If We Build It...
A Minor League Baseball Team for Movies
I’m not sure if this is a journal entry or a substack, but if you’re reading this, it’s the former, I guess…
I want to start a minor league baseball team. Definitely not literally at all. But spiritually? Bear with me….
I’m in the United Lounge at LAX, and when I threw away my tin of weed gummies before going through the TSA, there were a couple left in the box, and having recently lost my job, I didn’t feel like I could afford to waste them. These are recessionary times.
Most of the last week in LA has been gray and rainy. It’s the time of year when the sunsets seem remarkably abrupt, crammed into moments before rush hour. By the time you’re in traffic, it feels like 9 o’clock, even at six or seven. Last time I was in LA, I missed the city deeply. Los Angeles, more than any other place, has shaped me, giving me the freedom to figure myself out, the support to make work I’m proud of, and a community of creative, caring, passionate people.
But, this trip, seeing LA was like seeing someone you love in a rough patch: just dumped, struggling with health or addiction, down - but not out. Most people I spent time with don’t have jobs. Some of them have, inarguably, some of the coolest jobs in the world, making shows that you’ve seen or will see soon. But even the job-havers seemed nervous. Across the board, the consensus was loosely that shit is both bad and weird. Billionaires are gobbling up media companies, and all seem to be playing by the same strategy: cut, consolidate, use culture wars to move “content consumers” (in the business model, we, the audience, are effectively factory-farmed pork) into feudalism wrapped in a vague and tenuous vibe of moral superiority.
It’s felt like the bad guys are winning for a little while. We’re in a political crisis of leadership. We’re in a corporate crisis of leadership. Value is being extracted everywhere, and it’s hard to find places where it’s being replenished, much less increased.
LA was a city of glamour and growth most of the time I lived there. Now it reminds me of Providence or Memphis. “We used to have a textile industry…” “We used to have Sun Studios and Elvis…” “We used to be a place where scrappy immigrants told stories and built empires…” A graveyard of FOR LEASE signs.
And yet, I’m leaving LA jobless and feeling more optimistic than I’ve felt in a long time. Mexico City has a lot to do with that. It’s energizing to be in a place where new things are being created, after leaving a place where everything is being scrapped and sold for parts. Certainly, like anywhere else, the future in Mexico is not evenly distributed. If nothing else, right now, it’s a lot less bleak.
Domestically, what gives me hope is how obviously unsustainable it all looks. Sure, the fall of the oligarch class won’t be instantaneous, but it sort of feels inevitable since they’re outnumbered by hundreds of millions of people? I sort of assumed that younger, smarter people than me would be the ones to build something more interesting, meaningful, and sustainable than what’s going on, but also, I suddenly find myself with time on my hands.
Years ago, I was one of the first hires at a media startup and was given equity in the company as a “founder.” This was exciting to me, as I’d heard stories like the one about the artist David Choe making $200 million on a mural he painted for early Facebook stock. But when I did the math that had been carefully obfuscated in legal limbo, a $100 million sale of the company would have meant that I’d almost have enough money to send both of my sons to private four-year colleges.
A six-figure windfall would be a huge deal, of course. But at the time this was put in front of me, I was the creative person tasked with finding, developing, and/or creating the projects that would get us to that valuation. I didn’t sign the equity agreement. Eventually, I was hounded for it and expressed my concerns to the person who’d proposed the deal. He smugly told me I was thinking too small. The company would sell for a valuation in the billions.
I’m sure he intended to make the offer seem more appealing, but it had the opposite effect. It revealed to me that the actual product that we made was the least appreciated aspect of the endeavor. In fact, it was incidental. “Content” was just an input in a spreadsheet. The math that turned that content into a billion-dollar valuation was likely the most wildly creative product that particular startup generated.
It would be cool if that imbalance were rare, but it isn’t. Throughout media, people with JDs, MBAs, and MAccs work carefully to ensure that “creatives” aren’t paid as much as people on the “business side.” And while I think lawyers, finance people, and accountants make enormous contributions across media, nobody’s favorite show is their favorite show because the cost reports were so flawless or the contracts were so airtight.
Much of the value of the Harvard MBA type in media seems to be justifying their own participation by cleverly exploiting the “flaw” built into creative people: that they’re so passionate that they’ll accept exploitation if they’re allowed to make their work. Their role is to optimize the exploitation for the benefit of the shareholders and C-suite compensation. This is how we arrive at ludicrous extremes like Spotify’s pennies-in-compensation to artists or every media company’s pipe dreams that we will spend the money we worked hard to earn in human labor on AI slop.
