free speech is when you can't say anything that makes the rich rich babyman mad
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Mo Ryan
@moryan
Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair. My book—Burn It Down: Power, Complicity & a Call for Change in Hollywood—is out now from Mariner Books.
She/her
She/hermoryan.comJoined November 2007
Mo Ryan’s Tweets
Preferred term is "Hellmouth."
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BREAKING: Sinkhole develops on White House lawn.
right outside the briefing room. thehill.com/blogs/blog-bri
Regret to inform you that President Biden issued an executive order today. There’s a minimum 1-year ban on starting your episode of television with an in media res action sequence putting key characters in unexplained jeopardy, followed by the on-screen words “36 hours earlier”
In recent years, Evan Rachel Wood has spoken out about abuse at the hands of an unnamed ex. Today she breaks that silence: “The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known as Marilyn Manson.” Four other women have come forward regarding Manson as well.
THERE'S GOING TO BE A SIXTH SEASON OF #BROOKLYN99 ON NBC AND I AM PROCESSING THIS LIKE A MATURE ADULT I'M SO HAPPY
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I'm done with Louis C.K. Done done *DONE* forever. He used his comeback to do even more damage. NOPE. My column for hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/loui
Oh, as someone who has covered this industry for 30 years, I can’t count the number of times I have said to myself, on a number of fronts, “Are there laws? Does the entertainment industry know that state & federal laws… exist? Am I … in reality?” It’s absolutely bananas.
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Is it just me, or should a federal investigation be launched around Hollywood’s accounting practices because every story coming out is criminal. twitter.com/stevendeknight…
19 sources came forward to talk to me of alleged sexual harassment and inappropriate physical contact from CW showrunner Andrew Kreisberg (of #TheFlash, Supergirl, etc). He has been suspended.
3 years ago, a TV executive sexually assaulted me. Finding it hard to write a pithy tweet, so here. Please share.
Some fish had it coming. They know what they did.
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Scientists have discovered that, on occasions, an octopus will “punch” a fish for no reason other than “spite”
thetimes.co.uk/article/octopu
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Today published a chapter from Burn It Down: It’s a deep dive into what went wrong behind the scenes at #Lost. A number of people had a very, very difficult time while working on the drama & finally felt they could tell their stories.
My 2 cents: US TV was a money-printing machine for decades bec people like 12-22 ep seasons that allow for meaty character development & adroitly mix tones & ep of the wk w ongoing arcs. Lots of people of all ages love this! This model kinda dismantled & I don't love that for us
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my 19 yo brother is also oddly (?) into suits rn too … there’s something in the water twitter.com/moryan/status/…
In 2021, when he was paid $246 million (yes, for 1 yr), I noted in my book Zaslav made $675,000 per day. Using data from #PayUpHollywood, avg WB support staff at the time (SIDE NOTE THEY RARELY WORK 52 WKS/YR) made $185/day. That was him making 3600x more than entry level workers
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Hollywood writers, on average, are paid $69,510 a year.
Bob Iger is paid $74,175 a DAY.
That is "very disturbing" to me, Bob. twitter.com/Variety/status…
If you have not seen Olivia Colman in OG Broadchurch, in The Night Manager, or in Fleabag, do that as soon as possible. She is a treasure. #GoldenGlobes
It's official! Season 4 of #WynonnaEarp is a GO! All the details about when cameras roll and what's next for the show. No spoilers BUT an interview with & scoop on who will be at the show's SDCC panel
is there a male comedian who is not actual flaming garbage
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Replying to @onlxn
Remember when Norm admitted he threatened to walk away from Weekend Update if they made him do it with a woman?
True story: My 10 yr old son was at the end of a Stan Lee autograph line at a con. Stan gets ready to leave & my son finds he doesn't have enough money with him. Stan Lee sees him, signs his Spider-man comic, won't take any money, talks to my kid for 20 minutes. #Excelsior #RIP
So we have a performance from Sting -- doing a 31 year old song. And yet Lorde did not get a solo slot to perform. So many iconic women in music right now, but we get ... this?? I have zero problem with Sting existing, but I really do not understand the priorities of the #grammys
Debate "cancel culture" all you want. But one thing has been clear for years: FUCKING CANCEL MAX LANDIS, THE FUCKING END.
