Oscar-winner Cord Jefferson on how Hollywood became so risk-averse

26:24to helping people find us. In terms of succession, I mean, because the media landscape is changing at such a rapid clip, how much does or did the show kind of feel a need to kind of keep up with that? Absolutely. I think that the business is kind of the wallpaper and what you're actually tuning in for is like the family drama. You know, the same goes for Mad Men. It's like Mad Men is like the advertising was like the wallpaper, but what you're really tuning in for is to like see, you know, Don Draper like have another affair and like sort of like explode his life again. Like, right, like it's going to be about themes that feel universal and themes that feel timeless and not just the way that the media look in the year 2019.

27:05I'm sure that the business stuff does feel dated, but, you know, I'm sure that it's probably still great to watch because it's still funny and you're still intrigued by sort of like Kendall blowing up his life and you're turning it to see like how Kendall is going to screw up again. There are things that, you know, remain a constant just like the sheer brutality of what life is like in the C-suite or how these, you know, very human struggles faced by the individual characters, family struggles, et cetera, are then sort of callously handed down into these like invisible workers below that you don't really see that much.

27:42And that was kind of what for me as a journalist that in addition to obviously like the characters being super compelling, It was sort of imagining these machinations that I never get to see. Yeah, I think that what I want to get at is one of the things that like frustrates me about all of media these days, you know, all of journalism and TV and film and all these creative industries is the difficulty of creativity existing in a world in which like you answer to shareholders. Like that to me is sort of something that I would like to get at or something that I would like people to take away from that episode of Succession is just that once you get people like the Roy's coming in or any other private equity firm coming in and all of a sudden you need to make good business decisions.

28:33Like good business decisions are very frequently going to be bad creative decisions. I think that frequently interesting artwork doesn't make sense business-wise you know when you sit down to write something or when you sit down to paint something or you sit down to make a piece of music if the first thing that comes to mind is like how good is this going to be for my bottom line I think that you've already failed you're already sort of like missing something and so for me I think that's just sort of like the incompatibility of those people's jobs at Valter, which is to sort of like make interesting, creative work that, you know, sparks a conversation or that interests people.

29:12It's not going to sort of like play in the C-suite to every time because the C-suite people want, you know, they demand like, here's the X amount of page views we want this month. And then we want you to double that next month. Then we want you to triple that next month. And it's like, you know, that doesn't necessarily comport with what a good website is or what a good publication does or what a good TV show does. Like those are not things that necessarily go hand in hand. I don't think that I'm saying anything new, but it just, we've reached a place now when we've sort of have allowed the tech ethos of growth at all costs and growth for the sake of growth to sort of like permeate all aspects of culture.

29:48We've allowed it to sort of like permeate journalism. We've allowed it to permeate TV and film. And now you just have a bunch of people operating that like, we need to get bigger. Why are we getting bigger? Why don't we have more, more, more, as opposed to like, let's focus on like the quality of what we do have. And to me, that's been a sort of like devastating blow for all creative industries. There's this amazing interview with Q-Tip. Have you guys seen this? Where Q-Tip found this like incredible rapper, you know, years ago, I guess. And he was like, I think you're great. And I want to bring you in for a record contract.

30:19And he brought in this woman rapper. So like, it was like Columbia or Capitol. It was one of those two. I can't remember. But he was like, I'm bringing in this next big thing. like let's let's sign her and he brings her in and they like um they have this meeting with her and like after the meeting one of the people at the record company was like yeah she seems like a nice person and like we like some of her songs but like you know like she's not really doing well on social media like her numbers on youtube and stuff like aren't great and he was like okay and so then he left there and he went to def jam and he did the same thing and he was like he was like look i've got this like incredible artist and def jam said the same thing it's like you know our social media numbers aren't great like it's don't know if it's for us and that was Megan Thee Stallion he said so like everybody passed and they were just and they're just like no not for us and it was that turned out to be Megan Thee Stallion and so like all these people whose jobs are sort of like to build artists up and and and sort of like help artists record their artwork and release it to the public they weren't thinking about like the actual artwork or the artist they were thinking about like the numbers on YouTube and they were thinking about the number like how many Instagram following what she has.

