Ray Fisher is "Old Hollywood's" Latest Victim

Here we are again, DC fans. Sitting at yet another crossroad with the company that holds the keys to the content we love to watch, WarnerMedia. They are the true gatekeepers in the legal and objective sense with respect to content. 

So what are we supposed to do when they disappoint us so gravely as they are right now with this Ray Fisher situation? What decision do we make going forward for our own sake and the sake of those in the same position that we’re in? 

At the end of the day, there really is no right or wrong answer because it depends on where you sit with the issue. Plenty of people think the whole situation is blown out of proportion, that Fisher is only using this situation to further his own aims, or that he’s flat out lying and trying to get “good corporate people” fired for illegitimate reasons. 

I really don’t know what to tell you all about how to proceed with it and it’s not my place to make decisions for you. All I can tell you is how I feel about it and what I’m going to do in a nutshell, and then we can go from there. 

So here we go: 

I am beyond disappointed with how WarnerMedia has chosen to handle this situation, and I do mean WarnerMedia in this case, not just WB, because Ann Sarnoff has now voiced support in favor of Walter Hamada, as did Jim Lee recently on Twitter after Hamada’s extension was announced. I have taken the position that Old Hollywood itself as a mindset and a system, needs to die, because it is fostered on generations of abuse, gender bias, race bias and scandal to expose it all at times, as evidenced with “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” from a few years back. 

Supporting Hamada over Fisher’s claims is not a new story to me. It’s one that I’ve heard many times from black creatives and also women creatives over the years. It’s a big reason why my opinion on working in Hollywood has changed completely since I finished film school. I don’t want to become another Epsilon cog, to use a Brave New World reference, in that massive system of patriarchy and greed that has squeezed and crushed the livelihoods of a lot of minority creatives for decades, long before they started screwing with comic book movies. 

So I don’t have an unbiased perspective on this, especially as a black creative myself. I don’t begrudge any black creator that fights to make their way in the industry like Spike Lee, Ava Duvernay or many others, and when they succeed in the industry, I applaud that success, but in the digital age where the industry itself is evolving to expand the creatives ranks through technology, why do I want to put myself through that hell when I have other options, that while they require more work, would be less ethically painful to stomach? 

I hate that Ray Fisher is getting crushed on this because he’s not a name. He’s not Anthony Mackie, or Don Cheadle, or Idris Elba or Will Smith. Those are names the general audience would listen to if something happened to them because they’ve been in the public eye for longer and people know who they are. Barely any of the general audience knows who Fisher is at all, and now because of incompetence, enabling and patriarchal deference to a now old way of doing business, they probably won’t know him at all…...unless Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the biggest hit for HBO Max on record, in which case he could be newly discovered, but even then it wouldn’t matter as WarnerMedia has effectively drawn their line in the sand on any future dealings with him. 

That does anger me, not going to lie. There’s nothing fair about that situation, and Fisher is yet another black voice being silenced to protect those in power who have old, white male money backing them up. 

If you’re asking me why I believe him and not WarnerMedia, that should be obvious. It’s because I’m black, and being black in America means having a perspective that many others are never going to understand about how this country and its corporate structure works. There are reasons we show our emotions, there are reasons we get passionate about serious issues, and there are reasons we feel like we are barely heard on a grand scale when it comes to suffering abuse or racism at the hands of businesses that are by design, institutionally racist. 

Yes, Hollywood is institutionally racist. This isn’t a surprise. Look at the membership in the Academy across all minorities, not just black people even. Look at who owns the studios. Look at who most of the producers and creatives are in the business. That’s not by accident. It’s been that way for decades and it’s meant to remain that way, which is hardly an accurate representation of the world we live in by any stretch. 

So what am I going to do? Will I boycott DC films going forward, drop my HBO Max subscription and take my business elsewhere in defiance as a small measure of justice for Ray Fisher’s situation? 

No I’m not, and yes it really is that complicated. 

It’s easy for people in the heat of the moment to be outraged and call for boycotts. We all saw that last year with the George Floyd protests that we couldn’t ignore because the COVID-19 pandemic shut down our movie theaters, concerts and sporting events. Our distractions were gone, so we had to focus on what was in front of us for once. 

The thing is, we have so many distractions at our disposal, and on some level there are other black and minority creatives that are involved in them. People that we know, like the ones I mentioned before, and many others that we don’t know and either will know in time, or will never know. 

