HEY HOLLYWOOD
HEY HOLLYWOOD, LET’S HELP AMERICA REIMAGINE POLICING. GET TIM BURTON ON IT. HE KNOWS HOW TO TAKE NIGHTMARES & TURN THEM INTO SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL.
Nobody does a happy ending like Hollywood. And with the State of our Union being Fucked, only we here in Tinsel Town can solve it. Donald Trump is fond of saying that only he can handle shit, but with 116,000 dead from Coronavirus and the 39 million people on unemployment, maybe you want to sit this one out “winner”. Hit the showers and let somebody else draw up the play. Say what you want about Hollywood, we are the ones who have actually been saving your asses every minute of your quarantine, shelter-in-place, or lockdown. We’re the ones providing all the entertainment for you to binge watch, stream, and fall asleep to. We even shoot most of the porn out here. Not that crazy Japanese stuff you accidentally clicked onto 9 times, but the straight-forward, heterosexual, missionary fare we all enjoy. You’re welcome.
So we, the entertainment industry, are the ones who really have been keeping you sane during these trying times. You can't get ground beef in the grocery store, but you can get Hamburger Hill on demand. Take that every other industry that's had to get bailed out by the government. You can say what you want about our morals, but you really can't say shit about our bookkeeping. We stay in the black! Well in terms of making money. I mean there was #OscarsSoWhite and we could have more black folks on the screen and in boardrooms at the studios, but you understand the point I was trying to make. And we have to do something because Hollywood is partly responsible for the perception of the police and policing around America and around the world. Hollywood needs to take a look at the slate of scripts that were greenlit before the pandemic. The movies where you have the “white savior cop” coming to the underprivileged minority community to save it from itself. The peace officer who only uses violence as a very, very, very, very, last resort. Who represents truth, justice, and the American way! Yeah, CANCEL all that shit immediately. Then you should use the same hundred million dollars that was earmarked for that bullshit project, and divvy it up to 100 first-time directors of color looking for a shot. 50% female, 50% male. Something out of those 100 films will hit. And you will get your money back. That's how you both stay in the black and support black. You heard it here first.
But in terms of the “Reimagine Policing” project I was talking about, let's get some of our top filmmakers to put together a 5-10 minute trailer of what their film would be. Let's get folks like Spielberg, Ava DuVernay, Ang Lee, Tarantino (just know he will be using the “N-word” liberally and that might defeat the purpose), Scorsese, and Kathryn Bigelow to submit their trailer. Oh, and of course Spike Lee. On second thought, Spike will probably demand that you play his entire director’s cut of “Do The Right Thing” as his submission. But all those directors could paint a rosy picture of the police NOT being the only ones called out to handle everything under the sun.
There could be a touching scene in the briefing room where the guys all sit around, thinking they're alone, and openly share their feelings about how they're so glad they don't have to handle all of that shit anymore. How, through no fault of theirs, they weren't prepared to be the ones having to solve the homeless problem. About how no one needs to bring a gun when dealing with an overdose or domestic dispute. How the chicken-shit politicians took money away from mental health initiatives and dumped the job of social workers and therapists into their laps. Stuff they weren’t adequately trained for, weren't prepared for, and should never have been put on their plate in the first place. The grizzled cop who has seen it all brings everyone to tears when he talks about how the War on Drugs is an un-winnable proposition that put him and a number of the partners he lost unnecessarily and continually in harm’s way. And you have to have a big “Defund The Police” dance number where what it means to defund or abolish the police is explained while a Chorus Line does high kicks. It's up to us Hollywood. Only we can produce that. We're the only one who can handle this shit. So submit your trailers to the American people immediately.
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