On October 15, Warner Brothers announced that they have signed self-proclaimed Marxist and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors to a multi-year production deal.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, nor were any plans for the Marxist Cullors to redistribute any financial gain earned from it. This is Cullors’ first Hollywood production deal. She is one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and also founded the Los Angeles-based prison inmate advocacy group Dignity and Power Now, which advocates for the complete defunding of the police. Cullors also authored the book When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir.
“Under the terms of the wide-ranging content partnership, Cullors will develop and produce original programming for all platforms: streaming services, cable and the five broadcast networks. This includes but is not limited to live-action scripted drama and comedy series; longform/events series; unscripted docuseries; animated programming for co-viewing among kids, young adults and families; and original digital content,” a Warner Brothers press release stated.
Cullors appears to have no Hollywood production experience to date, but has worked as a writer and an actress on the television show Good Trouble on the Freeform Cable network.
The studio plans to build upon Cullors’ political activism to produce content that will appeal to the leftist social-justice movement in America, and in particular the Black Lives Matter movement. “Through this agreement, WBTVG and Cullors will collaborate on programming that will amplify the work of the Black Lives Matter movement and will create further opportunities for prominent Black storytelling.”
“Black voices, especially Black voices who have been historically marginalized, are important and integral to today’s storytelling,” Cullors said. “Our perspective and amplification is necessary and vital to helping shape a new narrative for our families and communities. I am committed to uplifting these stories in my new creative role with the Warner Brothers family. As a long time community organizer and social justice activist, I believe that my work behind the camera will be an extension of the work I’ve been doing for the last twenty years. I look forward to amplifying the talent and voices of other Black creatives through my work.”
The signing of Cullors to a production deal underscores a Hollywood effort to kowtow to the social-justice movement in America, especially in the wake of the death of Minneapolis criminal George Floyd in police custody in May. In July, CBS Television Studios inked a similar deal with the NAACP with the goal to tell “inclusive stories that increase the visibility and impact of Black artists in a growing media landscape.”
But are the NAACP and Cullors essentially “selling out” in making these deals? Through making corporate deals, are they invalidating their own premise that the “system” is inherently racist? Can they be true radical activists fighting against the system when they are a part of that same system?
The Twitter account Nation State of Mind seems to bring up that point: “Somebody needs to hear this: Black liberation isn’t brought to you by AT&T, sponsored by Wells Fargo, or managed by Roc Nation. And it certainly doesn’t come with a Warner Bros. Television deal, or a shoe from Nike.”
One thing Warner Brothers left out of their announcement of Cullors’ new deal is the fact that she openly refers to herself as a “trained Marxist.”
“We are trained Marxists,” Cullors said of herself and her Black Lives Matter co-founders in 2015. “We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories. And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk.”
So, a self-proclaimed “trained Marxist” is teaming up with a Hollywood studio to produce content that proclaims “social justice” ideals to the masses. Does Warner Brothers see Cullors as the Sergei Eisenstein — a maker of Soviet propaganda films — of the 21st century?
Or are they just trying to insulate their brand from social-justice cancel culture while maybe making a few bucks along the way?
In the 1950’s, many Hollywood studios were accused of blacklisting people with suspected ties to communism and its underlying Marxist political and economic theories. In 2020, they’re signing people with openly Marxist views to production deals. It’s not surprising, but it is disappointing.
