Screen vs Life

A few days ago Ashton Kutcher tweeted his support of fellow actor Natalie Portman, and her challenge to negotiate employment contracts of equal worth to her male colleagues. ‘News’ regarding the Hollywood gender pay gap have also recently also resurfaced in the form of Meryl Streep’s enthusiastic reaction to Patricia Arquette’s 2015 Oscar speech calling out the gender pay gap in Hollywood. (This was on the back of Streep’s recent Golden Globes 2017 acceptance speech, which similarly characterized the Hollywood elite as one of the most victimized demographics within the US).  via GIPHY Kutcher, and Bradley Cooper before him, has expressed their support after learning that their Portman and Jennifer Lawrence, respectively, were paid a smaller fee for starring in the same film. In these two examples, the fees earned by the male and female costars is comparable (as elaborated in the infographic below). However, more generalized  discussions regarding the H...

I love awards seasons, or at least I used to. In recent years I just can’t seem to get past the self-congratulatory wank-fest that is A-list celebrities telling me how much their work makes the world a better place.  According to Meryl Streep Hollywood actors are not only the wellspring of inter-human empathy and harmonious racial diversity, but it is the frontier, wherein directors, actors, scriptwriters, etc, wage war against the elitist injustice that ravages the USA.  The video of Streep’s speech is below if you wish to see extreme psychological delusion first hand… I’ll leave aside the fact that Streep deliver’s her injunction against elitism wearing a custom-made Givenchy gown, and instead draw attention to the economics of Hollywood, which funds its selfless representation of empathy and diversity with the taxes of those deplorables she implicitly attacks. You may not be aware of the fact that a significant number of states in the US offer tax break...

I have recently been pointed in the direction of some interesting research indicating that the publicity generated by 'piracy' may actually negate the negatives, particularly for artists (thanks Peng Tiong).  The study followed a sample of 16 000 internet users from 5 different European Union countries throughout 2011. The study tracked demographic characteristics, and also identified specific visits to music related websites, both legal and illegal. In the report researchers state that the results: 'present no evidence of sales displacement,' and that piracy does not, in fact, displace legal music downloads. Instead, findings suggest that illegal streaming may actually boost sales. The study has been conducted by the  European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, and the  results have been published in a paper entitled ‘ Digital Music Consumption on the Internet: Evidence from Clickstream Data .’ Also see ' Music piracy surprisingly good for business, study clai...

The digital age is well and truly upon us, and film industries, the world over, continue to drag their feet. Rather than adapting to the new possibilities of internet distribution large producers are instead focused on alienating its audiences by criminalising them through intellectual property law, and failing to deliver content on the platforms that audiences want. Key roadblocks are the major exhibitors who contest distributor calls for change on the basis that this will erode box-office returns. There is a major failure to recognise that resisting market demand is not how you maintain or increase profit. For instance, rather than distributors and exhibitors banding together to innovate new solutions, Australia is set to trial a 90-day release holdback between theatrical and home entertainment release, in place of the traditional 120-day holdback.   As a university tutor of screen studies, I regularly come into contact with moviegoers in their late teens and early 20s....