A protagonist can only be as compelling as the forces of antagonism, Robert McKee once said. And while Donald Trump surely never took a screenwriting class, he instinctively understands this — and many other axioms — of Hollywood storytelling.
More than any national politician in history, the incoming president has relied on the mechanisms of modern entertainment, starting with his perpetual casting of Hollywood as the villain. Yet even as he continues to find new ways to bring together backroom politics and backlot note-giving, Trump upon his re-entry to the White House is poised to have a more complex relationship with the entertainment business than with almost any other industry, plunging the latter’s interests into financial and legislative uncertainty.
Whatever you think of him, Trump’s appropriation of Hollywood techniques is a fresh notch on the political belt. Ronald Reagan, who actually came from Hollywood, relied on some of the methods honed in this town, including the art of the Oval Office speech, a primetime magician in the network-television era. But he often transcended its manipulations, choosing statesmanship over showmanship. Trump has never met a TV trick he didn’t like.
His skills as a reality television barker are justly touted. In the first White House go-round they allowed him to make a virtue out of chaos; if it wasn’t always clear he knew what he was doing, we still tuned in to see what he would do. I’m not here to make friends, just ratings.
But Trump’s Hollywood gambits well surpass that obvious bit of abracadabra. In fact they so permeate his M.O. we can sometimes forget to notice them.
His escape from certain death on that field in Butler, PA, had echoes of John Wick dodging threats to his life again and again. He has used the more-is-more ethos of modern tentpoles, aiming with his boasts to create a bigger effect than Paul Atreides riding a sandworm. His naming of outrageous Cabinet characters seemingly every few hours over a week-long period in November was right out of the reality-TV premiere-episode playbook; can you believe who just showed up to compete in Alan Cumming’s Highlands castle? (The formula will of course be extended and reversed when many of those choices inevitably are eliminated in the months to come, the Front Man deciding which green tracksuit-wearer’s time is up.)
Trump’s selection last week of Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as “special envoys” to bring Hollywood business back from “foreign countries” was its own producerial bunny-pull. These weren’t simply the fan tastes of a man stuck in 1985. (Nor did it matter that making business harder overseas, if that’s in fact what the trio is supposed to do, is the opposite of what the industry needs, which is to shore up flagging box-office sales abroad.) Trump’s selection of these Social Security-eligible swashbucklers sought to play on our love for the just outlaw, the placing atop the call sheet the stars of First Blood, Runaway Train and Lethal Weapon nothing less than a re-casting of American history as one more Expendables installment.
The tell came in a speech from Rambo himself, who spoke to a Trump gala audience at Mar-a-Lago shortly after the election. “When George Washington defended his country, he had no idea that he was going to change the world. Because without him, you could imagine what the world would look like,” Stallone said. He then added with a straight face, “We got the second George Washington.” (No, really, he said this.) Get pumped as Barney Ross calls Lee Christmas, Yin Yang and the rest of the gang out of retirement for one last mission. And we’ll keep watching until they run out of sequels.
Yes, the art of crafting something even the most ferocious haters can’t stop clicking on is one of his biggest achievements. Trump is the Netflix algorithm in elected-official form.
And of course there’s the McKeeish goal of creating villains to further invest us in his protagonism, as he manufactures enemies out of everyone from network anchors to world leaders.
All of this one might think would give Trump a soft spot for Hollywood — an underlying respect for those who write the playbook he studiously reads (well, figuratively). Yet Trump’s biggest enemies are of course often Hollywood figures themselves. The jibes aimed at Angelina Jolie, Jay-Z, Robert De Niro and many other famous entertainers are unceasing, like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog bitten by a radioactive spider. (He hasn’t gone after Chalamet — yet.)
Much of Trump’s detestation of the Hollywood establishment is of course performative, one more nemesis to cast in his Sorkinian screenplay. Some of it, however, is genuine, propelled by his saltiness over The Apprentice not winning any Emmys — the TV Academy has “rigged” them, as he has often averred — and an ongoing (one-sided) feud with Debra Messing. Never mind that his longtime ties to Mark Burnett, NBC and Fox News make Trump allies with some of the biggest media brands in the world. That so many celebrities campaigned against him these past six months has surely only deepened his antipathy.
