It’s Oscar weekend, Hollywood’s time to shine. But behind the glitz and glamour, there’s a darker reality: Hollywood is losing some of its luster.
“People are desperate because so much production has left Los Angeles,” said Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif. “So they’re looking for a lifeline. They’re looking for help for one of our signature industries.”
This Hollywood story, though, has an unlikely plot twist: Days before beginning his second term, President Donald Trump named Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as his special ambassadors to Hollywood to help bring back what he called a “very troubled place.”
The three veteran actors are Trump fans, a rarity in the entertainment capital. What their new roles will involve, though, remains unclear.
“I think they’re not sure exactly what it’s going to mean,” said professor Patricia Phalen of The George Washington University. “I do know that President Trump has said he wants to keep an eye on runaway production, and that has been a really serious problem for Hollywood, because Hollywood is very expensive.”
In announcing the appointment on social media, the president said these new ambassadors would “serve as special envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to foreign countries, back — bigger, better and stronger than ever before!”
The shift of movie and TV production away from Southern California has caught the attention of state officials, too. Late last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed increasing an incentive program to more than double the tax relief given to producers who shoot in state. Two bills to enact the proposal were just introduced in the state Legislature.
Friedman, a former film producer, said she wants to work with the president to keep productions in the U.S., but she said she does not think naming the three ambassadors is a “serious proposal.”
“People are desperate because so much production has left Los Angeles. So they’re looking for a lifeline,” she explained. “I’ve been talking for a long time about needing a federal film tax credit, the way that Canada, the way that many other countries lure productions onto their shores — we don’t have that in the United States. So while our state provides that, a federal match would do wonders to help Los Angeles.”
“There’s a lot of things that the administration could do if they were serious about keeping those American jobs here in the United States, but so far, there’s been nothing,” she said.
She said she’s also concerned the three new ambassadors are all Republicans, stressing the arts should remain nonpartisan.
“It’s important that everybody can express themselves, whatever their political ideology. And I would support absolutely content neutral arts funding,” Friedman said.
But Phalen said Hollywood has been political for decades, and more often produces content that skews liberal. She said the three ambassadors could help shape a more diverse conversation about the entertainment industry.
“I think there’s a lot of room for bringing in new voices and allowing those voices to be just as mainstream as a lot of the films and television shows that we’re watching now,” Phalen said.
The announcement by Trump of his three Hollywood ambassadors prior to taking office caught at least one of the men by surprise.
Gibson said in an interview he found out about the position via Trump’s Truth Social post, and asked if the role came with a residence after he lost his home in the Los Angeles wildfires in January.
Spectrum News reached out to the White House to seek clarification on the ambassadors’ positions, but was not provided with a public response.
