Burn It Down
Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
An NPR Best Book of the Year
In this spectacular, newsmaking exposé that has the entertainment industry abuzz and on its heels, Vanity Fair's Maureen Ryan blows the lid off patterns of harassment and bias in Hollywood, the grassroots reforms under way, and the labor and activist revolutions that recent scandals have ignited.
It is never just One Bad Man.
Abuse and exploitation of workers is baked into the very foundations of the entertainment industry. To break the cycle and make change that sticks, it’s important to stop looking at headline-making stories as individual events. Instead, one must look closely at the bigger picture, to see how abusers are created, fed, rewarded, allowed to persist, and, with the right tools, how they can be excised.
In Burn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywood’s corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Lost, Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more.
Interviews with actors and famous creatives like Evan Rachel Wood, Harold Perrineau, Damon Lindelof, and Orlando Jones abound. Ryan dismantles, one by one, the myths that the entertainment industry promotes about itself, which have allowed abusers to thrive and the industry to avoid accountability—myths about Hollywood as a meritocracy, what it takes to be creative, the value of human dignity, and more.
Weaving together insights from industry insiders, historical context, and pop-culture analysis, Burn It Down paints a groundbreaking and urgently necessary portrait of what’s gone wrong in the entertainment world—and how we can fix it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Film and television critic Ryan debuts with a scathing critique of the "self-serving myths Hollywood believes about itself." Arguing against the view that "difficult" actors are the price of good art, Ryan contends that Jared Leto's insistence on keeping his character's exaggerated limp in between takes on the set of Morbius wasted his colleagues' time and insulted disabled people. She also excoriates the tendency to view abusive bosses as tough guys who "get things done," discussing how Scott Rudin's high-profile defenders allowed the producer to get away with screaming at employees. Asserting that the industry has failed women and people of color, Ryan notes that Lost actor Harold Perrineau was written off the show after complaining he was being sidelined in favor of his white costars, and that "with one exception... HBO has not aired an original one-hour drama series created by a woman." Success stories demonstrate the benefits of cultivating a healthy workplace: Nancy Drew showrunner Melinda Hsu Taylor's commitment to respecting writers' work/life balance once convinced a coveted writer to choose the show over better-paying opportunities. Filled with revealing behind-the-scenes stories and blistering analyses of the industry's failings, this makes a convincing case for rebooting Hollywood.