31:21And it's like, it's just like, we, we are allowing this sort of like tech world mentality of like, you know, there's this, this is like this hippie dippy. It's like a quote that I heard in college from this conservationist. And he said, the quote is growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. I think about that all the time as it relates to sort of like the way the world is right now, because it's like, if you look at an artist and you don't pay attention to what this artist is saying and all you're only paying attention to how many Instagram followers they have or like how many YouTube views they have it is just such a dark way of trying to like work in a creative industry and it's such a dark way of sort of like looking at what artists do it's to me is like it's it's like how many numbers can we put on the board as opposed to like is the quality of the work good is is this person like a great writer is this person a great singer is this person a great musician can I envision this person doing wonderful things if I help them grow.

32:18And instead, it's just kind of like, well, if you don't have a million Instagram followers, then you're worthless to us. And I think that kind of mentality is poisoning creativity. It's poisoning all these industries. I really think it is the great secret crisis that all creative people are going through at this time. It's just people don't talk about it that much, but it maybe is one of the biggest existential blocks and painful things that artists and writers and creative people are like privately dealing with. Yeah, we're letting algorithms assess art. Like you can't let algorithms assess art.

32:54Like algorithms can't do that yet. That to me is what the human beings in those jobs should be doing. I honestly think it's a moral issue. Like I look at this as a moral crisis, like that it is, it is immoral to let algorithms and let your sort of like risk aversion keep you from like actually making interesting stuff because you're too afraid that you're going to make a mistake. To me, it's just a huge failing of every creative industry at this point. I feel like there's more fear driving the creative process now than ever, at least in my lifetime. I feel fear like whenever, you know, it's embarrassing to say, but like whenever I have like a pitch that I'm really, really passionate about and it comes time to like present it somewhere.

33:37I'm just like always afraid that whoever is the person who decides whether this is worth investing in, are they going to make the arbitrary decision that they feel this is something that will not perform well metrics wise? And then the thing that I care about most is damned. Yeah, exactly. Everybody is so, so risk averse. And I don't know how that plays out. I don't know how that plays out in other industries, but I'll say like the risk aversion right now in TV and film is why everything has to be a remake or everything has to be based on a piece of ip it's like trying to like get something made nowadays that's an original idea an original an original movie or an original tv show unless you're aaron sorkin or steven spielberg like that's incredibly hard to do like people because because people want a built-in audience so that's why it's like well let's remake a tv show that people made 30 years ago or let's remake a movie that somebody made 10 years ago or let's remake a movie that that somebody made in korea two years ago but we're just, it was, it was Korean and Americans don't like subtitles.

34:37So we'll just remake it for the Americans. Like it's, it just feels like that is sort of like diming creativity because everybody's like so afraid, which is such a weird decision because there's so much money right now. It's not like the industry is struggling at all. Like streamers are having record profits. They just don't want to like lose out to the next streamer. And so it's like, it feels like this arms race of like, let's put out the most content. Let's put out like 15 different animated series to compete with like all the 15 other animated series that these people are putting out again it's like growth for the sake of growth it doesn't feel like anybody's really focusing on like let's make sure that the quality is here like let's actually like sit down and see if this is something that that that we think is worth putting in the world i had a buddy who took out a um a show i don't want to reveal too much because this is his personal story but but he took out a show that was i think it was like a comedy that he'd written and it was you a little sort of like on the more complex comedy side and maybe a little darker and he had an executive tell him to his face uh we're just looking for schitt's creek or ted lasso man like that that's all like it just like somebody just told him that and i you know i was i was i met with an executive one time who just said like we're looking for our bridgerton if you can bring us our bridgerton um then then sort of like we'd love that and i was just like when i hear people talk like that i always think like i would be embarrassed to talk like like why why are people not embarrassed to say things like this?

