Strange Love

By Nikki Finke, LA Weekly. Posted September 2, 2004.

Editor's Note: Satire alert.

THE PLAYER AGENCY

Griffin Mill’s opening remarks at Wednesday’s Motion Picture Meeting:

We don’t normally start these sessions with a discussion about civilian news. But I’m sure you’ll agree that a change in direction this exciting deserves a few minutes of everyone’s time. I’m pleased to announce that, starting today, this agency is going to break with Hollywood tradition and start boosting George W. Bush’s presidential campaign.

We do not make this decision lightly. But this week, five national polls came out that show Kerry slipping and Bush in the lead. And my wife, who’s in the same Kabbalah class as Mel Karmazin, tells me Don Imus just switched from being an early Kerry supporter to officially “undecided.” So we’re taking this one step further. We’re going to do for Dubya what Warner Bros. is doing for George Clooney: shove him down the public’s throat even if anyone with half a brain can’t stand him.

This may appear like rats deserting a sinking ship, but try to think of it as market-savvy positioning. As Arnie, Bruce and Tom (Selleck, that is) know, this isn’t about being Democrat or Republican; this is about survival. Besides, as an ex–studio mogul myself, I know this is how Hollywood has worked since the days of Goldwyn, Warner, Cohn and Mayer: There’s a long tradition here of kissing the asses of winners and shitting on losers. After all, when Dolgen was in power at Viacom, weren’t we his biggest fans? And when he got the boot, it became "Dolgen Who?" and "Don’t let the door hit you on the way out." And that’s how it should be. As Hyman Roth said in Godfather II, “This is the business we’ve chosen.” And who here doesn’t believe, like I do, that our mentor Michael Corleone voted Republican?

Remember back when we put a million-dollar bounty on the head of Julia Roberts? So I’m ready to pony up $5 mil for each capture of a bona fide Hollywood Republican. Okay, it’s not anywhere near the $25 mil being offered for bin Laden — and still they can’t find a 6-foot-6 Saudi who walks with a cane — but the good news is that Hollywood actors are dwarfish. That makes them easier to wrestle to the ground. For instance, I don’t want Stephen Baldwin leaving the GOP convention without his signature on one of our contracts because we can get him better than Celebrity Mole 1 and 2. Though I gotta admit, I couldn’t remember which Baldwin he was: the pot-bellied one, the sleepy-eyed one, the drugged-out one, the dumb-and-dumber one. My assistant reminded me that he’s all four!

I’m pleased to announce I’ve got the ball rolling already. We’ve just signed Ron Silver for representation in all areas. His speech at the Republican convention on Monday was pure genius. Of course, I didn’t hear it, but I got the coverage. My reader boiled it down to this quote: “I find it ironic that many human rights advocates and outspoken members of my own entertainment community are often on the frontlines to protest repression, for which I applaud them, but they are usually the first ones to oppose any use of force to take care of these horrors that they catalog repeatedly.” I’m not sure what this means, but I think it’s Hollywood-speak for, How come the only part I could get recently was as a pornographer in a Fox series that Rupert’s boobs cancelled after three episodes? We’ve got to do better by Ron. If Mel Gibson makes that movie about the Maccabees, I see Ron as King of the Jews.

Nikki Finke writes the Deadline Hollywood column for LA Weekly.

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