THIS IS HOW IT HAPPENS

Paramount Global executives have held internal discussions about settling a lawsuit filed by ConvictedFelon34 over a CBS News interview with Vice President Kamala Harris he claims was “election interference” by CBS using “deceptive editing” of the interview, according to people familiar with the situation. CBS has defended the “60 Minutes” sit-down with Harris and denied that it had been edited misleadingly, citing many other interviews produced in the same way.

Paramount, owner of CBS, its namesake studio and several cable channels, has a major piece of business in front of the new administration: its planned merger with Skydance Media. It’s become clear to executives at both companies that ConvictedFelon34’s dissatisfaction with CBS News will make the merger review tougher than they anticipated, and that they’ll likely need to offer concessions to win approval, people familiar with the situation said.

Incoming Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr gave Paramount executives a warning to that effect at a reception late last year following the taping of the Kennedy Center honors in Washington, and he has echoed the message in public remarks.

Skydance is owned and run by wannabe Hollywood mogul David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison, owner of Oracle and one of the leading billionaires in the country. In Hollywood, Ellison senior is known as “Larry MAGA Ellison.” And MAGA really is his middle name; he invested in Elmo’s takeover of Twitter, turning it into Xitter, and Ellison doesn’t seem overly worried about losing a billion dollars through Elmo’s harum-scarum “management.” He also has no trouble with that site becoming the Nazi sewer it’s become.

David himself inherited a billion-plus from his trust fund when he turned 21, which is what has financed his 20 years in Hollywood. He gets a “pass” in Hollywood when he’s compared to such scum as David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Brothers-Discovery, who never met a cost he wouldn’t cut regardless of whose creative toes he stepped on. This is because David seems to actually like Hollywood and has an apparent “soft spot” for the way the business used to be. In fact, he was able to make the deal to buy Paramount from Shari Redstone - daughter of the late Sumner Redstone - because he was the one suitor for the company who wasn’t looking to buy it for parts, planning to sell them off to the highest bidder once acquired.

Given that his father is a major Trump supporter and closely involved with the likes of Elmo, it’s not surprising that David fails to see the defense of a free press as something important. Knuckling under to ConvictedFelon34 is merely a “cost of business” and the “smart move” given what he did when ATT merged with Warner Brothers during Trump 1.0, where he complained loudly about CNN, which is owned by Warner Brothers. The ATT-WB merger was held up for over a year by the Department of Justice on what proved to be a groundless “anti-trust” claim, following their boss’s desire to “stick it” to CNN for its coverage of him. There’s also the fucking-around he did to Disney in their merger with Fox as an example of how he will reward his friends and assail his enemies.

To the Ellisons (Larry is the backing for his son in this deal), settling the groundless CBS lawsuit and giving a few million to ConvictedFelon34 is just another expense; they’d both be upset if you accused them of bribing the mob boss.

Essentially, the incoming ConvictedFelon34 Maladministration is shaking down Paramount by promising to make the review of their merger difficult unless they grease the wheels and give ConvictedFelon34 a win in his frivolous lawsuit against CBS News.

So far as the actual business of Hollywood - “let’s put on a show!” - is concerned, as the oligarchs have fallen in line, they have been quick to make it clear they won’t be letting their little entertainment divisions jeopardize their bigger deals. In the Before Times, companies from General Electric to Coca-Cola - for all their capitalist avarice - more or less understood that allowing their media holdings basic freedom within the confines of general consensus was the price of owning a studio. But Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Apple’s CEO Tim Cook have more than made clear that they don’t subscribe to that tradition. Disney’s Bob Iger has been walking back his commitment to on-screen representation. So where would the Larry “MAGA” Ellison-owned Paramount fall? Would any mid-level executive at any Hollywood company feel that this is the moment to test their boss’ commitment to staying on the President’s good side?

The executive suites in Hollywood have a long history of knuckling their brow to the fascist fuckwits - from the Jewish founders, led by Louis B,. Mayer, dragging their heels over the issue of Hitler and the Nazis (even after Kristallnacht) due to the business they did in Germany and the investments they had in German film studios and movie houses throughout the country (Mayer accused Jack Warner of “seeking to harm us” when Warner Brothers released “I Was A Nazi Spy” after Kristallnacht), to their solid support for HUAC and McCarthy as shown by their independent creation of the Hollywood Blacklist in the 50s “Red Scare.” Trust me, I never used the word “gutsy” to describe any studio executive I ever dealt with, and people are even less unlikely to use that word in today’s “New” Hollywood.

One film producer was quoted (anonymously - nobody wants to unintentionally end up on any shitlist) in The Ankler saying, “The country has changed. It’s not the country I recognize, but we are no longer the majority. We are in the minority. So give them what they want.”

An agent was quoted, “As we found in the entertainment business, ignoring what your audience tells you is not a good business strategy. Then, I viewed his election as illegitimate; now, the people have spoken, and as an American, I want peace and prosperity, even if he gets to take credit for it.”

A successful TV writer said, “Not giving him my attention is the worst punishment I can give Trump. His power with voters and public comes from attention. Ignoring him weakens him, and it has the added benefit of keeping me blissfully not worrying about the moronic, selfish cons and shithead decisions he’s making every waking moment. My blood pressure - and America - will thank me.”

A studio executive said, “For someone like Trump, with clear narcissistic disorder, the worst thing to do is react or pay attention. Attention is his heroin.”

This quote from another studio executive is the kind of thing I recall the guys I told myself I could work with were saying back in ReaganTime: “There’s an opportunity there to create the new indie wave. Establishment Hollywood can’t do much until the country starts seeing fissures inside the Republican Party, which undoubtedly will occur sooner than we think. The biggest long-term concern is giving more power to the tech companies given their influence in the White House now. The possible guardrails from the FCC and SEC are all but gone for now.”

Overall, I think all those quotes are pretty representative of Hollywood as I came to know it (and they remind me I’m glad I’m gone).

Nobody’s going to say a damn thing when Paramount settles ConvictedFelon34's predatory lawsuit. And that will tell him he can extort more money from similar sources. And that will make any similar source highly unlikely to do anything - even something that is what they all do and have done forever, like the CBS edits that prompted the suit - that rocks the boat.

When I first got here, I met guys from the Golden Age - some had ended up on the Blacklist, some hadn’t - but they all told me that it was remarkable how easily people learned to duck and cover, how easy it was for friends not to see what was happening to their friends, since acknowledging that would put them in the line of fire.

Dalton Trumbo spoke about it when he received his Laurel Award from the WGA for his fight against the Blacklist; his speech is known as the “Only Victims” speech, for the line, “In the end, there were only victims.”

And that is how it happens. It can indeed “happen here.” It has before.

The year 2025 is going to be hard, and the years that follow are likely to be harder. That’s Another Fine Mess really needs you to step up and become a paid subscriber, to support this work. It’s only $7/month or $70/year. I thank you for your support.

Comments are for paid subscribers.