"Find Beauty Everywhere."
Reflections on: Photographing Paramount Protesters in Pink, Debating DEI, My Writing in Webworm, and a movie screening I'll talk about for the rest of my life
On Wednesday I got off the bus a few stops before my destination. As we’d driven down Sunset Boulevard, I’d spotted a neon sign.
I took a couple shots. Some were much closer, isolating the white text on the black wall. I don’t love those. This one’s my favorite because it’s messy. I like the off-kilter (incorrect!) composition, the chipped paint, the stripe of nondescript sidewalk, and especially the “Private Property” and “Do Not Block Intersection” signs.
Find Beauty Everywhere.
I walked a few blocks to Sunset and Gower. Outside the Paramount offices, the protesters on the sidewalk had almost all worn pink; it was a Wednesday, after all, and Paramount is the home of Mean Girls.
I shoot primarily on a 75-300mm lens, which didn’t allow me to get the protesters in the same shot as the sign. I didn’t mind much, though; I like a series, a little album, a group of photos that add up to a story.
Here are some other parts of the story.
Paramount just merged with Skydance. Billionaire scion David Ellison now owns one of the biggest media companies in history, and he’s so rich that he’s exploring a bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, too. (Sort of. He may or may not be relying on Saudi Arabian money for that!)
A few months ago, when Paramount and Skydance needed approval from the government to merge, they happened to pay Donald Trump $16 million to settle what sure seems like a bogus lawsuit over how they edited Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview. In addition to that money, they made right-wing propagandist Bari Weiss the head of CBS News, and they pledged to end all of their diversity-related initiatives, which in practice meant axing CBS’s Race & Culture Unit and firing a bunch of minorities.
Trump let them merge.
I think that’s bad!
The Reddit reaction…
I shared a bunch of these photos on Reddit. On /r/pics, as of this writing they’ve been seen 289k times. On /r/LosAngeles, another 39k.
As I explained in my intro to this Substack, I’ve become somewhat fascinated with the reactions I get on Reddit. Part of the point of protest is to be seen, and also to provoke; on a certain level I’m totally fine with my photos sparking discussion. I’m hoping for it, even! But, the way people talk sometimes…
I am choosing to look at all of this like a learning opportunity, and on this Substack I’ll do little recaps of my takeaways… bits and bobs that may add up to longer pieces someday.
In this case, many comments focused on the sign against the palm tree: “Paramount ended all it’s [sic] D.E.I. programs.” People seemed uninterested in engaging with context, instead stripping away nuance and acting like they couldn’t understand why I’d insist on being specific here.
Here’s one such exchange:
He stopped replying.
Here’s another:
I won’t even make you read the back-and-forth with the guy who called a pro-DEI protest “emotional bullying,” and then said it was “a red herring and a straw man” for me to keep bringing up politics when he hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort.
This… worries me! What do you mean it’s a “straw man” to mention politics… in a discussion of a protest about the political ramifications of a corporation bribing the president?
Instead of debating, we’d rather talk about whether we’re allowed to have the debate. This is the debate! We’re having it now!
My side is saying, “Consider: it’s bad to be racist to appease the president.”
You’re countering with, “It’s a reasonable debate to have.”
…Okay, it’s happening! Debate me, bro!
If your position is “It’s fine to be racist to appease the president,” then say that. If you didn’t realize that’s what you were implying, then that’s one thing, but… that is what you were saying by defending Paramount in this case!
Oyy.
Other stuff on my mind…
My words in Webworm!
Outside Paramount I chatted with Sam Urdank — the guy holding the sign about DEI. He’s a photographer, too. I told him that I’m just an amateur, not a professional, and he tsk’d and asked me, “Do you know the only difference between an amateur and a professional? …the professional gets paid. That’s it.”
So I guess I’m a professional now, because this week, David Farrier published some of my words & images on his excellent newsletter Webworm. I’d spotted him in the crowd at No Kings 2.0 and introduced myself, because I’ve appreciated his coverage of everything that’s been going on. As a Kiwi, he quite clearly sees how fucking insane things have quickly gotten, and he’s not afraid to say it.
After chatting about my photography, he asked me to expand on what I’ve been feeling — that a whole lot of people have revealed their fundamental inability or unwillingness to synthesize information, to understand context.
In fact, I’ve come to believe that we’ve stopped agreeing things can mean things at all.
This one feels special. I’ve admired David’s work for almost a decade, since I saw his excellent documentary Tickled (2016). I’ve especially admired what a multi-hyphenate he is: Journalist! Writer! Filmmaker! Documentarian! Podcaster! Photographer! TV host! Like me, he’s Extremely Online, and like me, he jumps in the comments!
His work is always incisive, insightful, and entertaining, so it’s a dream to have gotten his support. Plus, given that multi-hyphenate-ness, it feels extra special that he likes my thoughts specifically on what we can learn about words & images by jumping in the comments. Thanks, David!
A movie screening I’ll never stop talking about!
On Wednesday I also attended a Film Independent screening of The Stringer: The Man Who Took The Photo. It’s an upcoming Netflix documentary about the iconic “Napalm Girl” photo from Vietnam — perhaps the most iconic, influential photograph of all time. Nick Út won a Pulitzer for taking it, but as far as I’m concerned, The Stringer proves that he did no such thing.
The man who actually did take the photo, Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, was at the screening I attended. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more honored to applaud someone than I was to clap for him, feeling myself almost awed to be in the presence of the man who captured perhaps the best-ever photojournalistic image.
I’ve been complaining about tear gas, and this guy managed to compose something so aesthetically pristine while literal napalm was falling from the sky. I’ve been going back and forth with people on fuckin’ Reddit, but this guy led a quiet, humble life after the image he created altered mankind’s understanding of the very concept of war and came to represent the pinnacle of an entire profession and art form… all while credited to someone else.
This film’s gonna affect the journalism textbooks when it hits Netflix, and I think I will never stop talking about getting the opportunity to see this movie at this time in my life.
You can read my review here, on Everything’s Interesting.
One more!
On Friday, I hung out in DTLA with a group protesting outside Spotify because they’ve been running ICE recruitment ads, which is gross! I waxed a little poetic in my Instagram caption yesterday.
I got downtown early and decided to wander over the 6th Street Bridge to see the LA River after the rain. Eventually I turned around to walk back, and I realized that I’d happened to stop at precisely the right spot to capture this view of City Hall towering over the Hollywood sign in the distance:
Felt like it said something about how I moved here for my love of the movies, but lately that’s felt less important.
Okay bye!
This is so well done and well thought out! You’re a professional now, but also consider yourself a professional for having waded into this fight simply motivated by passion. That’s more than the professionals have done lately.