Anything worth having doesn’t come easy. It’s an age old adage that is often true: if you want to succeed in competitive fields, you have to bust your ass to get there. Whether you want to have a good career, a healthy life, a functioning relationship, you have to put in the effort to achieve these goals. As the sage philosopher Britney Spears once said, “You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You want a Maserati? You better work bitch.”
It is the very philosophy that drives Hollywood, the promise that to make it to the top, you must endure heaps of abuse and mistreatment in one of the industry’s many assistant gigs. These assistant jobs are highly coveted and sought after, and ambitious twenty-somethings flood Los Angeles each year hoping to have the opportunity to start in the mailroom and work their way up.
“When I went on to become a de facto assistant and writer’s assistant, I wasn’t allowed to ask for more.” https://t.co/PjJQlaSiCA pic.twitter.com/p7fmqILizv
— Vulture (@vulture) February 19, 2020
But as the Me Too Movement rages on and the wealth gap widens into a Grand Canyon-like chasm that threatens to swallow the middle class whole, many frustrated assistants are addressing the cruelty that runs rampant in the entertainment industry. And the mistreatment isn’t solely psychological, but financial. In an industry of incredible wealth, assistants frequently find themselves without health insurance, benefits, or a livable wage. And if they dare to complain, they have zero leverage, as hundreds of eager souls are ready and waiting to take their place.
To delve deeper into this issue, a survey called #PayUpHollywood, conducted by TV writers Liz Alper and Deirdre Mangan, along with media consultant Jamarah Hayner, conducted an anonymous survey called #PayUpHollywood, where assistants across the industry shared their horror stories. Vulture is compiling these stories in a new column, “Anonymous in Hollywood”, with titles like “I Was a Hollywood Assistant and I Got Yelled at on the Toilet.”
“I was a personal assistant for a news anchor who is a garbage human.” https://t.co/PjJQlaSiCA pic.twitter.com/XGyr0H7El2
— Vulture (@vulture) February 19, 2020
Treating assistants like garbage is hardly new news. It’s baked into the very foundation of the Hollywood dream. But the cruelty is the cause of a larger issue that plagues the industry, namely the lack of diversity and inclusivity. As we’ve seen time and time again, with #OscarsSoWhite, with this year’s lack of nominations for women artists and artists of color, there is a lack of access and opportunity for everyone who isn’t a straight cis white guy.
But the issue isn’t a lack of capable artists. As Lulu Wang said in her Independent Spirit Awards speech, “Shadowing is great, programs are great. But really, what women need, is just the job. Just give them the friggin’ job. Give them the money, you know?”
The problem is that the people holding the purse strings, the studio executives and producers and financiers, are disproportionately white men who come from families with money. Because no one else can survive the meagre wages of Hollywood assistantship and pay their rent, feed themselves, and be able to sustain a career. And it is these assistant jobs that pave the way towards promotions and positions of power. But you have to pay to play, and if you don’t go into these jobs with a financial safety net, your opportunities for success are limited.
Of course there are stories of people succeeding without money, of determined, hard-working folks who bust their asses to climb the ladder. But their stories are few, and the odds are stacked against them when an A-lister’s favored son or cousin or Pilates instructor’s niece sails up the corporate ladder. Hollywood is an industry built on nepotism (like so many industries are) and that nepotism perpetuates the cycle of exclusivity.
Paying assistants livable wages isn’t only an issue of fairness or doing the right thing (although obviously we should want both things). It’s about keeping the gatekeepers of the industry white, and keeping resources away from the artists who need it most. It’s wonderful and necessary to have marginalized actors, directors, and writers’ voices heard. But until marginalized folks hold the purse strings, Hollywood will continue to wring its hands over issues of diversity without any real solutions.
(via Vulture)
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