If I boycott any of these studios, I risk hurting those creatives too, and they didn’t enable abuse and racism toward Ray Fisher on that Justice League set. In fact, there are many white people that work for WB and other studios that didn’t make that decision either and are just trying to put food on the table themselves. I’m not going to hurt them, and based on what Fisher has said to this point, he doesn’t want those people to be hurt either. 

The reason I say “any of these studios” is because we shouldn’t dare think that situations like Fisher’s only happen at WarnerMedia. Based on what I’ve heard and seen over the years and from what others connected to the industry will tell you, it’s ALL of Hollywood that has been doing these things for a very long time. That’s why this isn’t just about Cyborg and his presence in The Flash movie. Fisher is just another story of a minority creative being silenced by a big studio in favor of maintaining the patriarchy. There are so many others that have endured worse than he has, make no mistake about it. 

So if I were going to boycott anything for the sake of justice, it would be Hollywood in general, which again means I take away support for other black creatives that are fighting the good fight and building their careers in the system at whatever studio they’re working for. I’m not going to do that, because I want stories like Ray Fisher’s to stop happening, and that only has a chance if people continue to lobby for change in this industry as opposed to cutting it off entirely. I don’t want black, female or minority voices silenced in Hollywood. I want them to be louder, and boycotting them takes away that voice instead of supporting it. You may think otherwise because we’ve been led to believe that protests and outcry are the way to make real change in this world, but the truth is that while protests and outcry DO help to bring awareness to an injustice, the real work towards change happens within the system and those who are willing to push for it on the ground level. 

That is what creatives like Spike Lee, Ava Duvernay, Justin Simien, Jordan Peele and others are working to do, and I wholeheartedly support that, because more of that will ultimately be what stops more Ray Fisher situations. 

So if I’m not boycotting DC Films, WB or WarnerMedia, then what am I going to do?

I am going to do all I can to make sure this situation doesn’t go away until it’s potentially resolved, and if it never gets resolved then I’m going to be vocal to warn others of it so that we can do what we can to stop it from happening again. Visibility and attention are what is needed to shine a light on this situation, and that light needs to stay bright if for no other reason, than to be a cautionary tale for everyone else to see going forward. 

So tweets and retweets will continue. Blog posts like this will continue. With any luck, videos will happen. I personally won’t let this story die and fade off into nothing. Ray Fisher’s situation will be remembered and not rendered irrelevant like the studios want it to be. If they thought the fandom was loud about The Snyder Cut, they should be prepared for that to continue with this. 

I don’t have much excitement at all for The Flash movie at this point and couldn’t care less if it ends up being made now. I was willing to chalk up Rick Famuyiwa’s situation with the film as creative differences, but now in the wake of this, as well as the radio silence about Kiersey Clemons being cast as Iris West or not in the film, it’s difficult for me not to think that race is involved here, which is pretty messed up. 

I have no ill will for Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, Michael Keaton or anyone else in that movie, and I actually understand if they don’t speak up for Fisher because they all have jobs in Hollywood too, and biting the hand that feeds you, even if it’s the right thing to do, can be very costly for someone’s career, even if and maybe especially because they are a bigger name actor. All it takes is one strikeout with a studio to get blacklisted from Hollywood for the rest of your career. That’s how corporately insidious the whole industry truly is. 

I still support the streaming evolution and still look for it to be the eventual death blow to Old Hollywood’s patriarchy, but I can’t include WarnerMedia in that expectation anymore. They have now proven that they aren’t as willing to shed the traditional ways as much as Netflix and others are, so while I hope HBO Max helps push the industry out of the dark ages, I can’t trust Sarnoff and Jason Kilar to be shepherds for that anymore. Maybe one day they can regain that trust, but not now. Not after this. 

Walter Hamada shouldn’t have a job and neither should his direct boss, Toby Emmerich. They are part of the patriarchy and their positions shouldn’t survive the industry transition. Any and everything they make will have questions on it with me going forward, whether I like the films or not. 

So that’s pretty much where I’m at with this whole situation. Very disappointed in the outcome and no longer nearly as trustful of WarnerMedia as an entity, but perhaps this is a reminder that trust shouldn’t be granted arbitrarily to corporations just because they hold the keys to your favorite characters and stories. At the end of the day, you’re still just a dollar sign to all of them, and that’s a harsh reality to remember. 

All that said, I still hope that somehow Ray Fisher finds his way after all this, and I still hope for a day when stories like his are only found in history books instead of continuing to happen with black creatives going forward. 

Onward…...but never silent. 

Accountability > Entertainment