The Trump Presidency

[gillianren]

And I mean, the abuses of the studio system before the coming of the unions were real and shocking.  Most people of Golden Age Hollywood had stories, and that's the stars; presumably the people behind the scenes were even more mistreated.  Limiting how many hours a day you could film was a good start.  There's also a reason there are multiple laws in California named after movie stars--they're the laws intended to protect actors from the mistreatment of the studios or, in the case of Coogan laws, their own families.

[JayUtah]

Don't get me started.  Keith (Jackie's grandson) is a sometimes acquaintance.  We've had a few chats about working in Hollywood.  And as you can expect, they've chipped away at the Coogan Law to provide plenty of dubious exceptions.  And you probably know Gary Coleman's story.  He eventually moved to Utah and died here; he lived just down the road from my sister.  In the case of the Directors Guild of America, part of the motivation was creative control.  Under the oppressive studio system, most directors had comparatively little say on what was done creatively with the results of their labor.

Again, human nature at work (no pun intended).  A lot has been written on how the labor movement arose in Hollywood, and why.  It started because human nature exploited others' creativity as mere labor, and created an economic system that corralled the creatives into an impossible situation.  And the rebound suffered from human nature in the other direction.  The creatives (and skilled stage workers) ended up pricing themselves out of the market, according to the incorrect presumption that the studios were bound to employ them for the same reasons the studios once presumed their grandparents were bound to work for them on their terms:  mobility.  "You want how much to staff my production?  We can film in Utah for less than a quarter of that."  Once the entertainment labor realizes it doesn't have to move to a coast to get work, the capital realizes it can shop around.  (I'm told one of the big flaws in the study of labor economics is the presumption of labor mobility throughout history.  I'm not going to venture there.  Not really my wheelhouse, and I have to get the lawn mowed today.)

But that's entertainment.  Once you decide to run it like a business, you should -- you know -- run it like a business.  Let capital and labor work it out, under reasonable anti-exploitation regulation, and (hopefully) according to good-faith negotiations.  A separate argument should be had about whether the apparatus of government should be run like a business.  Should governmental authority and paid public labor have the same relationship as private employers and employees?  Should government operations expect to make a profit?  Should we allow privatization?  If we define certain public services as necessary, should the people we pay to provide those services be allowed to strike?  Conversely, should government shutdowns as part of political power plays be allowed?  And more to the most recent point, if the police are the state instrument given the authority to enforce the people's wishes by condoned violence, should that even be within the realm of normal labor relations?  Should "police unions" even be a thing?  We give them the special power to be violent on our behalf.  Why should that group of people subsequently get to negotiate the terms by which it can be applied?  That's not how I think it should work.

[Obviousman]

What's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?

Under Capitalism, Man exploits Man.

Under Communism, it is the other way around.

[gillianren]

A cousin of mine was a child actor (actually, I know most of the people here have seen at least one of his movies, if for no other reason than to mock it--he's in Armageddon).  He would've been okay regardless; his parents are good people who wouldn't have exploited his money.  But there's a kid on YouTube that I worry a lot about, because few states have Coogan laws, and no one's sure if they apply to things like YouTube videos anyway, so who even knows how his parents are handling things?  Not to mention how completely unsustainable his particular type of YouTube stardom will prove to be as he gets older.

[JayUtah]

A cousin of mine was a child actor (actually, I know most of the people here have seen at least one of his movies, if for no other reason than to mock it--he's in Armageddon).

Work is work.  Most of the former child actors I work with locally were in High School Musical and the aforementioned insipid Disney Channel movies.  In fact, when I directed the youth theater production of the stage version, I tried to cast the "I play cello!" guy in his original role as a favor to his dad (who played John Hancock in the play my avatar comes from).  Sadly he had aged out of the contractual limits for our play.

Everything I did before my early 20s was mock-worthy.  There's an unspoken rule that we don't criticize each other for what we did to get started.

He would've been okay regardless; his parents are good people who wouldn't have exploited his money.  But there's a kid on YouTube that I worry a lot about...

There's a lot about the monetized YouTube phenomenon that has me a lot concerned.

Take as a counter example the Working With Lemons channel on YouTube.  I love this family.  The dad is a long-time friend.  I've worked with most of his kids when they were child actors.  Rather than live through his kids as their careers take off, he gets into it with them and casts his family in videos that have a surprising production values.  This is an entertainment-oriented family done right.  Sure, it's mostly about the kids.  But it's not like he's living the posh suburban lifestyle off his kids' monetized YouTube.

