Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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Cruise’s tirade also revealed a double standard that below-the-line workers (the rank and file of the industry) face. The “ability to remain cool under pressure” is a hiring requirement for below-the-line workers but optional for talent like Cruise. Above-the-line workers (actors, screenwriters, producers, directors, etc.) are allowed to mask their toxicity as eccentricity and their blowups as dramatic flair.
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As is common in these situations, the whistleblower is derided as an oversensitive snitch and the aggressor is absolved as a victim of cancel culture, making it that much harder to hold those in power accountable.
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Despite being a vindictive boss (who I later discovered tormented all of the post coordinators before me) this co-producer was kept on the show year in and year out because they devoted their life to it and were, unquestionably, technically skilled. More importantly though, they met all of the impossible deadlines the production called for—with the help of my occasional, unpaid overtime. It was on this horrid job that I understood that the rules of the industry, and more broadly the rules of capital, were defined by subjugation.