Mailbag for December 15, 2023
Shohei Ohtani GOSSIP frenzy, Harry and Meghan’s biggest problem, actors' production involvement, gossipy actors, strategic categorization, and Netflix’s latest data dump
Dear Squawkers,
We use the term “inside baseball” here a lot. And today, we’re actually going inside baseball. Because exactly a week ago, there was big gossip in baseball: the Shohei Ohtani situation. A quick recap for those of you who don’t do sports.
Shohei Ohtani is basically the best baseball player in the world right now, and some people even think he might be the best baseball player, like, ever in the history of the sport. It’s because he’s stupidly good at both hitting AND pitching, which is a unicorn set of skills. There’s really never been a player who can both hit and pitch at his crazy ass elite level.
Up until a few days ago, Shohei Ohtani was a free agent and it had come down to two teams who were in the market to sign him: the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays. I live in Toronto and the last three weeks here have been Ohtani mayhem as the city was getting more and more hopeful as each day passed that a living baseball legend might actually be playing here in the spring.
So rewind to last Friday, and everyone was saying an announcement was imminent. Then, on Twitter and TikTok, someone starts tracking a plane. It was a private jet that was making its way from Santa Ana, California to Toronto. The plane tracking tweets start blowing up – when Jacek picked me up from work that afternoon, he was popping off about how he’d heard about it, and how Twitter users were saying that this wasn’t a common flight path or some sh-t and these people were convinced that it had to be Ohtani and that he was on his way to Toronto to put on a Jays jersey.
Ohtani was trending, people were refreshing their feeds every five minutes, and those who were skeptical about the legitimacy of this kind of reporting were shouted down. Local media had no choice but to send cameras to the airport…
Let me just pause right now to LOLOLOLOL because I’m pretty sure you know where this is going.
There was a celebrity on that plane, but it wasn’t Shohei Ohtani. It was Robert Herjavec who was mystified when he disembarked and found that Toronto media had assembled to greet him. The Athletic published a great piece the other day about the whole situation titled “The flight of N616RH: When Shohei Ohtani’s contract saga jumped the shark (tank)”, LOL again.
The reason I’m opening the mailbag with this? Because I’m singing a familiar song, a song I sing often – this is gossip! It is BAD gossip, but it is gossip! There is SO MUCH GOSSIP in sports. And it functions the same fucking way as it does in the celebrity ecosystem: wild speculation that leads to chaos that sometimes, oftentimes, leads to nothingburgers.
Remember when all that shit about the Beckhams started on social media a few years ago? Something something about a divorce being imminent because something something about David and a teacher at Harper Seven’s school? To the point where legacy media had to cover it, and everyone was on high alert for weeks waiting for this announcement. And it was fiction, it was the plane trackers sending people on a goose chase for a baseball player who was on solid ground on the other side of the continent. And who ended up signing with the LA Dodgers.
But of course, you know, sports fans are above the gossip, right? Gossip is beneath them. Sport is SERIOUS. Celebrity is UNSERIOUS.
What could possibly be more fucking unserious than Twitter users pretending to be aviation experts and sports analysts wasting hours tracking a plane belonging to a reality show billionaire?!
Tuck that way for the next time some clown tries to tell you that your interest in celebrities is less important and intelligent than his interest in sports.
But also, at the risk of sounding like an old cunt, it’s another example of the increasingly negative impact that social media is having on gossip, any gossip, be it sports or celebrity. We are squawking crusaders for good gossip, accurate gossip. And the plane trackers are not it.
Let’s dive into the mailbag.
Question from Myra: What things do you think Harry and Meghan can do to solidify themselves in the industry? I think many including myself are rooting for them due to their humanitarian work, challenge of traditional media, and their joint charisma. Are they lacking in honest to goodness actual work or do they just need to hire more skilled PR people? Or both?
Lainey’s Answer:
Breaking news today – another legal victory for Prince Harry, as a British court has ruled in his favour in one of the three phone hacking cases he’s brought against the British tabloids. It’s a landmark victory against the publications who continue to fuck with him and who, frankly, continue to heavily influence public perception about him and Meghan Markle.
Your question is about PR, and this development is related to the Sussexes’ public relationship. There have been a few relatively minor PR missteps no doubt, but in the bigger picture, their comms team has nothing to do with the Sussexes’ overall public relations challenges. In terms of public relations, Harry and Meghan’s biggest problem is overexposure. And we’ve talked about this before – they’re not overexposed because they self-overexpose. If you really look at their activity and appearances, they actually keep it pretty low key. It’s not like they’re out here getting papped on the daily.