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Exclusive: Eight women accuse Hollywood filmmaker Max Landis of a wide range of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. A horrifying read. thedailybeast.com/max-landis-8-w
I added up all the writers & directors who've ever been hired to work on a Star Wars film. The creative roster is 96% white men. I've got a bad feeling about this. Here are my thoughts (and the math):
Nicole Beharie on #SleepyHollow: “Sometimes I think that some people I was working with didn’t like that I was unwell but loved by the audience. ...everyone of color on that show was seen as expendable and eventually let go.” Yes. That happened in real time & it was so awful. twitter.com/reetamac/statu
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The way Olivia Munn has been hung out to dry -- for alerting her studio that a registered sex offender was in the film Predator & sparing Fox a PR nightmare -- is an indication of how things remain in Hollywood. is brave & probably feels both exhausted & let down.
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Olivia Munn was supposed to do a group interview for Predator but the cast all bailed. Here’s @chrissgardner’s full Q&A with her. #TIFF2018 twitter.com/THR/status/103…
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Re this wave of revelations: Media is acting as Hollywood's default HR dept, because who is typically protected & who is typically fired makes absolutely no sense. Toxic bullies often protected, vulnerable & powerless have zero protection. People have nowhere to go but the press.
Ellen as Pence, Rosie O'Donnell as Trump, Melissa McCarthy as Spicer. I would pay all my monies to see this. twitter.com/kashanacauley/
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Hello! I am bisexual. Very proud to be part of the bi community and part of the LGBTQIA community. #NationalComingOutDay
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If you’re a person with even a modicum of power in this industry, let alone a lot of power, & you go out of your way to shit on support staff, publicly or privately, I know ALL I need to know about you! I have no interest in writing abt what you’re making all by yr lonesome!! 🙄
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Andrew Kreisberg, executive producer of #TheFlash #Supergirl & other shows, has been fired by Warner Bros
Hi! For I wrote about & why its fans just broke the internet (again!)& why show is a bright spot in this cursed year. A few reasons to love it: Cast, crew, writing plus so gay! 🥃🌈 vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020 #WynonnaEarp #WynonnaWatchParty #WayHaught
A bit of news: I am now a Contributing Editor at . I look forward to doing more work with this kind & badass team & serving 👑 with persistence & ferocity. Onward!
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Anyone who doesn’t eject Milky Way is a cop
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Regular reminder that Zaslav was paid half a BILLION in just the last 5 years — $246mil in 2021 alone—for the unnecessary & dumb decimation and/or degradation of profitable & high profile media entities like HBO, WB, TCM, CW, Max etc etc 🌋🤬
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So Zaslav is doing a mob-style bust-out of Time-Warner legacy properties and killing off anything he's not personally interested in, just as some of us warned when he took over. This is hedge funder asshole behavior applied to one of the great creative companies of all time. twitter.com/oldfilmsflicke…
The director, the producer, the talent agency, uniting and combining through the years to break a woman, mentally and physically, and make her doubt herself. Uma Thurman's Weinstein/Tarantino story: mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opi
Thread alert. Louis CK had almost a year to think about what he'd say in his first public appearance. He had lots of time to think about every word he'd say. He decided one of his jokes had to be about rape. I still can't believe that. And I wrote this: hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/loui
TWO THIRDS OF FEMALE WRITERS EXPERIENCE SEXUAL HARASSMENT ON THE JOB. TWO. THIRDS.
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A survey of more than 2,000 @WGAWest members has found that 64% of female writers say they’ve experienced sexual harassment sometime in their careers, and that “a significant amount of the harassment writers experience occurs in the writers’ room" deadline.com/2018/07/writer
LESLIE MOONVES SHOULD BE IN JAIL LESLIE MOONVES SHOULD BE IN JAIL LESLIE MOONVES SHOULD BE IN JAIL LESLIE MOONVES SHOULD BE IN JAIL LESLIE MOONVES SHOULD BE IN JAIL LESLIE MOONVES SHOULD BE IN JAIL and not get a FUCKING dime for his pattern of assault, abuse & vindictive actions
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As Leslie Moonves negotiates his exit from CBS, six additional women raise new assault and harassment claims. nyer.cm/rNWcTEv
PLEASE READ & RT: Men Must Step Up to Change the Hollywood Culture That Enabled Harvey Weinstein
What are you talking about, there are at least four million people in this picture alone
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The webcam at the National Mall was abruptly shut down without notice and has been removed from the whitehouse.gov site. Presumably to stop viewers from seeing the lack of attendees at the #TrumpParade. We are about to relive Trump’s inauguration all over again.