36:02Like, why are you not, why are you not ashamed to say what I'm looking to do is replicate something that other people have already done? Unoriginality is just like such a sin to me. And it's so weird to me though, that that's what it seems to be guiding everything now. Art and commerce have been sort of like at war, I think, since the first painting was made. But to me, maybe it's just because of recency bias, just because I've only been in this business for the past seven years and so so i'm sort of like thinking that it feels especially bad right now but you know it does feel especially bad right now it does it just feels like the stuff that we're asked to write and watch is just so it's just yeah there's just mass risk aversion everywhere people are terrified i have a question this climate of risk aversion which i think is half a business model issue like the streaming arms race and half the nature of discourse right now where everything is politicized, cancel culture, all that.

36:58What does being risky creatively or with your art, what does that look like today? I think like Lil Nas X is like a perfect example of somebody who's like risky and he's huge because of it. Right. But I also think that like there's a key factor of that, which is that like Lil Nas X made a song all on his own that was like incredibly cheap and he put it out and it blew up. Right. And so I think that if Lil Nas X had recorded Old Town Road and taken that to a record label I think they would have told him to get lost I think they would have laughed at him and they would have said I think they would have said like there's absolutely no way we're gonna put this out like who are you what are your YouTube numbers like how many followers you have on Twitter they would have laughed him out of the building right but he did that and he put a song out and it blew up and so then all of a sudden he had a built-in audience and so now there's less risk aversion because millions of people like that song and so he's like has some leeway to sort of like do wild stuff that i think is incredible so that's the key is like i don't think it's like that risky anymore like i think that it would have been risky at first like i think that if he had come in and been like i want to put out a record and like i'm going to be pregnant in the video and like i'm going to be a pregnant man and people would have been like there's absolutely no way we're gonna let you do that but because of old town road blew up and he had all of a sudden had this like big built-in audience, I think people were willing, more willing to go along with, with his sort of like wilder ideas and the world is better for it.

38:20What an exciting dude to watch and like, what an exciting person to, to watch grow. But I think the problem is that TV and film is so expensive. It's so expensive to make. Yes. You can of course make like a, um, you know, like Issa Rae made awkward black girl on a shoestring budget and people like that. And they gave her insecure. So the, yes, you can absolutely do that, but you're not going to make succession without corporate overlords saying like, yes, you can do this. Like you're just not. Succession is an incredibly expensive show to make. There's obviously like incredibly talented, expensive actors in the show.

38:53And so you can't walk in off the street and say like, I'm going to make Succession because it's, you know, you, you need somebody to, to give you millions and millions of dollars to, to execute that. I think that I may destroy you is like a, it's like a risky, interesting whatever you may feel about that show that was very much like a person who just got to execute her vision which is like which is so so so so rare like the fact that she could just walk in and hbo was going to say like we're giving you this money you can sort of like do what you want that is incredibly rare that's almost unheard of these days but you do see instances of this you absolutely do see the instance of this but i also again i would she have been allowed to make i may destroy you had she not made chewing gum because again she's less of an unknown quantity that to me is like the real question is like if Michaela Cole had come in like nobody knew who she was and she came in and said I want to make I may destroy you do you think anybody would have made it no idea like I I don't think so I I doubt it um I didn't know much about her backstory before I saw it and I was like oh are they just like way more permissive in the UK about giving productions like these a shot like are they way more open to more kind of creative and indie concepts i was just like how did this happen this is incredible because it's you know she's british or something i mean that's the yeah i mean well you know france europe is like far more permissive i think when it comes to sort of art and stuff like like i've got a couple really good french filmmaker friends at this point and they were telling you about this program in france where everybody pays into it And then the French government will fund purposefully anti-commercial work.