Most of us who have some experience in the stage and film industry have a sixth sense for toxic parents.  Word gets out, and around.  But there's not much we can do by way of intervention.  Utah has zero laws that specially regulate child labor in entertainment, or their compensation.  There is no special law that prevents the parent from taking the child's income, although I understand there are some legal protections.  Not that the child actors I know locally make enough to plunder.  But you never know what some unscrupulous parents will do.  Because, you know, everyone's a jerk these days.

[JayUtah]

What's the difference between Capitalism and Communism?

Under Capitalism, Man exploits Man.

Under Communism, it is the other way around.

This seems to be Russia in a nutshell.  I was forced to read a lot of Russian literature in college.  I noted patterns of exploitation in those vaguely Tsarist plot lines.  Then there was the Russian revolution, and pretty much we returned to the same patterns of exploitation.   Democracy will fix that, right?  And we're back to the same patterns of exploitation.  I'm pretty sure I'm simplifying 200 years of history in a region of the world full of highly diverse people.  But what I see is that it really doesn't matter what economic system you choose, or what governmental system you choose.  Human nature -- as it ends up being expressed in one's part of the world -- just finds ways to exploit the flaws in those systems to funnel resources toward the benefit of the few oligarchs.

Where are we now in America?  Back to the same economic and governmental dynamic that gave us the Carnegies and the Vanderbilts and the Morgans.  As Michael Cohen seems to be ready to say in his forthcoming book, Donald Trump's secret to success was convincing a whole bunch of middle-class voters that he cared about them, and that if they worked very hard (at starvation wages) they could become as rich and successful as he did, under his leadership.

[JayUtah]

To try to drag this back to the Trump topic:  Many of you have probably heard of the President's claim of a planeload of thugs sent to disrupt the Republican Party's national convention.  Our local paper is reporting that they have uncovered the likely source of the conspiracy theory.  Senator Devin Nunes (we love that guy, right?) reported that he had to change planes in Salt Lake City and boarded a flight on which he said there were ostensibly a lot of BLM protesters.  The flight was to Washington DC, and the protesters were joining several more groups from all across the country to participate in the March on Washington.

And because Sen. Nunes is such a Trumpian toady, he spun his own conspiracy theory (apparently on Twitter) about how they were paid, coordinated disrupters.  And how they weren't even Black, so how could they be real BLM protester.  Pres. Trump apparently embellished it into thugs wearing black Antifa uniforms.

Well, no.  I've lately become acquainted with a number of these people.  They're "coordinated" only in that they prudently chose to take the same flight to DC to simplify travel arrangements.  They're not at all paid, and in fact many of them sacrificed quite a bit of their personal income to participate in something they feel very strongly about.  They're young idealists, to be sure.  But this is their time and their cause.  They are what I think of when I read about the civil rights activists of the 1960s.  And yes they're white -- because the vast majority of Utahns are white.  It's hard for anyone of color in Utah to achieve even token representation.  As a middle-aged white male, I see utter disregard on the part of power elites for anyone who doesn't look like me.  It requires us to advocate for them in order for change to happen.

But honestly I don't see how a grown man -- a Senator -- can just so knee-jerkedly shift into speculation and conspiracy theories.  It's like these people literally don't know how to think otherwise.

[Jeff Raven]

But honestly I don't see how a grown man -- a Senator -- can just so knee-jerkedly shift into speculation and conspiracy theories.  It's like these people literally don't know how to think otherwise.

My own thoughts are that this is true for some of them, that it's simply a matter of not being able to think well. However, I think in many cases it is planned, in the sense that it is an opportunity to distort reality to suit and promote an agenda. And this happens on both sides of the aisle, so it's not just a right vs. left issue. It seems to be an entrenched part of many in politics, especially for those that have been in it for a while. Not all, but many.

Reminds me of a scene from the West Wing with Ainsley and Leo, where she calls him out on something, and his response is, "I'm a politician, Ainsely. Of course I lied to you just then."

[gillianren]

Among other things, it literally does not occur to these people that it's possible to care about black people even if you are yourself white.  Now, I firmly believe Trump doesn't really care about anyone but himself, but for most of the others, they're so intensely tribalist that white people at a BLM rally are inherently suspicious because why do they care?

[JayUtah]

I suppose I'm naive to think that politicians won't act like politicians.  And I may have a biased view of the politicians I've known personally and worked with.  I know them and work with them because I agree with their politics.  And in some cases they're close friends, so I would be naturally inclined to overlook their excesses and elaborations.  One of them was even one of the former child actors I mentioned yesterday.  He grew up, got a degree in political science, and worked for the Obama administration.