So what will such resentments bring as Trump takes office? What will he do — what can he do to an industry not very reliant on federal largesse? As it turns out, more than we think.
High on the list is a restriction of Web sites with pirated content. The Motion Picture Association spent years trying to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act, a restrictive law that would block entire Web sites that display even small amounts of copyrighted material. The bill was derided by a wide range of First Amendment groups, who banded together to stop it.
But the MPA in recent months has revived such efforts — Charles Rivkin gave a speech touting them at CinemaCon in April — and Trump and a Republican Congress a lot more interested in owning progressives than protecting speech could well be enlisted. It hardly seemed like a coincidence that the MPA quickly jumped to congratulate Trump and the GOP Congressional majority right after Election Day. “We look forward to working with them on a wide range of important issues for the film, TV, and streaming industry,” it said, citing all the jobs Hollywood created in a reference that shared a commonality with a favorite Republican talking point.
Back in Los Angeles celebrities were decrying Trump’s election, Jamie Lee Curtis worried about a “sure return to a more restrictive, some fear draconian time” and LeBron James telling his daughter “Promise to protect you with everything I have…we don’t need their help.” Yet in DC the MPA, acting on behalf of its seven studios, was trying on its best Mark Zuckerberg impression.
The National Association of Broadcasters has its own interest in keeping Trump close at hand. The trade group spent more on lobbying last summer than it did in years as it fights a host of battles, including against the growing call to close the loophole that allows terrestrial radio not to pay performers royalties. Defeating the push would benefit iHeartMedia, Audacy and the nation’s other large radio conglomerates (while screwing artists), which may be a reason Trump would back it and is certainly a reason NAB issued a post-Nov 5 statement that “congratulates President-elect Trump and the new and returning members of Congress.”
Southern California and its 200,000 entertainment workers now also urgently need Trump for federal relief. A wildfires aid package could be passed as soon as March, but Congressional Republicans have already said that they’d like to attach conditions to such a bill before passing it. Speaker Mike Johnson said last week that there “are things that have to be factored in with regard to the level of aid and whether there are conditions upon that.” (New York Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman fired back that the GOP “will be held accountable if partisanship dictates disaster aid.”)
Trump and California governor Gavin Newsom have previously feuded over aid too, with Trump trying to tie it to his wish that water be redirected from Northern California to the central part of the state and Newsom disagreeing on environmental grounds and even suing the Trump administration over the issue.
In such a light Trump’s likely visit to the scene of the wildfires at the end of the week is less a show of concern than a stern father’s bedroom barge. “If I don’t hear homework being done, there will be consequences.”
Collateral damage is possible in all this as well, as Trump tariffs on Chinese goods could lead to the country restricting the number of Hollywood films allowed to play in its giant market.
Meanwhile, the intended box-office depression when Trump denounces a star was hard to prove in his first White House stay. But the effect this time around will be at least as strong and possibly stronger. Partly that’s because he garnered 22 percent more votes this time around. But really it’s where those gains came from. Trump drew record numbers of Latino votes (some 42 percent pulled the lever for him). And the movie industry badly needs Latinos, who see more films per capita than any other group — at a rate 50% higher than white Americans — even as box office keeps on slipping). Trump’s influence on American entertainment consumers is growing at precisely the time the film industry’s hold on them is becoming more tenuous.
In other instances Trump is likely to go after media outlets, like his recent lawsuit against CBS for its editing of a Kamala Harris interview and his defamation suit against ABC for George Stephanopoulos’ characterization of his trial, settled for $15 million. Or try to block the mergers of companies he doesn’t like, as he reportedly attempted to do with AT&T and CNN owner Time Warner.
The administration will open with a bang right on its first day of production, as anti-immigrant raids in Chicago are calibrated to land with maximum effect on generations of Americans raised on images of Miami Vice and Children of Men. The moment will mark the first of what will no doubt be the many pushing of Hollywood buttons. In more ways than one.