40:36You'll come in and say like, I need money for this film. It's probably not going to make a bunch of money because it's really weird. It's like this weird French art house film. But, you know, I want to make it. It's important to me. And you go in and pitch them and they'll give you money for your film. Like, can you imagine that in America? Can you imagine somebody coming in and saying like, I want to do a really weird, quiet art house movie. and then the United States government would write you a check for millions of dollars to go do that. Like, of course, that's not going to happen. That's not to say that like indie movies and indie TV shows like can't get made in the United States of America.

41:10I just think it's like much, much harder. It's also because like, you know, things are a little bit less expensive there. You know, there's not a writer's guild in the UK. So like writers don't get paid as much. I don't think actors get paid as much. So I think there's a lot of factors that go into these kinds of things. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think it's built in culturally that they're going to find ways to help make those things in ways that it's not built in in the United States. So I guess on that note, we want to talk a little bit about journalists and their growing role in TV, which we touched on a little bit.

41:42But do you feel like you're an anomaly in terms of being a former journalist who moved into this world? Or do you think it's part of a wider trend? you know i don't i think that i think that it's it's been you know david simon famously you know pre you know he's been doing it for decades now he was in homestead life on the street and then the wire and he you know he comes from journalists back right you know and even i'm sure there was people even before him or two who sort of uh left journalism and got on the tv so i don't think it's like anything new i always called myself a writer you know i felt odd about calling myself a journalist because i didn't it's not all the only thing that i wanted to do and i felt like when i said i'm a journalist it sort of like felt limiting as to what I was trying to do because I had ambitions to do other stuff too.

42:22I felt like a lot of the people that I knew who were sort of like my contemporaries and my colleagues sort of felt like this is what I do. Like I'm a sports blogger or I'm a music writer or I'm a political reporter. It just felt like people were really myopic when it came to sort of what they were contributing. And I always thought that, you know, people should be more open-minded. Like, you know, consider writing like a box of tools and you can build a bed with a box of tools. You can build a chair, you can build a coffee table. You can do a lot of things with your box of tools. If it feels like it's a trend at all, I think that it's only a trend because journalism is in a lot of trouble.

42:59And I think that a lot of journalists feel like they are in unstable places. I think that unless you're at the New York Times or the Washington Post or the New Yorker or like Vox or whatever, I think that people are terrified that their jobs are going to go away or that they're going to be laid off or that their magazine or newspaper is going to shutter soon. So I think that people are like looking for ways to remain creative and remain a writer, but in a way that sort of allows them to like, you know, buy a house and feed themselves and like think about having children if they want to have children.

43:32Like, I just think that people are looking for stability. And I think that whereas for a long time, you know, journalism wouldn't necessarily make you rich, but it could give you a stable income for the rest of your life like i think that like a lot of other industries that that sure thing is going away and so i think that people are like looking for for something that feels a little bit more steady and stable and and you know tv and film is is here for that how does the one world compare to the other in terms of you know earning a living um are there labor issues or inequalities that you feel run in parallel between the two worlds yeah absolutely i mean i will say that like And the, I mean, as far as earning a living, like since I've been in the writer's guild, I made vastly more money than I ever made as a journalist.

44:18So as far as sort of like the day-to-day paycheck, like if you work for a year in TV and you work for a year in journalism, chances are you're going to make more money in television than working a year in journalism, depending on where you are. I would just say on average. That being said, the amount of money that you make as a TV writer versus the amount of money that like Netflix CEOs make or the head of HBO or the head of AT &T, which owns HBO or the head of Fox, like the amount of money that an average TV writer makes is like, you know, hugely different. In journalism, like the same goes for like the average New York Times reporter and like the Salzburgers, right?

44:57Like obviously the Salzburgers have like vastly more wealth than most of the, I would guess like most, if not all of the reporters who work at that newspaper. And so, you know the difference between sort of like the executives and the actual people like on the ground doing the labor of like creating things unless you're like Shonda Rhimes or Ryan Murphy that is a pretty big gap but also it's worth saying that you know TV writing is is inconsistent you might work on one show in a year and sort of like whatever money you make on that show despite it being like a great salary if it were your if it were a yearly salary you know that that ends up being your salary for like three months of work and then you're out of a job again you've got to start like struggling and scraping and and trying to trying to put together money and put together work again um there's a huge discussion right now with the iatsd i don't know if you guys have heard about this yeah the the iatsi strike yeah yeah so that's that's brewing and so like iatsi people like those people are on the ground making film and television every day now they're they're not like people in the writer's rooms but like that doesn't matter like tv and film is a is a huge group effort.

