A Tale of Two Attitudes
You might have missed an interesting set of posts over the weekend. First there was this:
Justin Samuels is suing Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Endeavor — two of Hollywood’s top talent agencies — for eight million dollars. The scribe says that he has been unable to obtain professional screenwriting work because of those agencies’ racially and sexually discriminatory practices. “Their extremely restrictive recruiting policies for screenwriters locks out non-white and women screenwriters,” Samuels, age 34, told the Hollywood Investigator. “I tried to break in for nine years. I’ve sent out hundreds, if not thousands of query letters.
“Major production companies always respond by saying that you need an agent to submit to them. Major agencies — such as CAA and WME — say that they don’t accept unsolicited communications, and that the only way they would consider you is if a major player in the industry referred you.”
In comments there was a significant amount of umbrage taken at Samuels’ actions as well as some advice he could heed to promote his chances at breaking into the business as a screenwriter. [Unfortunately unless he can discover a way to go back in time and decide not to sue the very agencies he’s hoping to represent him, he’s pretty much screwed on that front].
Perhaps the most egregious comment in the formal complaint from Samuels, a graduate of Cornell University with a B.A. in history, is this:
I minored in English and writing classes. I’ve done screenwriting workshops on the side. But my work has no chance of even being considered by a Hollywood talent agency, as I am not in the inner circle of the industry, whose support I would need for an industry referral. This is nepotism and racism at its worst. Yes, I assume I’d succeed in screenwriting if not for the alleged discrimination.
That right there, both in text and subtext, is an expression of entitlement. The problem with that way of thinking is this simple fact:
Movies don’t owe anybody a living.
Samuels’ lawsuit demonstrates not only poor judgment — because of this lawsuit, why will anybody in Hollywood choose to work with him in the future — it also suggests his utter failure to grasp the simple fact that he like all the rest of us is entitled to nothing in the entertainment business.
In stark contrast to Samuels’ approach, there was this post, featuring a NYT article on young actor-screenwriter Brit Marling:
For two years, she read how-to screenplay-writing books while working on scripts with her two roommates. In the mornings she wrote upstairs with her friend (and ex-boyfriend) Mike Cahill; in the afternoon she went downstairs and worked on another with roommate №2, Zal Batmanglij. Together the friends eventually managed to make both movies, with financing from an independent production house and an individual investor. Both films were accepted to the Sundance festival this past winter and bought by Fox Searchlight. In “Sound of My Voice,” Marling, who is 27, plays a crazed cult leader; in “Another Earth,” which is being released this month, she enters a complex relationship with a man whose family she killed in a drunken-driving accident.
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She spent the rest of college collaborating with Batmanglij and Cahill on experimental films. The summer before her senior year, though, she took an internship at Goldman. If anything, it left her disillusioned. “I started to feel like it was all a bit of a fraud, all these charts and regressions and models.” She turned down the subsequent job offer and took a year to travel to Cuba to shoot a documentary with Cahill. “Living in Cuba made me unafraid of whatever could happen to me. Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life.”
If you read the entire article — which you should — it is clear that Marling understands that movies don’t owe her a living. Instead of whining about it, she put her ass on the line, wrote, acted in, and worked to create two movies, both of which were accepted at the Sundance Film Festival, both of which have distribution deals. Indeed just today IndieWire in this article reports that Sound of My Voice is one of two films to top its mid-year report on indie films. You can go here to access 7 critics reviews of the movie, giving it a cumulative A-.
Knowing she was entitled to nothing, Marling worked to make things happen, most notably by creating content. Her talent, persistence, and drive resulted in her good fortune.
It could just be me, but I’m thinking that approach is probably smarter than suing two of Hollywood’s top talent and lit agencies.
Thanks to Teddy Pasternak for making the connection between the Samuels post and the Marling post.
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