Like most of us, I love to be entertained. In fact, in a recent post, I even admitted my need to be self-vigilant and self-disciplined by my love for Disney. [1, 1a, 2]
But, for me, business and entertainment are conjoined. As an intellectual property and branding attorney for 35 years, it is my business to assess practical marketing tactics as a function of culture, particularly when things go sideways. [3, 4] And, all the more so, when the things that go sideways are functions of freedom, patriotism, rhetoric, political science, and philosophy. [5, 6]
We already know that things went very sideways for Bud Light with the Dylan Mulvaney beer can campaign. And there are parallels with the activities of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that gives the Academy Award, the Oscar®.
In the posts about the Bud Light debacle, one of the points was that the marketing team at Bud conflated law, which has the power of force, with marketing, which must use the power of seduction. The Bud marketing team, seeing social inclusion as a good thing (and quite rightly so), tried to force that social principle down the throat of its then-current loyal “frat-boy” consumers via their beer. This conflation of law and marketing proved to be catastrophic.
A bit less socially direct and accessible (than consuming beer), the Academy created a new social Representation and Inclusion Standards; paraphrased in pertinent part, to wit:
For the 96th Oscars (Award Show 2024),..meeting TWO out of FOUR of the following standards will be required in order for the film to be deemed eligible…
A film can achieve this standard by meeting the criteria in at least ONE of the following areas: A1…At least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors is from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group in a specific country or territory of production. A2. At least 30% of all actors in secondary and more minor roles are from at least two underrepresented groups… B1. At least two of the following creative leadership positions and department heads—Casting Director, Cinematographer, Composer, Costume Designer, Director, Editor, Hairstylist, Makeup Artist, Producer, Production Designer, Set Decorator, Sound, VFX Supervisor, Writer. B2. At least six (6) other crew/team and technical positions (excluding Production Assistants) are from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group. These positions include but are not limited to First AD, Gaffer, Script Supervisor, etc. B3. At least 30% of the film’s crew is from at least two underrepresented groups…
It goes on, and you can review the entire policy at Representation and Inclusion Standards. Irrespective of the lawfulness of the new Academy policy, inclusion is a great and noble thing, as a general philosophical principle.
Now, let’s get one thing out of the way fast. Just like with Bud Light, we need to remember that there is the Civil Rights Act and its progeny. The Civil Rights Act is not a minor or incidental fact, but a major pervasive social accomplishment to the credit of the American People.
So the pervasive law regarding social categorical equality is already there, for Budweiser, for the Academy, and for all of us. [7] If the law is not good enough, it should be protested and, with sufficient influence, changed by legitimate social processes to achieve a new and better social standard.
Of course, we should applaud the Academy for its intention to self-create its own self-professed overriding industry-pervasive inclusion standards—that is, applauded by Caucasian XY-men and everyone else—because at least it appears to be a noble shackle of force. But I will suggest the implementation is overreaching, misapplied and misplaced.
Like Bud Light, the Academy has conflated its role. Indeed, the Academy is an effect, not a cause. [8] By its overreach, the Academy has now cast itself into the creative process itself, forcing overriding talent decisions, and limiting creative artistic freedom beyond application of law.
I wholly support social inclusion, but I will suggest that it is an unwise and bad seed—a wolf in sheep’s clothing. [9, 10, 11]
Indeed, again, lest we forget, the socially vetted federal law already exists to protect minorities in social and hiring situations, including the making of motion pictures. But, even worse than Bud Light, the Academy is using its power and quasi-force, such as surrogate law, though the back door.
[Commercial lawyers will recognize the tactic often used by the State of California; to wit, California will pass a noble law to protect Californians, but manufacturers—the players—know that the economy of California is so powerful that the California law becomes, de facto, the commercial law of the United States. The tail wags the dog, as it were…]
Yet another subtle onslaught of private doctrine through the vehicle of entertainment. I do not suggest here that Bud Light, or Disney, or the Academy, is doing anything illegal, but only perhaps artfully dodging.