46:02Like it requires hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of people to make a, to make a TV show or a movie. And so all of those people who are doing that work are, you know, treated horribly in some cases, like they're, you know, like not allowed bathroom breaks or not allowed time off to go get cancer surgery. Like, it's just like, it's really bleak stuff and especially shameful in an industry when like money is so prevalent. So yeah, I would say that there, there's sort of like comparable labor issues. I would say that overall, yes, there's going to be for an average TV writer, there's going to be more money than an average journalist.

46:38But, you know, that doesn't mean that like sort of like smooth sailing no matter what. Everything we've been talking about in terms of these labor issues and creativity and the demand for like content, content, content over context. I wonder if there's a window right now because, you know america and the world in general is having a huge reckoning with labor right now right um you know as things are reopening quote-unquote post-pandemic you know people aren't wanting to go back to work you're seeing unionization movements in industries that i never thought in my lifetime i would see it's like in the music industry for example uh iotse um you know i'm in sag-aftra we're dealing with stuff there i'm also in the writer's guild too and I mean that's cool like I'm in two unions now like that was not the case a few years ago I kind of wonder if for creatives do you feel like maybe is there potential to kind of reclaim the narrative right now and no longer see like the vaulter layoff scene play out in real life anymore I mean I would hope so I think that there does seem to be momentum behind these issues but at the same time you know there's also like the same sort of like corporate structures that are out to like destroy these things and they're more powerful than they've ever been, right?

48:00You see the way that Uber and Lyft destroyed Prop 22 in California, right? Like we like, we're spending millions and millions of dollars to destroy that. And you see the way that it's been incredibly difficult to unionize at Amazon, right? Because like Amazon is the biggest company in the world and they sort of don't want them to unionize. And so they do everything in their power to stop that. And so there does seem to be momentum behind unionization and these labor issues, but at the same time, the billionaires are stronger than they've ever been before and have more money than they've ever had before.

48:33And they're going to spend a lot more to sort of like to kill these movements. And so, you know, I love the Writers Guild. Like the Writers Guild is incredibly important to me. And like, I'm a union man, like through and through when it comes to that. I'm incredibly happy that people are sort of like sticking up for themselves in this way. But, you know, I think that people are fighting tooth and nail on the other side to ensure that doesn't happen. Right. And it's, you know, as we know in media, it's no guarantee that you don't experience the vaulter scene, but it does at least provide you with resources, have someone on your side fighting for getting a better severance or whatever.

49:10Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Can you tell us a little bit about the fellowship that you created earlier this year with the Writers Guild? Yeah, yeah. As I said before, when I was telling you earlier about journalists coming to me and asking me how to get into film and television, I was never able to give them the exact key of how I got in because I got in in such an orthodox way. So I always was hoping that I could eventually do something that had more material consequence to it. And so when I signed my overall deal with Warner Brothers last year, and I sort of like came into, you know, more money than I ever thought I would make as a writer, certainly.

49:53And I felt like I wanted to do something with that money that wasn't just sort of like selfish and enriching myself. And so I decided that why don't I just set up a way to help out some people to get into TV. And so I put up my own money for those things. And I reached out to a bunch of writer friends of mine, literally all of whom agreed to help, which was amazing. And that's going well. Literally Monday, we just got in the three scripts from the three fellows. I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but I intend to read them this weekend. And we're going to try to get them meetings and get them into rooms soon.

