Monopoly Money

Paramount Skydance wins: The Warner Brothers failure and the downfall of our democracy (or at least the confirmation? It’s been well in decline for wayyyyy long lol)

It’s funny the way life works out, isn’t it? I had an inkling in the edition of this letter last week that it was way due past time to write about the merger that had Hollywood on tenterhooks. And with the stunning upset as the news broke late thursday afternoon, that Netflix had declined to match Paramounts newest offer, thus paving the way for Paramount Skydance and the Ellisons to gain control of Warner Brothers, and thus a significant portion of our media landscape.

Monopolies are bad you guys. They are. I distinctly remember in AP U.S. History seeing this cartoon :

Which does such a fantastic job of showing the insidious nature of them, doesn’t it? My concerns with this have ALWAYS been what putting CNN in the control of allies of this current administration means. In hindsight, I want to PUNCH members of the various unions who posted statements about this, decrying the possibility of Netflix winning this bid. I found crying about the “supposed lack of theatrical access” ridiculous, quite frankly. You can’t make movies you want if you’re being forced to make propaganda, but what do I know? Again, monopolies are bad. But, Netflix is the only one in this equation that hadn’t bent the knee to the administration (Remember, Remember, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s cancellation). And also The Ellisons gained control of the majority stake of TikTok this year as well. But, you wanted “more access to theatrical releases”.

So, we’re in for a wild ride, as Paramount Skydance seems poised to see this acquisition. They do still have to pass regulatory approval. But. The Paramount Skydance merger happened last year with what many believe was a quid pro quo that led to the cancellation of Stephen Colbert. Many have pointed to Susan Rice’s Statement (The Netflix board member who had worked prominently in the Obama administration) that has largely been pointed to as the “reason” this deal fell though. I urge you to take a step back and look at the Birds Eye view. This was merely the excuse, not the reason.

Overall. I’m angry. Not because my “team” lost, because we all lose in this scenario.

But, I also think we are in for a period of forced media. Which like we’re already here if I’m being frank, but you know what I mean.

There’s been the discussion of a conservative creative industry(?) for a while - Since Trump took power. The desire for Vogue to “cater to American values”. There is The Right’s desire to overtake the film and media Industries. Bari Weiss anyone? Evie magazine (do not get me started on that. The recent Vanity profile on its Editor made me steam lol. On behalf of Helen Gurley Brown I’d hate if my legacy was hijacked like that. You cannot have a “Conservative Cosmopolitan” because one of those things ultimately leads to the “women should have the ugh to their own autonomy” conversations. And it’s not the Cosmopolitan part of it. Evie brands itself for women but it’s a tradwife think tank that is funded by Peter Thiel, who is notoriously misogynistic. On any given day.) Also Those wierd right wing movies. There’s one from a few years ago that I can’t remember but I do remember there was a stink made that it didn’t perform well at the box office. And probably, because not only was it propagandistic, but it wasn’t a good film either.

But I’ll say this over and over again. Screaming from the mountain top of if I have to. Conservative thinking is by it’s virtue and by it’s name — narrow. It does not allow for diversity of any kind— by mainly of thought. And if you are unable to look outside your own perspective and ask the hard questions you are unable to create GOOD art. You just can’t. You can create, a visual representation of an echo chamber. A circle jerk. An entity that is unwilling to take a critical view not only at itself but at the world around it and therefore the context it exists in. And that will never allow good art. It cannot examine itself, therefore it will remain at surface level.

By the way I wrote most this at a gala, last Thursday, wearing a Carolina Herrera dress while Yeah by Usher and Lil Jon was blasting. Erroneous details, sure, but as a writer our job is to paint a picture using words. I trust those of you reading this can see the depth of the picture and the irony I present by relating this.