This is an intensely disappointing word salad from JK Rowling re Johnny Depp. It manages to say nothing & yet give Depp a pass in the most evasive, passive way possible. Ugh. twitter.com/ira/status/938
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The hilarious/not hilarious thing is: they *think* they can replace industry workers with robots/AI & all the rest. They can’t. It’ll be like the “pivot to video” that destroyed American journalism—it was all based on juked data & empty hype. Ofc business-wise, it did. Not. Work!
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Good morning! Just a reminder, if you hear anyone complaining about writers or actors being the cause of this strike that is crippling crew members and the local economy, please remind them that the STUDIOS are doing this because so they can replace us all with robots. Thanks!
I've never understood how Andy Lack of NBC News has survived a truly epic run of failure. Hiring Megyn Kelly (every iteration of her on NBC failed), sitting on Access Hwd tape, letting Farrow/Weinstein story go & this damning Sept story by
Wild how she didn’t teargas clergy and peaceful protesters to do so.
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Replying to @AnnaLysaGayle
#BREAKING Senator Warren just joined protesters outside the White House
#WynonnaEarp has been confirmed for a fourth season! Whiskey and donuts for everyone!
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John Wick’s motivation in all future John Wick films should be that somebody disrespected Dolly Parton.
back me up here
👀 Uh, so I have a whole chapter in my book (pinned tweet) about how the extremely questionable culture/"norms" at SNL over the years spread out to afflict many other parts of the industry...
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‘The Other Two’ Ending at Max Amid HR Complaints thr.cm/hLNGA6s
Having covered 07-08 strike & other near-strikes, I can say--I've never seen the guilds stick together like this. Usually AMPTP plays divide & conquer but that appears to be a non-starter now. I think that'll likely stay the case & I'm not surprised, given state of the industry
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WGA holds massive solidarity rally with Hollywood labor allies, via me, @katiekilkenny7, @garymbaum & me. Says one top showrunner: "It’s a million percent different than last time around.”
Story: hollywoodreporter.com/business/busin
If you are in the entertainment industry & you want to be part of efforts to #StopAsianHate, try this: At the very, very least, you could stop doing harm via stereotypical & harmfully deployed #AAPI characters (when they exist in your storytelling, and they usually don't)
Brad Kern, a CBS producer who was the subject of three investigations into allegations of abuse and harassment, has been fired. His contract was terminated yesterday.
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The people who came forward for the story I just posted are mostly low and mid-level folks in TV. WW, WOC, MOC. Almost zero job security to start with. But they did this. That's courage. #LetsBeDragons
My sister &her family have Covid. Riding it out at home, no hospitalizations (so far). A friend's son has it. My beloved aunt, whom we couldn’t visit due to restrictions, died today. It may have been Covid. You don't want to feel this way. Please mask up. Take precautions. Please
Hardwick’s responses—leaking to TMZ & a gaslighting statement—told me exactly how controlling, petty & vindictive he is. I believe Chloe Dykstra. Whatever happens, she &staffers who quit Hardwick’s show will pay the price for his behavior at work & elsewhere. Not him. #thesystem
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Replying to @onlxn and @moryan
If she was a spiteful ex-girlfriend making it all up to destroy his career, wouldn’t he have filed the mother of all libel lawsuits by now? And yet his only real response was to leak a text or to that noted bastion of purity TMZ.
I have been saying for years that Bill Maher should be fired. Anyway, Bill Maher should be fired. variety.com/2017/tv/opinio
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Replying to @MarlowNYC
Bill Maher spent several minutes laughing at and mocking Chris Matthews' sexual-harassment accuser while defending his "friend" Matthews' behavior, which includes a long history of misconduct and at least one settlement thedailybeast.com/bill-maher-def
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A comprehensive update on the #WynonnaEarp Season 4 situation with an exclusive statement from showrunner , now up at :
1. Fuuuuuck this
2. Zaslav really wants a DGA strike too, huh!?
3. Also, fuuuuuck this
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The new HBO Max (MAX) has eliminated writer/director credits in their interface in favor of a vague "Creators." This is what Raging Bull currently looks like. It's so fucking over.
