Daniel D'Addario
Appearances
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
Social media has, it's the same thing it's done to politics and the same thing that it's done to the economy and the same thing it's also done to the awards. It's just everything's scaled up and more extreme now. It used to just be You went to the movies and saw, I don't know, Rain Man, and you watch the Oscars and you're like, oh, that won.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
Now people have faves and that they're rooting on through social media. And every misstep or incremental win or they won a Golden Globe or they lost a SAG award is now chalked up by all these fans online who are like, obsessed because it's kind of like their sports.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
I think what happened with Amelia Perez is kind of a perfect storm. And here's why. It was the front runner to win many Oscars, including Best Picture, in part because of its message of inclusivity. That message of inclusivity also made it hard to criticize because it would look insensitive to come after this movie that is coming from the right place.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
Basically, the only thing that could have sunk it is when the call is coming from inside the house. And... Carl Safiya Gascon's tweets so fly in the face of the message of inclusivity and acceptance, it really hurt the campaign in a way that all the other movies and the people behind them must have been very gratified by because now they have a shot.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
It scrambles everything and it just shows that everything's getting realigned because you would never expect a trans actress who became famous for starring in Mexican telenovelas to necessarily be the person who is spouting all of these bigoted opinions. It just, it kind of flies in the face of certain cultural expectations we have that her experiences would have taught her.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
And you might not expect the director of a movie set in Mexico to be so, so kind of, to say such an ignorant thing about the Spanish language after having spent so long trying to get this movie made.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
It's not... like a political campaign in the sense that it's not so direct of like vote for me but it's not not like a political campaign it's not a cheap endeavor and a lot of time and money is spent putting thought into getting these people where they need to go and saying the right thing so
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
For Emilio Perez, for instance, the stars might have spent a lot of time talking about a message of inclusion and trans equality because those were themes of the movie and themes that also felt really If you're someone who's voting on the Oscars, those might be really resonant themes to you. So it's emphasizing certain things.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
It used to just be, you know, you'd get press coverage. You'd hope that the New York Times wrote about your movie and there'd be a premiere. But there wasn't this gauntlet of promote, promote, promote. Among the things Harvey invented is oftentimes if there was a movie that had any kind of political theme, he would have the stars testify before Congress about just whatever the movie was about.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
His influence, more than anything, is just... having the stars of movies be totally omnipresent for months, as opposed to just, we made the movie, vote on the movie if you like it or not. There's an element of Oscar campaigning, especially the kind Harvey did, that's like propaganda, where it's like, we are going to feed you images and phrases over and over and hammer those images and phrases.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
And when you have that ballot in front of you and you're voting, it's just, it's stuck in your mind.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
A famous example is 1998, if you were around, the frontrunner, was this movie, Saving Private Ryan, and Harvey Weinstein's movie was Shakespeare in Love. Not only did he campaign for Shakespeare in Love about how good it was, he also is reported to have had people around town whispering in people's ears, Saving Private Ryan peaks in the first 20 minutes and it's boring after that.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
The year that A Beautiful Mind came out, which is a movie that won Best Picture, somehow it emerged that the subject of the film, who in the movie is a hero, in real life, I believe had said antisemitic things.
The Brett Cooper Show
Why Hollywood Turned on the Trans Mexican Cartel Movie | Episode 9
And this just kind of emerged and no one knew how this information had been found or who gave it to a journalist, but there were certainly rival films that stood to benefit if A Beautiful Mind fell.