site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Looking thru Wikipedia - I’m surprised there are still some examples of this. I’d assume the stars have agents who know the accounting games and would have their workarounds at this point. I could see things working years ago for studios in their contracts but I’d assume the agents and lawyers on the other side aren’t idiots.

The examples from the 2010s section involve either old cases or losses for studios in lawsuits for trying this against established stars e.g. with the cast of Bones or Frank Darabont vs AMC. So at least their lawyers were on-point.

I assume anyone with leverage is wise now.

Other people just take what they can get and don't even get on that page because there's nothing to challenge.

I remember some redditor writing a short story (or it may have just been the outline of the concept) about a group of US Marines trapped in ancient Rome called Rome Sweet Rome that got optioned and he clearly noted the problems with a net profit share in his AMA but he also pointed out that he had absolutely zero leverage.

Think I heard that story might become a movie. Almost feel like it was associated with the next gladiator movie.

Isn't that what 'gross' means? Gross revenue? Eg Box office ticket sales.

So the producers can't say a movie bringing in $300 million cost $400 million to make factoring in catering and purchasing IP from the company in the Cayman Islands?

As an actors agent I think you'd be able to tune your contract's definition of 'percentage of gross revenue' to deflect most Hollywood accounting issues. You'd also think the Screen Actors Guild would actually have resources available to help provide this knowledge.