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Perhaps the most shocking story in Burn It All Down, Maureen Ryan's elegant destruction of Hollywood's brutality, is when she gets to the dolls. Her book is forensic, revealing the toxic culture that Lorne Michaels created on Saturday Night Live. She talks about the years of abuse social media producer Scott Rudin subjected his employees to in the US and UK. Her revelations about the behind-the-scenes chaos in Lost are grim, but not entirely unexpected. And the Muppets?
“Everyone loves the Muppets,” she nods as we discuss it during a long transatlantic Zoom chat — Ryan is a contributing editor for Variety and lives in Chicago. «Do you think that? Now Mo is going to make me depressed about the Muppets? I would like to make it clear, I love dolls and everything related to them. I lived for Pigs in Space and adored Dr. Bunsen Honeydew. But they had two showrunners that I have questions about.»
In a chapter on how Hollywood relies on intellectual property reuse, she talks about the 2015 revival of The Muppets led by showrunner Bob Kushell. Most of the stories she tells about him are difficult to tell in a respectable newspaper. The safest are his endless tales of his erotic dreams to female colleagues, his shouting «fuck her in the ass!» whenever he received feedback from a woman and, upon hearing the writer's account of the attack, asked if she wanted to have sex. (Cushell, fired from the 2018 CBS comedy for using «unacceptable language,» did not respond to Ryan's requests for comment.)
The Muppets' recent reincarnation at Disney+ The Muppets Mayhem, a curious show about their own band trying to record an album, was created by Adam Goldberg, whose autobiographical sitcom The Goldbergs ran for 10 years on the US network ABC. When Ryan asked to be interviewed, his response that the Muppets were his «dream job» was accompanied by a letter from an attorney advising her not only that the claims against Mr. Goldberg were false, but that Mr. Well, Goldberg. and the reputation your book might inflict if you choose to publish false claims about him.”
As she writes, it looks like one of the less fun Muppet capers. But it neatly illustrates the first half of her book, which lays out her arguments using carefully researched stories that came later or were barely reported during the MeToo outpourings. As a quality television lover who has been writing reviews and articles about the small screen since 1997, she gradually realized that “bad leadership, abuse, domination, intimidation and all sorts of prejudices were quite common and they were tolerated, allowed or encouraged.” she says, still a little disappointed.
'Everybody Loves The Muppets': A scene from the 2015 Muppets revival. Photo: Michael Desmond
“It's very hard to wrap your head around because the consequences are too big. If there has always been a lot of coercion, bullying, assault, intimidation and toxicity, and if it was wrong in 2017, I think it has always been wrong. If this has always been wrong, then how much were the people who were part of this system involved in it? The point is that we all have to deal with a system that is fundamentally flawed.”
In a chapter of a book published in the UK on July 6, Ryan reveals the racism inherent in the «awakened» liberal supernatural detective series Sleepy Hollow, which ran for four seasons from 2013 to 2017 with Tom Milson as the reanimated Ichabod Crane. and Nicole Behari as FBI agent Abby Mills. Behari left the show at the end of the third season following false rumors that she was difficult to work with, that she had mental health issues, and that she had bitten a hairdresser. Ryan quotes a Fox publicist who spread rumors about Behari to journalists.
In an interview after she left the show, Behari said that «all people of color on this show were considered expendable and were eventually let go», recalling that she and Milson «both got sick at the same time with the same illness and were treated differently. He was allowed to go on vacation for a month, and I had to continue working.”
“With regards to Sleepy Hollow, if you were to ask all the executives at this studio, 'Do you think racism is a good thing?', everyone would say, 'No. We think it's bad.» She smiles wryly. “The stars, Mison and Behari, had a hard time adjusting to being MCs on a network show. Everyone who worked with Nicole found her likable, but the influencers on the show were passing negative reviews on to anyone and everyone, even those who had never met her.»
Nicole Behari and Tom Mison in Sleepy Hollow. Photo: Rex
Again and again, Burn It Down returns to showrunners who seem to wither under the pressure of work and take it out on those below them. A former employee of the hit show Lost describes the writers' room as «a carnivorous ecosystem with its carnivorous megafauna.» When Ryan, whose research is accurate and meticulous, takes all of his interviews with many Lost employees and creates a «word cloud» of their adjectives, the most common ones are violent, brutal, destructive, racist, sexist, intimidating, and offensive. She shows this cloud to Damon Lindelof, one of the series' creators. «I fully and completely endorse your word cloud,» he tells her, and then says it's not his fault.
Her coverage on Saturday Night Live describes veteran comedy establishment Lorne Michaels as the effective dictator of a mini-television republic who fosters a culture in which a teenage fan is repeatedly sexually harassed at after-show parties by one of the actors before famous feminist. comedians who didn't say a word. (Ryan shared his story with Michaels and NBC and received an email from the broadcaster saying «we appreciate your contacting, but NBC is pulling out.»)