It’s just that people can’t stop talking about them. The British tabloids can’t stop talking about them, even when there’s actually nothing new to say. And at this point I think it’s strategic on the tabloids’ part, because they can see the effect that their incessant coverage is having on the Sussexes’ brand. They are contributing to if not causing the overexposure and Harry and Meghan simply can’t stop it. I’m not sure there’s any PR expert out there who could stop it.
The cliché solution to any problem is the work – if you consistently put out quality work, in the end it should stand for itself. Invictus is great work, and we saw during the Invictus Games that those were two solid weeks of publicity for the Sussexes. Apart from the Invictus Games, though, in my opinion, Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation doesn’t have the same brand clarity as Invictus. You may have heard about the impact report that was released this week, making headlines for the drop in donations. The brand clarity issue may be one of the reasons for this decline. I’ve worked in fund development and donors are discerning about what they’re supporting, especially at that level. They ask for specificity beyond the executive summary, they want to see the building blocks behind the grand vision. And I’m not convinced that Harry and Meghan have done the best job of getting specific. This, ironically, is also Kate’s problem with her Early Years project. It’s the same language, all top line surface, but no substance.
You’re asking me how Harry and Meghan can solidify themselves in the industry? I think the key word there is “solid”. Archewell is new, it’s still growing, and one of those growing pains is getting SOLID about who they are, clearly defining what it is that they do.
But even if they’re able to finetune Archewell’s approach, in the present, and for at least the next year, the other mess, independent of Archewell, will continue because, remember, Harry still has two court cases that are pending against the tabloids. And until that situation is concluded, the past will always be part of the conversation – and this is the challenge for Harry and Meghan. They’re moving forward while fighting their historical injustices. And it’s really, really tricky to put together a successful public relations plan when you’re trying to plan for your future while still so tied to your past.
Question from Christy: Question about actor production companies. Just watched Leave the World Behind with Julia Roberts/Red Om Production. What production role/s do the actors take? Reese Witherspoon's work is fairly well documented but with Roberts, Kidman, Aniston there is less information.
Sarah’s answer: It varies wildly. Some actors are very hands-on as producers, like Reese, or Tom Cruise, Margot Robbie, Ryan Reynolds. A lot aren’t that hands-on, a production shingle is just a way of funneling work their way (which is smart, regardless of how involved they actually want to be as a producer, it’s a good way to exert some control in an industry designed to undermine actors’ agency). “Producer” is a notoriously ill-defined job—basically, if the director is the captain of the ship, then the producer runs the shipping company—and vanity credits are rampant (a producer credit is often a way to funnel more money to star talent). Generally, if an actor is actually being cited specifically for their work as a producer, and they’re talking transparently about what they’re doing behind the scenes, then they’re actually producing as an active verb. If they have a production company but you never actually hear what they’re doing, then it’s probably more of a vanity credit.
Question from Kathleen: Speaking of gossipy group texts, do you have any guesses on who the biggest gossips are among celebrities, and what kind of shit they talk in group texts?
Lainey’s Answer:
I really, really love this about Jennifer Lawrence. That she is SO famous, but she doesn’t pretend that she isn’t out here talking shit all the time. Because that’s what the rest of them are doing! Over the course of my career, I have spent a decent amount of time around celebrities, some of them very famous. And I can confirm that they do actually sit around and talk about each other. Sometimes it’s business, like I heard X pitched that idea to that studio; or Y couldn’t get his shit together on that pilot and it fell apart. Other times it’s about money. Did you hear how much X overpaid for that piece of property? Did you hear what that studio offered A for that part?
Of course, it can also get dirty. As in, B looks so bad in that film; what is C doing with that loser; or I will never work with D again, he always comes to set unprepared; or I heard he’s f-cking his makeup artist. Etc etc etc.
Back to Jennifer Lawrence though – she’s tight with Emma Stone and both of them are tight with Adele and Taylor Swift. If you’re asking me to guess… all of those women are big gossips, those group chats are basically just them firing gossip bombs back and forth at each other.
And it’s not just the women. George Clooney? Always good for gossip. I heard from a couple of sources years ago this hilarious exchange George was having with someone about Ryan Gosling and his “accent”. Like he was very impressed by Ryan’s talent, but he was also like, why does that kid talk like that … isn’t he from Canada?
Also? Some people love the SmartLess pod, and some can’t fuck with it. But we can all agree that those three, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes do a much better and way more gossipy show when they’re not recording, right?
Is there one gossip to gossip them all, though? Out of all the celebrities? My guess is Gwyneth Paltrow.
Question from Rainy Beth: I know individual actors can decide which category they want to be considered for award purposes. But do studios have any say in what categories their films/tv shows are classified? Looking at the Golden Globe, a couple questionable decisions stand out like May/December in the comedy or musical category and Barry and Bear in TV comedy. If your TV show is 1/2 hr long does it automatically go in the comedy bucket? Just wondering how much control there is...