But again this is not the first time we’ve had shades of this. The Hays Code in the early 30s and 40s is the perfect example. There were morals that could not be shown on TV. Bad guys always had to come to justice (when we know they so often don’t in real life). Which is why older movies often, seem, so much more… fantastical. They couldn’t be direct. (Look up the Hays Code if you’re bored and feel shocked about all the things that weren’t allowed). Movies that won best picture during WWII like Casablanca in 1941 were absolute soft-core propaganda. And I say this with the full knowledge that Casablanca is one of my top five movies of all time. (Here’s looking at you kid!) I also remember in APUSH (lol rip US education) watching propaganda cartoons done by Disney (DISNEY!?!) featuring WWII “Morale Boosters”. The Donald Duck one where he’s working in a Nazi era factory and has to “make his coffee “ with one single coffee bean is a strong image that lasts to this day. Or the one where he somehow single-handedly defeats the Japanese in what is admittedly a racist caricature but unfortunately de riguer of the time period. The Nazi Germany one was called “The Furrier’s Face.” And for the life of me I cannot find it online now. I understand taking it away, but somehow it feels like that is part of the alt-right pipeline too.

This is not unique you guys. But somehow it hits different right now

But let’s also bring it back around too. Movies that look back on this most recent period of media censorship with the benefit of the freedom of the post war era. Inglorious masters by Tarantino comes to mind. I don’t like violence but I LOVE this movie. There’s the scene where they talk about Leni Riefenstahl - the female(ugh) filmmaker who was unfortunately instrumental in pushing minister gobbles(I have tried to type the correct spelling of his name, but it keeps autocorrecting this gobbles and, honestly, fucking let it lie) propaganda machine. It the whole section with Shoshanna and the German cinephile - that tension is the perfect example of this. Media controls how we think even in the form of entertainment. Movies. TV. HBO & Netflix.

And now Social Media. And AI. The modern day tools.

While explaining a bit of this thesis on the dance floor at said gala my friend Isabel asked me a good question I had never thought - how do you get beyond the for you page? How do you look beyond your algorithm and the rut we have. How do you truly find individual thought when we are seeing so many falsehoods? First with the idea of “Fake News” a decade ago, and now with AI Slop. I think the answer is curation but this is an imperfect and not fleshed out thesis. I don’t know if I know? I was listening to a Tame impala Song while writing this and it’s sort of niche but definitely not unknown at this point - but I had a friend in late high school and college who was the person that introduced me to this band - and now Fifteen years later they’re sort of mainstream and viral on TikTok. But there is a split in the culture. This will grow ever wider in my opinion.

And so we return the way that our current world is careening towards whatever dystopia the tech bros of my home town wish us to be in. This was buried in the news Cycle with the news of the US-Israeli joint operation in Iran. But last week Anthropic, and their AI product Claude was in Negotiations with the D.O.D. But the deal fell through because the United States Government would not agree to two stipulations: That their products would not be used to spy on american civilians. And that they would not be used for Autonomous. Weaponry. Don’t believe me? Here’s the New York Times Article it was in.

Yeah, and OpenAI just swooped right in at the end to seal the deal. Hard not to see parallels to the way this Paramount deal happened in the end, no?

But in the end, Paramount Skydance will likely purchase some very valuable IP from Warner Bros., and the asset that is CNN, but also with a significant amount of debt. They came in at 111 Billion, which surely breaks records. And so much of it is personally guaranteed by Larry Ellison, so much so that it cannot possibly be real, like Monopoly Money. But Netflix seems to somehow be the winner here, in not acquiring this debt. They’ve already been wired that hefty 2.8 Billion breakup fee from Paramount. As of Friday, a mere day after the news was announced. So, I’m cautiously optimistic. I read a great interview in Bloomberg with Ted Sarandos, and some of his answers were…. Illuminating to say the least. Netflix, long a disrupter - and largely distrusted by legacy studios has a unique opportunity here. To Use the 2.8 Billion in cash to fund more projects, create more entertainment jobs that have so elusive since the pandemic shutdown six years ago. So, it’s up to you Ted. You’ve been given a great opportunity to make people change their minds about you. I hope you use it.

And allow the film industry to grow under your purview.

Coming Next Week: Either a Paris Fashion Week recap OR a deep dive into my favorite author on a notable podcast.

Until Next Time,

XOXO,

Casey