Just a reminder that #GameofThrones has only ever had ONE female director *ever* A grand total of 2 women have ever written for the show. All 3 women are white. If you come back at me with "It doesn't matter blah blah meritocracy blah" consider yourself roasted by a dragon 🐲🐲
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Replying to @moryan
Slight correction: #GameofThrones, as prev stated, had 1 female director ever. But she directed 4 eps, not 2. Overall numbers: 19 directors, 1 woman (5%). 73 eps, 4 dir by woman (5.5%). Eps w/ woman writer credited (5.5%). Number of Daves writing #GoT: 2. Number of women: 2.
Beard is wearing The Pants & Higgins is in Dad Vacation Clothes, I approve these flexes
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The cast partied hard at the #Emmys afterparty for #TedLasso. Jason Sudeikis sang karaoke and his costars suprised him with a celebration for his his 46th birthday thr.cm/G3dA6m8
Hey #Earpers, Kat Barrell is a series regular for S2, she's in every episode. There's lots of Nicole when #WynonnaEarp returns for S2 6/9.
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Burn It Down: Power, Complicity & a Call for Change in Hollywood examines systems/norms that led to many tough revelations in recent yrs + structural issues that led to WGA strike/labor unrest. PLUS chats w/ good folks trying to make the industry better
A million reasons it was dumb to cancel One Mississippi. But this is among them: After a sexual harassment scandal at Amazon, why cancel a series that received major acclaim for exploring that topic with deftness and nuance? Also it’s the rare TV show created by a queer woman. 🌋
"PALPATINE URGES UNITY AGAINST REBEL SCUM"
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Tomorrow's NYT print edition.
Not sure "TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM" is how I would have framed the story.
My thoughts on the #GoTFinale "If stories are so damned important, why did the #GameofThrones showrunners rush so frantically and sloppily through this one?"
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I think a lot about the many terrible decisions made & thus enabled from on high at #sleepyhollow. Black women boosted SH online/on social media & helped make it a phenomenon. Watching their hearts get broken in real time is one of the worst things I ever witnessed as a critic.
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2 leads had great chemistry, but #SleepyHollow was one of the few genre shows I ever saw w Black sisters as a core relationship. The excitement when folks saw how that was central to the mythology! Over time, that relationship got less time so a white witch could... be useless.
TV shows want us to believe "anyone can die." But why does "anyone" mean LGBTQ, female & non-white characters?
I wrote about why it would be a good thing for TV, for the world, and (not gonna lie) for me personally if #OneDayataTime continued. It's still save-able and so very worth saving. tvguide.com/news/one-day-a #SaveODAAT #SaveOneDayAtATime
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*THREAD* One thing I thought about when I read this story: Most of the executives, EPs, etc who came up & were rewarded within the culture Les Moonves created are still at CBS. Are they all bad? No. Is CBS "fixed" now that Les is gone? Far fucking from it.
Would love it if you read this. It might be the most personal I've ever been. The Leftovers, death, physics & time
From the law firm of Oh & Snap
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👇🏻 this. I repeat a similar sentiment often in my book & I will be screaming it from the rooftops until the day I die: These are **choices.** These are active decisions—not the disembodied hand of fate imposing terrible outcomes. They want this. These. Are. CHOICES
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I may be the only person this is bugging, but that exec who said writers losing their houses was a “cruel but necessary evil” — something cruel, particularly when enacted by a human with agency, is BY DEFINITION not necessary.
I'm stealing my brother's story: In the early '80s he wrote to the Knight Rider TV show and they sent back a glossy photo of KITT and I need you to understand that KITT signed the photo WITH A TIRE TREAD MARK [this is the only autograph that has ever mattered tbh]
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Please answer: What's the best piece of mail you ever received? Your absolute favorite?
Mine? When I was 9, I wrote a letter to the President and got a signed reply. That felt pretty cool at 9 years-old.
So grateful my @USPS office worked.
And you @ChelseaClinton? twitter.com/PiperPerabo/st…
Andy Lack of NBC News should be fired and should never work in journalism ever again. Noah Oppenheim should be fired from NBC News and should never work in journalism ever again.
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EXCLUSIVE: Ronan Farrow’s producer says NBC tried to bury the Weinstein scoop: “Noah [Oppenheim] was very, very clear. No further calls. You are to stand down” trib.al/aFXNSVP
Not my favorite Supernatural season but whatev
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Alex Jones explains how television is being used to implant demons inside of people: mm4a.org/2koZ3zr