We live in an era that's approaching real-time fact-checking on public claims.  I guess if many, but not all, politicians are doing this, we might expect the old guard to be the worst at it.  Maybe the younger generation realizes they can't really get away with lying about situations where there were many people present.  The protests I'm observing are being recorded not just by professional journalists, but by legions of people wielding their camera phones.  It's really becoming impossible for any faction to lie about the events and there not being some objective set of facts available to test the claim.  I suppose that's countered by people having become more polarized in their consumption of media.  More facts are available, I feel, but we are paying more selective attention to them.

I do have to tell one more entertainment related story, since so many aspects of it just lined up.  I was at Warner Brothers working on a small project, and it was over the U.S. Labor Day weekend -- just like today.  Since all the productions were shut down for the holiday, our studio liaison graciously gave up half his day off to give us a personal tour of the entire studio lot.  Lots to tell, of course, but one of the sets we visited was The West Wing.

I confirmed they used a particular lighting technique that I suspected from watching the show:  the ceilings are stretched muslin and not solid panels.  You put the lights above it and they shine through it to diffuse the light.  The practical light fixtures are actually hung from chains attached to the grid high overhead.  Then for shots that show the ceiling, you light from underneath and the muslin turns opaque.

The carpets are filthy.  Lots of equipment rolls around in there, so it's not surprising.  And few shots look down at the floor such that you could see it.  And as was the case before widespread high-definition television, the construction is actually a lot more crude than you'd expect for the "White House."

The best part was the iconic entryway into the West Wing.  They literally cut out part of the wall of the soundstage and built the replica of the entry outside it, so that you can go from outside to the interior sets in one long tracking shot -- their trademark.

[JayUtah]

Now, I firmly believe Trump doesn't really care about anyone but himself, but for most of the others, they're so intensely tribalist that white people at a BLM rally are inherently suspicious because why do they care?

Which, I guess, is the whole problem.  People of color have to convince the powers that be they are legitimate subjects of empathy.  Not as people of color, but simply as people.  I reiterate that the American Experiment is, in my opinion, whether very disparate people can come together to make a single nation.  This convinces me such an experiment cannot succeed.

[Jeff Raven]

That is very cool about the WW set, Jay. Thank you for sharing that. And talk about a simple, practical way to create the entryway so it can have natural lighting, etc.  Nice!

I also wanted to add that I have had a number of positive interactions with those in office, although it has almost always been at the local level (my dad was supervisor of the town I grew up in for most of my first 30 years) and occasionally at the county and state level (don't think I ever spoke or spent time with national office-holders). And in those cases, while there definitely was politics happening (small town politics are definitely a thing), since the office-holders were generally well-known, it was a little harder for them to get away with being as out of touch as those at the higher levels might get, simply due to the difference in distance and size of constituency.

[Obviousman]

They literally cut out part of the wall of the soundstage and built the replica of the entry outside it, so that you can go from outside to the interior sets in one long tracking shot -- their trademark.

The walk & talk. I love that show. I wish they had done a sequel with President Santos (although I would have been happy with President Vinik).

[JayUtah]

I've taken to watching the show in reruns these days, just so I can be reminded what a real Presidency might look like, even fictionalized.  I should probably start a different thread to cover all my entertainment industry stories.  This really should stay focused on the Trump Presidency and all that's wrong with it.

I see the flap today is over a selectively edited video clip purporting to show the President meandering in alleged confusion after talking to reporters, instead of walking to Marine One.  The longer clip shows he was merely waiting for Melania and shows no sign -- at least at that time -- of impairment.  Yeah, don't do that.  I don't agree with the "fight fire with fire" rationale.  Donald Trump gives us plenty of factual reasons to oppose his actions.  We don't need to be making stuff up.

[Jeff Raven]

I see the flap today is over a selectively edited video clip purporting to show the President meandering in alleged confusion after talking to reporters, instead of walking to Marine One.  The longer clip shows he was merely waiting for Melania and shows no sign -- at least at that time -- of impairment.  Yeah, don't do that.  I don't agree with the "fight fire with fire" rationale.  Donald Trump gives us plenty of factual reasons to oppose his actions.  We don't need to be making stuff up.

I agree that it's not right and shouldn't be done.  That's even more true if someone is trying to claim the higher moral ground and portray themselves as being on the 'right side'.  Unfortunately the pragmatist in me says that that's one of the most effective ways (and in some cases seemingly the only way) to score points with far too many voters. Sadly we know that logic and critical thinking don't have the influence we would like them to.

I also know I'm setting myself up for failure, but I really am hoping that we will actually have a very large turnout, in whatever form that happens to be. I'm sick of having such a low percentage of people casting votes. If he gets re-elected, I'd like it to reflect the wishes of the overwhelming majority of eligible voters, not just the pathetic 58% that voted last time. I know in some states and districts the results are pretty much a foregone conclusion, but that's not the case everywhere, and even so, those in the minority should still be counted.