Sarah’s answer:
Yes, choosing which category to enter is strategic. Lainey recently brought up May December being considered as a comedy for the Golden Globes, and the debate that ensued about whether or not it is a comedy. It’s not not a comedy, it falls on the “dramedy” line, but being considered as a comedy gave it better odds than going up against stiff competition in the drama category, and the Netflix awards team would know that. At the Oscars, they will have no choice, because there is no comedy/drama delineation, but at an event like the Globes, securing a nomination—and a headline—is the objective, and part of the planning. The comedy category is often a strategic placement for an Oscar bubble film looking to generate momentum going into nominations.
On the TV side, though, it definitely has to do with runtimes. There is a stubborn adherence to the idea that comedies are “short”, and dramas are “long”, but shows like Succession and The Bear and Barry and Our Flag Means Death are challenging that. It feels more inevitable every year that the switch will flip, and the categories will become divorced from runtime, and we’ll see half-hour dramas and hourlong comedies. For now, they are clinging doggedly to the runtime standard, but the chorus gets a little bit louder all the time.
Question from Josephine: Question for Sarah: what are your thoughts on Netflix’s latest data dump of viewing hours for each the titles available for the first half of 2023? The Vulture article I read quoted Sarandos as saying it’s part of their “continuum of transparency” and yet they decline to provide other data that talent could cross reference or combine with other data that could make that information useful and actionable. Also, how do we know that data is accurate? I read an article a few months ago that Disney shareholders were suing Disney because of misleading growth numbers.
Sarah’s answer:
For anyone who is curious, here’s an article from The Hollywood Reporter about Netflix’s data dump. Of course, it has to be taken with a grain of salt that this is Netflix self-reporting, not a third-party verified dataset, like Nielsen ratings. And yes, they withhold key data points like what titles drive new subscriptions to the platform, and we don’t really have any idea what the economics of a single title is. Like, we know a film’s budget (at least we can ballpark it with reasonable accuracy), and we know the box office, which is third-party verified, so we can judge if a film performs well or not in a marketplace. But without knowing which titles drive subscriptions, we can’t determine if Netflix’s budget model is “good”.
Does Stranger Things drive enough revenue to justify its huge budget? Maybe! Who knows! Netflix is walking a weird line of having to make some concessions to the traditional business model of Hollywood, because stuff like residuals depend on long-term performance and revenue. They wanted to be secret wizards of cinema, but they also didn’t want to pay anyone fair wages, and now that they’re newly contractually obliged to pay at least some performance-based wages, they have to start sharing data. But let’s just assume they will do this in a way that benefits them first and foremost, which is why omitting data about what titles drive new subscriptions is annoying. They’ll pay based on hours viewed, but if a title leads to subscription growth, the vested talent might not ever know, and thus, be cut out of that revenue. On the theatrical model, vested parties get paid out at every step and stage—theatrical release, home video/VOD, TV/cable licensing, and so on. Netflix is, so far, only accountable to pay out on one metric, and even then only to the top-tier of the most successful titles. In short: inequity persists!
Lainey’s Answer:
To build on what Sarah’s saying here about Netflix’s opacity, you will note that in the data released, “non-English titles generated 30% of all viewing hours globally” on the platform. This of course is in line with the increasing popularity of films and series coming from East Asia, and we have seen Netflix’s growing investment in South Korean market over the last several years. The Glory, a Korean revenge drama, was the third most-watched title on Netflix for the first half of 2023.
But there have already been reports that Netflix is shafting Korean artists, greatly benefiting from an entertainment system that is a major factor in its success and sustainability in terms of its content pipeline but likely not fairly compensating the artists who are actually producing the work. And, as Sarah points out, when they continue withholding key data sets, like which titles drive and retain subscriptions, it basically means they’re not letting artists know how valuable their work is – and in this case it’s artists from non-English speaking countries, who are already not considered equal players in Hollywood. This lack of transparency then has both financial and cultural consequences. Again, in short: inequity persists!
And that wraps up this week’s mailbag – thank you, as always, for you questions and comments and likes etc. It is always such a thrill , every single day, to open up The Squawk and to see all the discussions that are happening in reaction to the posts we put up at LaineyGossip. You’re giving us the gift of community, we are SO grateful!
Keep squawking, keep gossiping,
Lainey and Sarah
Comedian Jay Jurden has a great joke about sports, gossip, and men--“Sports analysis is just gossip between games. It’s how men do their Real Housewives watching.” 😆😆😆 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0J34BDgMAF/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
I forwarded the mailbag newsletter to my husband because of your hilarious story about Ohtani. (I never in a million years thought this was going to happen! But in gossip we unite)