This past week, the production of the TV show Tulsa King, which is filming in Georgia instead of Oklahoma, has faced allegations that its star Sylvester Stallone and director Craig Zisk were upset over the appearance of the background extras. Reportedly, they didn’t like that one actor was using a cane. And Stallone has been accused of calling the extras “fucking ugly.” Rose Locke of Catrett Locke Casting announced on April 7 they were terminating their working contract with the show later in the week because of this.
There’s been a debate on who to believe. Zisk has denied the allegations saying he wanted extras in the 25-35 age range but instead older people were hired to be extras at a hip bar. Maybe if they had filmed the show in Oklahoma, they would know that many us middle-aged people hang around in “hip bars.” Did someone even entertain the fact that maybe they couldn’t find enough people who wanted to be background actors in this age range? I know it might be hard to understand but it does happen.
Yet it represents a problem Hollywood and the entertainment industry has had since its inception – accepted discrimination. There was even a joke on Family Guy this past week where Brad Pitt has been cast as former New Jersey governor Chris Christie instead of an obese person. Obviously the episode was probably made in response to Brendan Fraser being cast as a morbidly obese person in The Whale. There was criticism that Fraser wasn’t gay either which is what the character was. However, the person’s sexuality is in regards to the death of a former partner. But even casting a person who weighs 500-600 pounds in such a role would be an issue. Yet, I understand the joke Family Guy, which is waning in humor, is trying to convey.
Movies are becoming more and more about the actors rather than the story itself. White actors have often played characters who weren’t written as white. Even Jeffrey Wright faced criticism for playing a Latino in the 2000 Shaft as well as Vanessa Williams for her Spanish surname. But it was supposed to be from a previous marriage. Equal representation is becoming more and more an issue in our entertainment industry. We can’t just have Mickey Rooney do a “Me So Solly” role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or even Joel Grey pretend to be Korean in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.
The actor in question on Tulsa King is Thomas Moneyham who was replaced because he used a cane. He told Deadline that he did see Stallone looking at him and laughing. Another person on the set said they heard Stallone refer to Moneyham as a “tub of lard” and a “fat guy with a cane.” Moneyham said he’s more “pissed than hurt” adding “And it’s just because of my disability.”
I feel it’s the same problem I’ve dealt with because of my disability because I send casting agencies a full-body picture with my cane. I haven’t had much luck, but sometimes it’s because the casting directors are looking for certain people. While they were filming Killers of the Flower Moon in the Osage Nation area, they had a difficult time finding slimmer actors. I went out for everything including an open call and submitted via email several times. In the end I still saw bigger-bodied actors in the movie. So maybe there was just something they didn’t like about me.
Zisk has reportedly over 100 directing credits mostly on TV shows. He’s not a household name and I’ll believe he was covering for Stallone more than some background actors. He denied allegations Stallone wanted more pretty women around him as the Rocky and Rambo star’s wife, Jennifer Flavin, was on set. However, it does show that Stallone like many actors has had a history of prima donna behavior going back years. On the set of Cobra, he reportedly would fire people if they looked at him. Brian Thompson, who played the movie’s main villain, said during a crucial scene he had to deliver his lines to an assistant director off set because Stallone had left to go watch a sports game. While filming Daylight in Rome, he demanded to stay in the Excelsior Hotel, which cost $3,600 a night for about three months.
Around Oklahoma, the word is that Stallone wasn’t too comfortable with the inexperience of filming the first season. Some people have said it was that there weren’t as many amenities to satisfy him. He claimed it was about the hot summer of 2022, but Georgia has just as sweltering summers as Oklahoma. But they have more amenities in the Atlanta area now that Georgia has become a major film/TV industry thanks to the movie’s tax credits.
And this brings up another issue. Most of the states like Georgia, Louisiana and even Oklahoma, who provide outrageously high tax incentives for the entertainment industry, are getting the business. But the actors are scrambling for chicken feed. Even when they filmed Reservation Dogs in a state with a high percentage of Indigenous Native Americans, most of the main cast was from other states or other countries, such as Canada. Many of my friends in Georgia who have the acting bug have had problems getting many gigs aside from background extras. Even speaking roles are very, very scarce.
History in Hollywood does have its stories of famous actors who were fired or let go before they became famous. Pitt himself wasn’t hired for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark because he was reportedly too handsome to play a small-town teenage boy. He was also threatened to be fired from Less Than Zero for trying to speak when he was just supposed to be a background extra. And Stallone himself had Richard Gere fired from The Lords of Flatbush for accidentally spilling mustard on him. This was back when neither actor were big names.
Quentin Tarantino has pointed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as why there are no movie stars anymore. But I think it also has to do with a change in perception among the generations. Celebrities used to be cherished which made their behaviors, even bad, more acceptable. (And it’s why people are so quick to defend Stallone.) But more and more, Millennials, Gen Zers and even some of us Gen Xers are calling out celebrities more and more for their outrageous behaviors.
