Oscar-winner Tom Hanks is defending Hollywood nepotism, which is one of the primary things killing the art of motion pictures and entertainment overall.
Hanks has three sons — Colin, Truman, and Chet — who are working actors, and according to Dad, that’s no different than any other family business. Savannah Walsh quotes Hanks in Vanity Fair:
“Look this is a family business. This is what we’ve been doing forever. It’s what all of our kids grew up in,” Hanks told Reuters of his show-biz family. “If we were a plumbing supply business or if we ran the florist shop down the street, the whole family would be putting in time at some point, even if it was just inventory at the end of the year.”
He continued, “The thing that doesn’t change no matter what happens, no matter what your last name is, is whether it works or not. That’s the issue anytime any of us go off and try to tell a fresh story or create something that has a beginning and a middle and an end. Doesn’t matter what our last names are. We have to do the work in order to make that a true and authentic experience for the audience.” Hanks definitively added, “That’s a much bigger task than worrying about whether anybody’s going to try to scathe us or not.”
A few things…
It’s a free country. If producers want to hire all of the children produced by Tom Hanks, they have every right to. Nevertheless, for reasons I’ll explain below, that does not make it a good idea.
Secondly, comparing the gajillion-dollar industry of Hollywood to a plumbing business or florist shop is like comparing an Uzi to a banana. Gimme a break, Hanks.
Finally, this is where Hanks contradicts himself: “Doesn’t matter what our last names are. We have to do the work in order to make that a true and authentic experience for the audience.”
You see, that’s the whole problem… The “authentic experience” is no longer “authentic,” and nepotism has much to do with that fact.
Because I don’t want to personally attack Hanks or his family — who all seem like very nice people — I’m going to make my point by generalizing…
If all you know is Hollywood and Southern California, you have no idea what an “authentic experience” is because your experience is shockingly provincial.
Private schools, gated communities, millions of dollars, glamour, fame, access, privilege… Hollywood is a monoculture that prides itself on excluding outsiders.
These people wouldn’t know an “authentic experience” from an armadillo.
Nepotism isn’t the only reason Hollywood has lost nearly half its movie-going audience in four years. You can add Woke McCarthyism to that list, along with a growing contempt for the customers. But Hollywood’s overall problem is not just how out of touch it is with the customers, but that being out of touch has Hollywood believing (falsely) it is superior and enlightened. Being out of touch with their audience is now a badge of honor in Hollywood. What a sick delusion, but that’s what cultural inbreeding gets you.
Naturally, nepotism plays a major role in this. After all, how can you discover the full human experience if you have 1) never been exposed to other cultures and 2) never been exposed to anyone from another culture?
Hollywood’s primary problem right now is an unearned sense of supremacy combined with a desire to please only one another by rubbing their superiority in the customers’ faces. This cultural inbreeding has produced a mongoloid monoculture that knows nothing about an “authentic experience.”
Tom Hanks can talk all he wants about the plumbing business, but what do people who only know 90210 know about the value and importance and skill of plumbers, coal miners, oil-rig workers, electricians, mechanics, groundskeepers, carpenters, road workers… of the men who keep the world turning while Hollywood play acts for millions of dollars?
The lack of “authentic experience” is what’s killing the entertainment business. The customers can no longer relate to the garbage coming out of this spoiled, hostile, smug bubble where everyone has the same last name because Hollywood is so insulated they see outsiders only as ignorant others.
These people have no idea who we are. None. And their “authenticity” extends to their empathy, which stops at the studio gates.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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