The Academy has power—like Disney—that is part of the core fabric of the entire entertainment industry. It controls human resources, financing, advertising, marketing, and just about everything else. What the Academy cannot accomplish systemically from the top-down by application of law, it will do from the bottom-up through industry control. Of course, bias will always be there at the Academy Awards by virtue of subjective human evaluation. [12] But now it is codified by the Academy underpinning application of force. Comply or die.
Behold the now toppling so-called Academy of Motion Picture “Arts and Sciences.” Motion pictures are art and the process is science. Blue and yellow make green; that’s the science of it—but what the creator does with color is the art of it. No one should force the artist to use certain colors or to limit the tools. To control the artist, to control the tools, and to control the colors, is to control the expression. Beware and be vigilant, motion pictures today, music tomorrow. [13]
Art is expression. Expression in a free country must be free—freely-thought and freely expressed—like it or not. Art is the effect that must be free in cause, and science is the cause that is only reflective in effect.
The color of a man’s skin is completely irrelevant to the essence of a man’s character. And, knowing this, in light of the Academy’s proper disciplined role to judge what is presented to it, it should stick to its role of inspiring great movies that tell the story. If there ever were a story that should be re-made for the current generation, it is The Defiant Ones (Oscar Best Orig. Screenplay, 1958) being a sublime exposition of how prejudice is defeated by knowledge. [14]
Just make great movies that teach and tell us stories. The Academy is filtering the gnat and swallowing the camel. In 1995, Forrest Gump had to defeat Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, and The Shawshank Redemption. Let the art be made unto itself. Let it be. Truth and art must be free.
The answer is not to shackle the creative process by power and force. Perhaps the Academy should re-watch the classic, The Tale of Two Cities (Oscar Nom. Best Picture, 1937), which exposes how undisciplined human nature can be self-destructive after having achieved the power of freedom, by application of the Reign of Terror.
Here’s what the Academy should have said:
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences supports a socially inclusive process of making motion pictures, and wholly supports the legal standards applicable in that regard.
It is has been brought to the Academy’s attention, with some fervor by its members, that the Academy should create and enforce certain inclusion standards in the process of making motion pictures. This is a very noble request and we are very sensitive to this situation.
However, the Academy restrains itself to the role of subjective evaluator of the artwork placed before it for review. Although the Academy acknowledges that it has the power to create industry standards, it disciplines itself to the resultant artistic expression placed before it, understanding that there are applicable legal and other regulatory processes that set the social standard for lawful human association as controlling the means by which that resultant artwork is created.
Therefore, the Academy will properly continue to limit its role only to evaluating lawfully created motion picture artwork that is placed before it for review and not to creating pseudo-legal standards that are better addressed in settings where laws are freely created.
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Alice More: Arrest him!
Thomas More: Why, what has he done?
Margaret More: He’s bad!
Thomas More: There is no law against that.
William Roper: There is! God’s law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Alice: While you talk, he’s gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
A Man for All Seasons. 39th Academy Awards, Oscar Best Picture, 1966
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[1] Why the Walt Disney Company is the Most Dangerous Company in the World
[2] Disney’s New Lion King – Cowardly or Brave? [Spoiler Alert-Maybe] – Stand for America®
[3] The Recipe to Make Bud Wiser [Branding, Part I]
[4] Marlboro Man; You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. [Branding, Part II]
[5] Stand for America® – Issue 1. Stand for America
[6] Mind Control, Protests and the Goal – Stand for America®
[7] All Men Are Not Created Equal, or Why Thomas Jefferson Got it Wrong – Stand for America®
[8] Pro-Life or Pro-Choice? Chapter 2, Cause and Effect
[12] Pro-Life or Pro-Choice? Chapter 1, Bias
[13] Too Many Notes, Amadeus (Oscar, Best Picture, 1985)
[14] Me, Too; Not, You. Or, the Exceptional Principle. – Stand for America®
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© 2023 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Gregg can be contacted through LinkedIn.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/academy-awards-bud-light-parallels-gone-sideways-wind-zegarelli-esq-
Stand for America® is a series of publications written by Gregg Zegarelli intersecting philosophy and traditional American values published by Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group. Printed or reprinted with permission.
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