Why Hollywood Turned on Biden First

Also: RIP, Shelley Duvall

George Clooney in ‘Michael Clayton’

As longtime readers know, I mostly eschew politics in this newsletter. But it’s probably worth highlighting that Hollywood—an important source of support for Democratic politicians, particularly when it comes to fundraising—turned on Joe Biden before anyone else in his party, and asking why that might be the case.

The biggest blow, obviously, was George Clooney’s op-ed in the New York Times. In it, he noted that, as a longtime supporter of Biden and longtime fundraiser for Democratic politicians, he was genuinely shocked when he saw how decrepit Biden looked at a recent Hollywood fundraiser.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote. “Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed.” Biden remaining on the ticket—meaning that yet another “episode” like the one at the debate was always on the table every time he approached a mic—would be disastrous not only for those who hoped to defeat Donald Trump but also those who hoped for Democrats to hold on to the Senate, the actor-director went on to argue.

Clooney’s essay came on the heels of longtime Democratic activist and actor/director Rob Reiner saying similar things on social media, if a bit more bluntly. “It’s time to stop fucking around. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. It’s time for Joe Biden to step down,” he tweeted. Rounding out the Boomer caucus, Stephen King tweeted out the same basic sentiment.

Celebrities with opinions are nothing new of course, but what makes these comments especially concerning for Democrats is that they’re paired with fundraising threats. Abigail Disney announced she wouldn’t be funneling any more of her family’s hard-earned fortune into Democratic coffers until Biden stepped down, and Matthew Frank at the Ankler reports key backers like Barry Diller, who maxed out donations to Biden and threw another $100K to the Democratic party, are pausing support as well. Ari Emanuel—one of the most powerful people in Hollywood and brother of former Chicago Mayor/Obama Chief of Staff Rahm—inserted the ultimate dagger last week, comparing Biden to Trump.

So why is Hollywood so quick to see what Democrats in D.C. would prefer to ignore and putting its money where its mouth is? Two reasons.

Reason one is optics: Hollywood has always viewed politics as, essentially, performance, and Biden can no longer pull off a convincing performance as president. I know there are folks out there who do not want to hear this, but after having sat in on a handful of Sarah’s focus groups this week and having had a number of conversations with non-political folks in my neighborhood since the debate, it’s very clear that a growing number of people simply think Biden is too impaired to do the job. If you don’t believe my anecdata, believe the polling: 85 percent of respondents say Biden’s too old, two-thirds of those polled say he should step aside, and even 54 percent of Biden supporters say he should not run again. The president’s biggest job remains having a finger on the so-called button, and you don’t want a guy who isn’t there 16 hours out of the day with his pointer hovering over it.

And the second reason is that Hollywood has always been a youth-oriented business selling the idea of eternal vitality, an industry that respects projections of strength. When I asked a screenwriter who has been following the drama if the revolt was due to the frustrations of having to deal with aging, out-of-it studio chieftains, he said the answer was simpler.

“Hollywood hates nothing more than weakness. Unless there’s a montage of getting strong and winning. They know there’s no montage of Biden getting strong and winning, so time for a quick offscreen death and a recast,” he said. Even if he manages to turn in an impressive campaign stop or press conference here and there, everyone’s simply waiting for Biden to stumble again. And he will. He’s not getting any younger.

Even in an age of aging heroes—one in which the biggest box office draws are Tom Cruise (62) and Denzel Washington (69) and Will Smith (55) and Keanu Reeves (59)—what’s being sold is not that they’re old but that they’re effective, that they’ve got verve, that they can outperform men and women half their age. It’s why Biden embraced the Onion’s vision of him as the aging bro washing his Trans Am, it’s why he goes everywhere he can in Top Gun-style aviators. It’s why the Dark Brandon meme took off in certain quarters of the Democratic party: He’s not nearing death, he’s old and wily and still vibrant enough to crush his enemies.

Call it shallow, call it whatever you want: politics is the art of persuasion and perception, and people are less likely to be persuaded by someone they perceive to be incapable of doing the job. People are also less likely to be persuaded by folks who lie to their face and tell them everything is just fine with Biden, that he’s clearly together enough to get the job done. For what it’s worth, I am incredibly ambivalent about the effort to replace Biden: the unknown unknowns that come with either a mini-primary at the convention or simply replacing Biden with Harris atop the ticket are vast and, potentially, destabilizing. And maybe Biden rights the ship with a series of command performances in front of the press and population alike. Maybe it was a one-off thing and his standing will improve in the polls.

But pretending there isn’t a conversation to be had at all is foolish and self-defeating. The voters have seen what they have seen. Again: politics is perception. And right now, the perception is bad.

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Bleh, enough politics. Listen to Peter, Alyssa, and I talk about Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F instead. It’s fine! A fine movie. Perfectly average in every way.

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RIP, Shelley Duvall

Shelley Duvall in ‘The Shining’ (MovieStillsDB)

One of the many ways in which social media is poisonous—really, the primary way—is that it distorts reality. I mention this, because there’s a coterie of folks who have been brainwashed into believing that Shelley Duvall wasn’t really acting in The Shining, that she was traumatized by Stanley Kubrick, that the repeated takes and his berating of her broke her spirit, leading to her becoming something of a recluse in her final years.

This is the purest form of bunk; more than that, I find it vaguely offensive. It downplays her incredible work in that role, relegates her to nothing more than a mindless pawn manipulated by a director who wanted nothing more than to abuse someone for kicks. The idea that Duvall’s browbeaten terror could only be portrayed by someone who had actually been abused completely undermines the amazing work she did opposite of Jack Nicholson (who no one ever accuses of actually being crazy).

Duvall was incredibly versatile: from the terror-stricken Wendy in The Shining to the wryly comic Pam in Annie Hall to the country groupie in Nashville, she always cut a striking figure. In part, it’s because she was, simply put, unusual looking: thin and angular, she was almost the living embodiment of Olive Oyl, whom she portrayed in Robert Altman’s ill-fated Popeye adaptation. And between her work as the host of Faerie Tale Theatre and her small turn in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, Duvall was a key part of the childhood of many a slightly twisted late Gen X, early Millennial sort.

Yes, Duvall did become something of a recluse in later years; the Hollywood Reporter caught up with her a few years back, and the story is mildly uncomfortable to read. But not because she comes across as harmed or abused, necessarily. Rather, she just seemed older and ill. It happens to all of us.

Between Duvall’s death and the recent passing of Donald Sutherland and screenwriter Robert Towne—who wrote Chinatown and Shampoo, and kicked off Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise by writing its first two installments—it is a reminder of how great, and weird, that stretch of films in the 1970s were. One wonders if we’ll ever see anything like it again.