Michaels is one of the most beloved figures in show business. who considers Pauls Simon and McCartney close friends. I confess I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of so-called «good guys» named and shamed in the book.
“Look, what Harvey Weinstein did, what Scott Rudin did, is so egregious and I think Hollywood is smart enough to understand that some egregious behavior cannot and will not be tolerated,” she smiles grimly. . “But what these very obviously troubled people are doing is a big shiny neon distraction while someone like Lorne Michaels, his image is the opposite of Weinstein and Rudin. And I think it's dangerous when someone has such unlimited power. What you have in Hollywood is an $80 million producer and an assistant who lives on two months of ramen and maybe sometimes lives in his car, that's an invitation to exploitation.»
'We shouldn't put people on a pedestal': a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Photo: AP Photo/HBO, Claudette Barius
But, I say bitterly, Curb your enthusiasm…? Lucasfilm? “I think what you need to understand — and it’s not what triggers the sexy headline that everyone clicks on — is that you shouldn’t attribute the quality of the work to the people who make it,” she says softly. “We should not put people on a pedestal. Because what this pedestal usually does is crush many bodies and truths under it.”
What's unusual about Burn It Down is the second half of the book, where Ryan does what journalists almost never do — offers solutions to the problems they report.
“The thing is,” she explains, “it's not all inevitable. Hollywood bought into the myth of the tortured brilliant artist. They think that destructive behavior promotes great creativity. But this is a system where you take a group of introverted people who are trying to think about how to make a film, obsessed with their story, and by nature they are not good leaders. We need to provide them with the support, training and resources they need and monitor them to make sure it happens. It's not difficult.»
What if Hollywood is right, I ask. What if success comes at the cost of giving freedom to the creator, even if it comes at a cost? What if you can't make a good omelette without shouting racist slurs at broken eggs while they're being sexually abused?
«Well, take [Breaking Bad creator] Vince Gilligan — he's a gem,» she shrugs. “I never heard a single word against him. And I was in enough rooms with enough people to work with him. They wanted to slip me the word about QT, they would have done it. And I'm not saying that Vince Gilligan is perfect, but he created Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, I'd say both of them were pretty good shows and he handled it with no staff turnover. You may not even know who Vince Gilligan is — he never gives interviews about his greatness. He is not Aaron Sorkin. He simply ran humane workplaces where creativity flowed because people didn't live in a state of fear. Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
In the book, she names those who have proposed solutions in the past — Time Out, which collapsed under the weight of scandals, slander and infighting, and the Hollywood Commission, set up by Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, to create reporting. whistleblower portal. “At first it was announced: “We will release it in 2021.” It didn’t happen,” she shakes her head. “Then we will release it in 2022.” Did not happen. As far as I can tell, it still doesn't work.
Hollywood, she notes, prefers to cover up cracks rather than clean them up. «Why are there Academy Awards?» she throws up her hands. “Because in the 1920s there were all these Hollywood name scandals and the studio executives wanted to create an organization that would make the industry a better place. Also, to keep people from unionizing since the idea of guilds has crept into the industry.” She shakes her head. “Because from the very beginning, Hollywood has been exploiting many people who want to work in this golden, ideal industry. It's not really glamorous for the most part, but they allow awards to exploit people's idea that it's glamorous to hide a lot of sins.»
The response to the book in America encouraged her. “Consumers don't really want to buy shoes in a factory where eight-year-old boys work 12-hour shifts,” she nods. “People would really like to see what they like produced in humane workplaces. It's not a huge, crazy request. I think The Flash's box office performance — after years of accusations against star Ezra Miller — may be another lesson.»
And the industry has been equally welcoming, she notes with surprise. “I was so nervous,” she admits. “I'm pretty tough on the industry. I thought I would be hated by people saying, «She's too awake.» But I think because I took into account many points of view. I don't think anyone can say that I wanted to vilify people in a cheap, tasteless way. But the reaction within the industry, they want the same. They don't want people to be abused, exploited and hurt to make films and television.”
Her proposals for change are extensive, and many of them are aimed at corporations. It's an ambitious program on the page, until she points out that it's less stringent than her husband's workplace HR processes, which have nothing to do with Hollywood.
There are some people who should be fired forever, but she preaches forgiveness. «If you can't give anyone the benefit of the doubt, then you're setting yourself up for a life in hell,» she says with a smile. “And I personally don't want to live in hell because I've done a lot of Hollywood coverage, so I've been there before.”
Burn It Down is published (HarperCollins, £25). in the UK on July 6
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