Hollywood's Dirty Little Secret

by Christina Hazelwood
Watch any “The Making of...” television show and the viewer will see all the magic of Hollywood revealed right before his or her very eyes. The viewer will see stunt men risking life and limb to get that special shot sequence, not to mention mechanical, prosthetic and digital marvels. All are geared to show the viewer a 'behind the scenes' look at filmmaking. But there’s one special curtain, that Hollywood is hoping no one will look behind. That’s the one designed to keep you out!

Hollywood tries to be just accessible enough to keep wannabe filmmakers coming back for more. With a little song and dance and a heap of hype, Hollywood can keep the ball rolling, leaving “independent” filmmakers thinking their big break is just a phone call away. The Hollywood elite have created a giant maze designed to keep wannabes spending money and feeding the machine, without ever getting a taste of that elusive piece of cheese.

When a few brazen filmmakers created film festivals that featured truly independent films, Hollywood swooped in for the kill. Hollywood executives immediately jumped into any festival that featured viable, marketable films in order to corrupt the process and put an end to any independent moviemaking wave against which Hollywood might have to compete. By throwing money at filmmakers and festival creators, Hollywood was able to rope them into the system, squashing any mid-level market that independents might manage to garner.

By keeping filmmakers, scriptwriters, actors, festival creators, and theater owners thinking they actually have a shot at Hollywood’s deep pockets, the Hollywood machine successfully squashes the development of any alternative market, pushing everyone with a penchant for film into one of two directions, in with the Hollywood elite, or not. Just like the Indian caste system, if one is lucky enough to be born into it, success is virtually assured, but if one is not, well...

Hollywood has created a tangled web of gatekeepers, designed to keep you out. There are managers and agents of every kind and each of those have assistants and readers, who themselves have more assistants and readers, creating a tangled web of dancing elephants. All, of whom, are designed to mesmerize the independent filmmaker into thinking if only he or she dances with the right elephant, she will get to see the queen.

William Morris is one of the largest, well-known talent agencies in the business, representing the gambit in talent, including literary, acting, live performance and voiceover. I telephoned William Morris to inquire whether any of their agents were taking on new talent and was transferred to the Client Relations Department, where a sweet, young voice informed me that William Morris only accepts clients “on a referral basis.” So I asked who these elusive referring parties were and how could I reach them. To which she sweetly replied, “We only take referrals from within William Morris.” To my spontaneous burst of laughter, at this Hollywood Catch 22, the woman hung up on me. In other words, if you’re not in already, forget about it.

So essentially it’s the same old story: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. This clearly explains why we, the viewing audience, see so much inferior talent graphically displayed across theater and television screens. If you happen to be the cousin of one of those dancing elephants, you’re in. And it doesn’t matter if you have any talent or not. Conversely, one could have amazing talent, but until one of those dancing elephants “discovers” you, all the tap-dancing in the world is not going to get you in to see the queen.

Like every good storyteller, I must come up with a silver lining. A friend’s 18-year-old son was “discovered” by a photographer at a restaurant and is now a highly-paid model, whose face appears in catalogs, magazines and on television. And he still doesn’t know how to tap dance. Now I grant you, he happens to live in California and happens to be pleasing to look at. But hey, it could happen....
Related Sites
William Morris Agency

Tap Dance in Films