"What are we supposed to do?"
Reflections on protesting Paramount (again), the murder of Renee Good, millennial cringe, and Alan Cumming on the Walk of Fame
I woke up too early yesterday and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was excited. I had a big day planned.
Up first, I was going to photograph the first 2026 installment of a weekly protest against the right-wing takeover of Paramount. I’d caught this group at the corporate Sunset & Gower location several times — you can read about one such experience here — but yesterday, they were protesting outside the Melrose Gate of the actual studio lot.
That meant new things to see!
I was then going to spend the rest of the day double-featuring at the movies. I’m a film critic, too, but I haven’t written a review in months; other things have been on my mind. Last year, I watched everything nominated for a major Oscar category, but this year I’m still missing a ton. So yesterday was to be a quasi-catch up day.
Before I got to Paramount, I read about Renee Good’s death at the hands of an ICE agent in Minneapolis. I read about how she tried driving away from the armed, masked me trying to pull her out of her car, and in response — while the wheel was turned, while she was moving away — one of them shot her multiple times in the head.
I didn’t mean to watch it, but a video of the murder auto-played.
I saw Donald Trump’s “Truth” about the video.
This is just… blatantly-false. This is not a description of what the video shows. This is a straight-up lie, a fabrication, an insidious non-truth meant to undermine the very concept of truth.
I walked up to the Paramount protest to find that everyone was talking about what had happened, wondering if this would finally be the thing that wakes the country up. We talked about Crispus Attucks, known as the first casualty of the American Revolution, a man who was killed by British troops who fired upon a crowd that was throwing snowballs at them. We’d seen videos of people in Minneapolis throwing snowballs at the crowd of ICE agents that showed up to clap each other on the back and celebrate the kill; the parallels seemed incredible.
The Paramount protest is Mean Girls-themed; lots of protesters wear pink. Because that’s what you do on Wednesdays.
Yesterday, they were joined by a group from Codepink, the feminist, pro-Palestine organization. There were new people to meet, to photograph, to listen to, to learn from.
At some point, the Codepink people attempted to deliver a petition to the security office. The security guards didn’t like that; they blocked the driveway, forcing everyone back out through the Melrose Gate.
“Isn’t this the Visitor’s Entrance?” I asked one guard.
“No, it’s not,” he said, laughing at his own brazenness as he ushered me back onto the sidewalk.
I turned around and snapped a picture above the man’s head.
I’m not sure why I bothered to take that picture, but it felt like an attempt to freeze objectivity, as though I might later be called upon to prove whether the sign did, indeed, say VISITOR ENTRANCE.
But, what would it even matter? Couldn’t someone say that I used AI to write those words? Trump had watched a woman be shot three times in the head, and he told us he saw a video of a domestic terrorist run over an ICE agent.
I thought about skipping the movies I’d planned to see.
After the protest wound down, I edited and posted my photos. By the time they went up, I’d started to receive word of pop-up protests that were happening around the city that evening in response to Renee’s murder.
Didn’t I need to be there? Didn’t I need to photograph these protests, to help prove that they happened? That people didn’t just sit by and let civilians be shot in the face in broad daylight with no pushback?
Instead — overwhelmed by how much I wanted to look at my phone, to absorb every single horrific new development in the unfolding situation in Minneapolis — I decided to sit out the evening, to see those movies anyway.
My night ended with The Testament of Ann Lee, and the audience laughed ruefully as the Shaker prophet proclaimed, “May every tyrannical government fall.”
Tonight I’m headed to a rally in honor of Renee Good,
but this morning I went to Alan Cumming’s Walk of Fame star ceremony. Before I got involved in protest photography, I would attend these events as a socially-acceptable way to practice photographing people, bringing my long lens into the crowd of onlookers, hoping to snap a photo of a celeb.
On the way to Hollywood Blvd., I caught up on social media from last night. I was frustrated to see my feed full of performative helplessness, posts from people — even ones I respect and love! — saying things like “What are we even supposed to do about this?”
I’m tired of it.
While I waited for Alan, I dashed off a post on Threads.
I think I blame the fact that my generation was raised on YA stories that watered down “chosen one” narratives, imagining endless dystopian worlds where people are told the role they’ll play.
In The Giver, you’re assigned a job that’ll benefit a society without feelings.
In Harry Potter, a magic hat tells you which innate skills you should spend the next seven books honing.
In Divergent, some incomprehesible nonsense happens and you’re told which “faction” will become your social circle.
In City of Ember — a 2008 movie starring Saoirse Ronan that I think I’m the only one who remembers — people draw stones that tell them which job they’ll get.
That’s not how the world works.
People need to grow up, decide for themselves which skills will benefit the work, and get to work.
I ended that Thread by saying that I was knowingly doing millennial cringe, but that apparently many millennials only respond to cringe, so let’s dive in.
If we MUST take inspiration from one of these things, it should be Katniss from The Hunger Games. That girlie volunteered for the fight in order to protect her loved ones. No one happened to randomly assign her a bow and arrow; she knew she was a fantastic archer, and the second she could, she ran for her weapon of choice.
So do that.
“This too shall pass,” Alan Cumming said on stage this morning.
The Walk of Fame ceremony was delightful. Several speeches heaped praise on the fabulous, flamboyant Scotsman, a man who everyone said saved lives by living as authentically as possible. His roles have crossed the spectrum from sexually-enticing to sexually-threatening; there’s a sense of humor always; and Brian Cox said Alan Cumming was the premiere cultural ambassador from Scotland. His Club Cumming in NYC is a safe haven for all genders and sexualities, and his has helped countless young queer people accept that the world has a place for them.
Even Monica Lewinsky showed up to thank Alan for his friendship. They met in the 90s at, shall we say, a particularly-pivotal point in her life, and she said that without his support, she would not be who she is today.
To close out his speech, The Traitors host said that he wants his “third act” to be focused on theater advocacy, on helping people find their place in the world through the arts. He didn’t name Renee Gold specifically, but Alan said that the world has recently proven they don’t want us around.
He thinks the arts can help, he said, and he thinks that he’s supposed to help the arts help others.
“Because this too shall pass,” he said.
Alan Cumming would never post, “What are we supposed to do?!” and then sit back until someone tells him.
He knows what he can do, and he’s doing it as much as he can.
I’m heading out to the aforementioned vigil for Renee Good, but on my way I stopped by the Metro Detention Center. Across the street, protesters had turned the sidewalk into a living art wall, chronicling the pain and anger of a community that’s hurting.
I found it being power-washed clean, a man in a mask erasing months of names, memorials, prayers, pleas.
The second the masked man put away his hose, two people were there to restore the humble, makeshift memorial for Renee that went up last night.
We need anyone and everyone involved, doing anything and everything to push back against this.
If you have no idea what to do or how to help… if all you can offer is your time, some cardboard, and some well-wishes… something that’s going to make these armed agents of the state waste their time… time they would otherwise be spending terrorizing your neighbors… then fuckin’ do that.
Do something.
Also, sooo glad you were there for Alan Cumming. He is such a gem and owned the best scene in "Eyes Wide Shut."
If you look at your photos, you will see there are more than millenials in your photographs. Let us let go of the generational divide. I have always had friends who were younger and older. I have never been lonely for lack of great conversations and committed friends.
Your activities show you are a leader. To quote the brilliant Grace Lee Boggs, "We are the leaders we are looking for."
I am very grateful for your insight, observations, and documentation. If you need Katniss, then use Katniss. I am channeling Sophie Scholl although I am far older than 22 years old.