Just look at the criticism toward Jennifer Lopez whose documentary This is Me…Now has gotten good reviews from professional critics but a lot of hatred and disgust from regular people. I’ve only seen snippets but I have no desire to see it. Mainly it’s because Lopez continues to act like she’s “Jenny from the block.” I’ve never been to the Bronx but I can tell you she may have lived at one time in the Bronx, but she’s not “from the Bronx.” Lopez has been the subject of constant mockery on social media for it and the documentary has a dismissive 4.3 rating on imdb.com at the time of this posting.
It’s quite obvious. A lot of younger people and the public in general don’t care about celebrities they way they did decades ago. Maybe it’s because we’ve been reborn in the aftermath of Covid-19. Or, and pardon me for saying this, the celebrity status people show Donald J. Trump has created a dangerous cult feel. It’s kind of a situation in which celebrities are trying to make themselves out to be normal, but demanding to be treated differently from everyone else. At the same time, they gripe about “wanting their privacy.”
Maybe social media is making celebrities out of people who are famous for being famous. And yes, Michael J. Fox is right. Celebrities years ago had to have talent. But a lot of actors were only famous because they had a certain look. This dates back to the silent movie era. I think more of the public is fed up with actors demanding salaries of eight figures for movies that have outrageously big budget but lack any entertainment. We’re expected to spend $20 for a movie ticket while some only earn half of that for an hour or work. If we’re going to spend two hours of our pay for a two-hour movie, it better be worth it.
And the movie theaters have commercials now. You still pay too much for concessions. It’s crazy. Part of this reason is that movie studios are putting the costs of their big movies off on the consumers to pay more to see them. It’s just not worth it to see a movie every weekend if most of them are going to eat into your budget. I like Johnny Depp and defended him during that trial against Amber Heard. But he’s wanted too much money for awful movies.
Tarantino doesn’t understand that the action stars he talks about were making $1-2 million back in the day and that was still considered a lot of money. Now, they do it for “geezer features” which go direct-to-video and are poorly made. Burt Reynolds got paid $5 million for The Cannonball Run and that made a lot of noise then. Celebrities are demanding bigger salaries to sleepwalk through their roles. At the same time, most of the people in the workplace are doing at least two jobs for one salary.
And with Quiet on Set, the docuseries about Nickelodeon and its discriminatory ways is opening people’s eyes more. You can’t keep treating people a certain way. Even Kenan Thompson who started out on Nickelodeon put his foot down on the set of Saturday Night Live refusing to play black women. And I’m all for that. He shouldn’t have to play black women. They’ve even joked about it as they has Kerry Washington having to play multiple black women while they had half a dozen white men to play Matthew McConaughey.
The workforce has changed a lot in the years since our parents started out. I mean, a lot of Baby Boomers could start a job the Monday after their high school graduation and be on their ways to starting a family by the time they were old enough to buy alcohol at age 21. That has changed a lot in the last 40 years with the end of government regulations under “that sumbitch Reagan.” For the first time in a generation, many people faced the possibilities in the later 1980s and throughout the 1990s, they could be terminated from jobs at a moment’s notice for no reason whatsoever. They also couldn’t be helped through unemployment either. And those that were fortunate to keep their jobs saw their salaries slashed as corporate profits increased.
Many Gen Xers were told to suck it up and work harder. But all it led to was more hard work. Jobs were outsourced. Companies brought in new people to be managers/supervisors. Having a college degree suddenly wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. And Millennials and Gen Zers found themselves victim to predatory student loan companies under the belief they’d be able to pay it off with a college degree. But now, $15 an hour isn’t enough for people to live comfortable as rent is high and gas is high. Ten years ago, I was alarmed that the Walgreens in Branson, Mo. was selling a 12-pack of Coke products for over $5. Now, many stores are selling them for more than that. I remember buying a 24-pack for $5 in college. But that was almost minimum wage.
Now, minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour but everything else is outrageously high. So, when J. Lo says she’s just “Jenny from the block,” no one wants to hear it. The criticism lobbed at people last year over the jokes of the Titan submersible implosion backfired because many people didn’t care about rich people paying six figures diving many miles to see the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. CBS Sunday Morning reported earlier today people will need $1.46 million to live and retire comfortably which is up $951,000 from only a few years ago. Most people won’t even be able to retire with a quarter of $951,000.
While I think the housing market is going to crash again this decade, I think people are going to start going to movies less and it will drive down the prices of movies both with tickets and production costs. The MCU is falling apart and the DCU is also doomed to fail like the DCEU. It’s a time to return to basics in America.
I don’t expect people like Stallone who turns 78 this July to change. People like him, Trump and J. Lo live in their own worlds. The best thing to do is to leave them there.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 