50:29I wish I could do more, but it was what little I could do for the time being, at least. What makes journalists a good fit for TV? Like what what impact can they have? I think the journalists are good fit for TV because I think that to be a good journalist, you have to be kind of a renaissance person. I think that you need to be interested in a lot of different things. I think you need to be interested not only just in like cultural things, but also politics and, you know, the way systems work and the way corporations work and where money goes. and you have an ear for dialogue because you're constantly talking to people or interviewing people or watching interviews.

51:04You're doing your own research about things, which is great for writing. And you're sort of like hearing a lot of interesting stories that could make for compelling plot lines in a TV show or a movie. So I just feel like good journalists are really steeped in this world already. And then when you get into a writer's room, it's just utilizing all the things that you've learned in journalism in a different way. It's not like it's rocket science. It's not like you're a fireman and all of a sudden we're asking you to do neurosurgery. It's essentially very similar in these ways. And I think that, you know, people are always like, well, I don't know how to format a script.

51:39And it's like, you can learn how to format a script in like, you know, half an hour just working with final draft. The hard part is just sort of like learning how to think about plot and learning how to think about characters, learning how to think about story. And I think that journalists do that all the time. I think journalists actually make really great TV writers. and when we plan out great like big features we often are thinking about things in terms of scenes already exactly exactly we're both are storytellers exactly i think a storyteller is a storyteller is a storyteller i mean if you can write a great screenplay you can probably write a great novel i think if you can write a great novel you can you can like probably tell a great story around the campfire that keeps people interested and i think that like you can probably write a great stage play if you can do that like i just think that these i think these skills like translate to other areas, I think that people are just sometimes a little frightened to try to utilize those skills.

52:29So last question, and this ties into your Gawker show or overlaps with it a little bit, but I don't want to restrict it strictly to Gawker. If you were to cast a new media succession, who would the characters be or be based off of? A new media succession. I mean, it has to be, I think the sort of like the the triumvirate when I was working in new media was very much BuzzFeed, Vice and Gawker and I guess I remember the all the all was the all was like doing its own thing kind of like outside of that ecosystem and in a very interesting way in a way that sort of like everybody from those three entities like appreciated the all whereas I think it's sort of like everybody there were people that got through hated BuzzFeed and hated Vice and like I'm sure that those those feelings were mutual from the other places toward gawker this is like embarrassing to say but if if it were like an incredibly incredibly nerdy game of thrones like game of thrones is already kind of nerdy but if game of thrones were even nerdier it would be uh gawker buzzfeed and um gawker buzzfeed advice i think right does that doesn't that make sense and then probably probably the new york the new york times would sort of like be um i i'm i i don't know enough about game of thrones to sort of like keep the keep the game of thrones metaphor going but the new york times and sort of like those legacy media corporations would like exist but it wouldn't be as like interesting as sort of like the rivalry that was going on between between buzzfeed and gawker and yeah totally yeah or like some of the the the major players because we get a lot of big personalities from this era yeah nick denton nick one's amazing like succession but with like shane smith and nick denton and uh can you imagine jonah peretti like it's like it was absolutely that i would love to see the conversations between those guys yeah exactly like all of the yes yes it would i mean i think that that is that is you know hopefully my tv show well the tv show that i made with my friends hopefully that gets on the air one day and i think that you might be delighted because i think that there is a there's a good amount of what we're discussing right now in the show that's the show that i personally want to see you guys will please go become an executive at a tv network

54:45noted i'll get right on it if you guys ever want a second career executive at a tv network and i've got a show for you i promise all right let's do it hopefully there's a lot of executives listening to this if they are dope this take it down it's gotta get me there's no way that's not gonna get made. I appreciate that. From your lips, I appreciate that. Well, Cord Jefferson, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a blast talking with you. Thank you. I had a really nice time.

55:19This episode of The Culture Journalist was produced and edited by Emily Friedlander and me, Andrea Dominick. Our theme music is by Mark Donica. To check out more of Cord's work, head to our sub stack. That's theculturejournalist.substack.com. And if you like what you're hearing, leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or share us with friends to help support independent journalism.