The Casting Couch Isn’t Dead: How Exploitation Survives in the Entertainment Industry
The recent suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live caused a firestorm of discourse around freedom of speech and increased authoritarianism in the United States. However, to many in the entertainment industry, it only reiterated what they already knew: corporations care about one thing and one thing alone—profit. When Brendan Carr threatened to bring the FCC down on media corporations with programming critical of the president, it didn’t matter to Disney, ABC’s parent company, that this was setting a dangerous precedent for the industry.
All that mattered was that their bottom line wasn’t affected. This kind of profit-motivated attitude is all too familiar for people in the film world. Behind all the glitz and glamour, the corporate filmmaking industry is no friend to working people—not artists, not crew, and not even actors. Corporations will use the labor and talents of artists and then throw them away once they stop turning a large enough profit. For an example of Hollywood’s tendency to abandon places and people the moment they’re no longer financially advantageous, one need only look at Georgia. Filming in Georgia has been industry standard for almost twenty years due to the state’s tax policy, which, according to The Wall Street Journal, guaranteed that studios would get back nearly a third of the money they spent filming there.
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However, many studios are abandoning Georgia and electing to shoot their films overseas. Most notably, Disney’s Marvel—which had shot two dozen projects in the Atlanta area—has recently transitioned to filming in the UK. The main draw for companies is that the United Kingdom has a similar tax policy to Georgia, but because of the UK’s free healthcare, studios would not have to cover insurance for their employees. This is bound to wreak havoc on the Georgian economy, which has been dependent on film crews and productions since 2008. Thousands of people who have tirelessly dedicated their lives to the craft of filmmaking are suddenly left holding the bag. “You feel like a jilted lover,” says Janine Gosselin, a local script supervisor and frequent collaborator with Marvel—one of many left scrambling in the wake of Hollywood’s abandonment.
Crew members aren’t the only ones treated poorly by studios. Even principal actors are used and abused under the current system. Most prominently, under the pre-2023 residuals rules, even the most famous performers were operating at a loss. Essentially, an actor receives residuals every time a show they were featured in airs on cable television, making them a vital income source for TV actors. However, for many years streaming services were allowed to pay their talent shockingly little. Kimiko Glenn, for example, was paid under $30 in residuals for her appearance in 45 episodes of Orange Is the New Black. Fortunately, due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, the residual rate for streaming was vastly improved.
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"...those residuals aren’t paid directly to the artists; they actually go to our union to pay for our healthcare. So not paying artists residuals on their work means they are indirectly defunding our healthcare.”
According to the new formula, creatives can earn residuals based on the popularity of the platform the show is on, how many years it has been on that platform, and even earn bonuses if their show is watched by 20% of the platform’s subscribers within 90 days of release. Unfortunately, some companies have started removing titles from their streaming platforms, rendering some shows legally unwatchable and eliminating the possibility of their creators receiving residuals. In May 2023, Disney+ removed the series Willow from the service, and in October of that same year, Warner Brothers removed the critically acclaimed Infinity Train from all digital retailers.
News of these deletions sparked outrage among fans and creators. Warwick Davis, who starred in Willow, called the deletion “#embarrassing” on Twitter. Owen Dennis, the creator of Infinity Train, said that deleting the show and denying its artists their residuals was an attack on their livelihoods: “Our pay is not complete without the ongoing residuals. Those residuals aren’t paid directly to the artists; they actually go to our union to pay for our healthcare. So not paying artists residuals on their work means they are indirectly defunding our healthcare.”
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As if it weren’t enough to financially decimate entire regions through abandonment, criminally underpay principal actors, and erase entire shows to satisfy a bottom line, corporations are finding ways to completely forgo the use of human beings altogether. Programs like OpenAI’s video generation software, Sora, allow for the creation of entire films with nothing but a prompt. This new technology has already attracted the attention of prominent individuals and studios in the film world. The highly acclaimed director of Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, has founded an AI studio called Primordial Soup, and Marvel’s Secret Invasion used AI generation to create the show’s opening credits.
Many artists, writers, and actors are concerned that the widespread implementation of AI will leave entire industries obsolete and millions out of work. Studios, on the other hand, like AI because it brings all the fiscal benefits of hiring an artist without actually having to pay them. “The American film industry has always resented the fact that it has to associate with artists,” says film critic and video essayist Mariana Colin. “[To executives] filmmaking is just a matter of tweaking a formula.”
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When you view art as nothing more than a product and treat those who create it as tools to be used and thrown away, replacing humans with AI is the logical move. It is the end goal of Hollywood capitalism—outsourcing creativity and thought itself. All these factors tell us what we already know: corporations don’t care about art, people, or anything that doesn’t directly improve their bottom line. While this is undoubtedly bad for everyone in the industry, it is also a weakness that can be exploited. Even minor threats to a corporation’s profitability are treated as deadly serious, which means that unions, boycotts, and government regulations can pressure companies to behave more responsibly toward their employees.
The rehiring of Jimmy Kimmel is a perfect example of this: the public outcry worked, and Disney course-corrected on his firing before anyone on Kimmel’s staff even had to update their LinkedIn. The situation is grim but not hopeless for those in the entertainment industry. Despite their best efforts, corporations are not indomitable—especially not against the will of the people and, more importantly, their wallets.
by Abigail Hogewood
