stuff of movies. It is business, which means investors are needed and a return on investment is expected. Hollywood does not exist to further careers unless it can be proven that furthering a career will make the investors more money. Art is a necessary evil. Artistic temperament is something that must be endured.
The old era Hollywood moguls understood it: Put on a show for $10, take $75 in box office after the split with the theatre and that’s $65 in your pocket. It is a very simple equation that even the less than brilliant can grasp very quickly.
Movies are the same: Make a film for $11 million use another $11 million to promote it and bring back $40 million in receipts. You are now $18 million to the good and can make another $11 million dollar film, plus have $7 million left over.
The good businessperson knows that getting others to pay for everything is key. Why put up your own money if you don’t have to? Ask a bunch of wealthy star-struck ninnies to invest in your movie, in exchange for being ‘in Hollywood” and interest paid back on their investment in less than two years. Sell the movie on the basis of “We’ve signed Joe Bathwater who’s last film made $22 million and Jane Wetpants who is in this weeks’ People and who made an album that sold 120,000 copies to the 11 to 19 year olds”.
The ninnies will nod sagely and pull out the chequebook. Collect enough ninnies and give them screen credit as “Executive Associate Producer” to keep their money in the project. Invite the ninnies to occasionally come to the set to watch Joe Bathwater and Jane Wetpants make faces at a camera. Ensure the catering is excellent and the ninnies get a folding chair that says “Executive Associate Producer – Bob Dumbass” with glittery stars as punctuation on either side of their names.
Notice that so far, the money isn’t actually involved in the mechanics of movie making. They are not directors, or photographers, or grips, or prop technicians. Most of them couldn’t tell which end of a camera to look into if the cinematographer hadn’t told them to “close one eye and look in here”. They’re money people and they have insane amounts of power in Hollywood. If they don’t do their job well, then nobody works.
Historically, the majority of money people in Hollywood have been adherents of the Jewish religion or of Jewish heritage. It isn’t a stereotype, it is merely a fact. Most money men don’t give a blue gopher’s nose if the people they’re hiring are of any particular group. It is just business, get the best you can afford (best being described as how much their last project made as profit, not if they’re any damn good or not) and put them together with money and time to create something that will make you more money.
Mel Gibson, going off in an anti-Semitic rant, even if blind drunk, is simply ignorant of the realities of his industry. It isn’t People magazine, or websites or even tabloid headlines that make movies: It is money that makes movies. Ask the question then, “Why would I want to bust my ass to find the investors to put up money for Mel’s next project, if Mel thinks a group that is important to me, is evil?”
The answer is not as simple as you might think: Mel’s movies make a lot of money. Mel is famous and investors want to be near ‘famous’ people so some of their cachet rubs off on them. As long as Mel Gibson’s movies make a ton of money, Mel will get investors. As soon as Mel stumbles at the box office, Mel will be painting houses in Malibu to make ends meet.
It ain’t entertainment. It is business.
RoadDave 