Now there’s a quintupling down on this approach: mass consolidation and layoffs, using AI as a specter to make everyone feel desperate and like they’re competing against a robot to hang on to their quality of life. Certainly, most entertainment will flow through this system, at least for a while, but the system will hemorrhage artists who don’t want to/can’t afford to make work in these conditions. It will also accelerate younger generations’ migration to more interesting work being made on more accessible platforms.
On top of all that, almost every media company heard Timothy Snyder’s advice not to comply in advance and decided to do the opposite. All demographic data indicate that the US is becoming more diverse, younger generations are more queer, and women are increasingly outpacing men in college education (which will likely skew earnings as they move through their careers).
Yes, we’re in a hugely culturally retrograde moment - but it doesn’t seem to be that popular. Trump has a -41 approval rating. The MAGA movement appears to be shattering. Jimmy Kimmel’s brief ouster was a humiliating failure. ICE is getting spanked across the country. After handing the GOP a mandate to fix the economy, we’re one Jenga block away from an AI bubble burst that could start an economic depression. Streamers have canceled minority-led shows across the board, put Bari Weiss in charge of a newsroom, and shredded any effort that looks like an attempt to diversify representation.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably politically inclined not to love any of those choices, but also, I think they’re bad business decisions, too. What do I know? Maybe the Turning Point USA “All-American Halftime Show” will destroy Bad Bunny in the ratings on Superbowl Sunday? I think there are a lot of hardcore Republicans who would likely make the same bet that lefty, trans-y me would make on that outcome.
Mainstream entertainment has MBA’ed its way out of sustainable economics and anti-woke’d its way out of making films and series for a growing demographic. I think there’s an opportunity there. I believe that opportunity will be bolstered by a generation looking for authenticity away from celebrities who try to dance around eugenics while putting out lesbian movies and AI simulacra of stories they actually care about. This might not be a billion-dollar idea, but maybe it’s a way to make some stuff that people care about and provide a living for some artists (and lawyers and accountants) along the way.
I got lunch in LA with my first boss in entertainment, who saw that I’d been laid off and reached out (so many people did, thank you!) I told him a more nascent, less high version of the above, and he pointed out that the piece missing was what I actually want to make and do. I think the answer is: start a production company. That feels kind of scary and dumb, on some level, but also - it’s not like there are any jobs out there in this moment, so what is there to lose?
What would we make? This is a harder question to answer, as I pride myself on being both creatively promiscuous and super picky about what I like.
My favorite things I’ve worked on include an animated series, an Oscar-contender immigration documentary, a few LGBTQ short films, and two backyard stunt shows. Being trans and all, I’d like to make trans stuff; I don’t want to be put in a box that represents less than 1% of the audience. I like inexpensive things that make big splashes, from Tangerine to Blair Witch to Jackass. I like audacious creatives and characters. I like stories worth repeating at a party. I like people who are vulnerable and unafraid to show their pain and scars (nobody interesting hasn’t been humbled and beaten up a bit along the way). I almost always root for the underdog. I love kindness and agree with James Gunn that it’s more punk than cruelty. I love going to places I’ve never been and learning about lives that are nothing like mine. Storytelling gives us a chance to know what it’s like to be someone else, and I think that’s beautiful to the point of divinity. Oh, and every now and then, it’s fun to blow things up.
It’s not like I’d be in the top 50th percentile of people attempting things like this, as measured by fame or fortune, but I’ve got a point of view, a certain kind of person loves working with me, and I would be thrilled to take on projects that the big bads in this space can’t afford to consider.
Think: A24’s weird trans sibling, pop-up shop Participant, baby Killer Films. Or, think of the Durham Bulls, the Frisco RoughRiders, or the Toledo Mud Hens. Minor league baseball. Small, scrappy, fun, and promising good, cheap fun.
I’ve already got the seeds of a slate, lots of hard-earned experience, and illogical optimism that keeps kicking even after the edibles wear off. If you know how one might go about doing such a thing, please let me know. I’m looking for advice, mentorship, and eventually (a little bit of) money. And, eventually, I’ll need some down-ass MBAs, JDs, and MAccs.
Anybody with me?
Can I jump in this pool?
Can the production company name be "black hole vagina" ?!!? 😭 💀