Fairy tale gone wrong
THERE ARE NO PRINCE CHARMINGS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY’S CINDERELLA STORIES
It wasn’t a glass slipper. It was a demo tape. But everything else about the whirlwind romance between an unknown Mariah Carey and Sony Music executive Tommy Mottola had people comparing it to a Cinderella story. Having snuck into a New York City industry party in 1988 with friend and singer Brenda K. Starr, Carey attempted to pass her demo tape off to label executive Jerry L. Greenberg, president of Atlantic Records. Mottola intercepted, and later that night he played it in his limousine on the way home.
As the story goes, the studio head was so in love with what he heard, he had his driver turn the car around. Unfortunately, Carey had long left the party. Mottola, 39, spent a week attempting to track her down and when he did, he quickly signed her, fresh out of high school, beginning a relationship that would eventually lead to a lavish wedding, a troubled four- year marriage and an infamously abusive working relationship.
Carey described her marriage to Mottola as “oppressive” and her “private hell” in a 1998 interview with Barbara Walters, claiming the music producer abused her “mentally and emotionally.” The former executive responded in his 2013 memoir, Hitmaker: “If it seemed like I was controlling, I apologize. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success.”
Carey and Mottola’s working dynamic was not the first of its kind, and as we’ve recently been reminded by pop singer Kesha’s attempts to distance herself from Dr. Luke ( Lukasz Gottwald), it was far from the last.
In February, 29- year- old Kesha Sebert requested an injunction against her label, Sony Music, and the producer she claims sexually and mentally abused her over a 10-year period. It was denied by a New York judge, forcing her to fulfil her contract to Gottwald’s Kemosabe Records and — if the accusations are true — continue to work alongside her abuser. This relationship — court-ordered to continue — has once again hinted at a decades- long power dynamic rampant in Hollywood between male executives and female starlets.
In her weekly newsletter Lenny Letter, Lena Dunham wrote that Kesha’s case was about “the systemic misogyny of the entertainment industry, or the way that women in music and film have long been controlled and coerced by abusive Sven- galis and entities larger than themselves.”
The studio system from Hollywood’s past allowed executives to hold both actors and actresses in proverbial servitude with contracts of indeterminate length, complete with morality clauses. From the 1920s through to the ‘ 60s, stars would have their image manufactured for them, told who to take to which premiere and where to go for lunch, all in the hopes of creating the perfect celebrity with the most profit. The system often took particular advantage of women, essentially reducing them to props, both onscreen and off.
Perhaps the best example of this was actress Tippi Hedren, who was long bound to Alfred Hitchcock in the 1960s. Considered one of several Hitchcock Blondes — staking his territory by name — Hedren was discovered by the director and starred in several of his films, including The Birds and Marnie. But when Hedren rejected his romantic advances, Hitchcock made life difficult for the actress on and off the set, having her followed, controlling what she ate, wore and where she lived, putting her in a “mental prison.”
“I had to get out of there,” she said in Donald Spoto’s book, Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies. “I was dealing with one of the most powerful men in motion pictures and it was difficult, embarrassing and insulting. He said, ‘If you leave, I’ll ruin your career.’ And he did.” Hitchcock would not allow Hedren out of their contract, preventing her from pursuing other work, effectively ending her short career.
In this month’s British GQ, more than five decades later, actress Amy Adams revealed that the notoriously abusive director David O’Russell made her cry most days on the set of American Hustle, a film for which she was famously paid significantly less than her male co- stars with less screen time. Adams said, “It’s like we (women) have been conditioned to not be controversial, to not cause problems.”
This isn’t an isolated incident. “You’ll hear about a male director throwing stuff; we just laugh, because a woman (who did that) would never work again, no matter who it was,” screenwriter Diablo Cody told L.A. Weekly. “It would screw her in every aspect of her life. To me, it is just straight-up misogyny.”
A subtler form of this abuse occurs regularly on the casting couch, where gaggles of “it girls” attempt to earn roles in any way they can, often at the whims of producers and directors at the top of a male dominated power structure in Hollywood. It’s the beginning of a vampiric relationship that is difficult to escape.
While contractual ly bound to Sony and Gottwald, any music Kesha creates will continue to belong to her alleged abuser, making her a property for profit against her will. Last week, The Wrap reported that “knowledgeable sources” said Sony had plans to end its relationship with Gottwald in what has quickly become a publicrelations nightmare for the company. Gottwald has since denied these rumours, but the pressure is on, with Kesha fans regularly protesting outside Sony headquarters in Manhattan and having signed a petition with nearly half a million signatures.
In addition, Lady Gaga, Adele, Mariska Hargitay, Kelly Clarkson and more have written or spoken about the case, while Taylor Swift donated $250,000 to her fellow artist’s legal fund. This is the type of collective movement necessary to cause social change. After all, the demise of the studio system in the 1960s only began when Elizabeth Taylor left MGM by declaring their attempt to edit her public image “revolting.” Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis followed suit, both — like Kesha — suing their studios to be free of their contracts.
In an industry where social issues are often preached, but rarely dealt with, Hollywood has a history of quietly tolerating abuse for the sake of art and money. Every Cinderella story has its evil villain, but in real life, only exposing and breaking the pattern vanquishes the exploitive stepmother from her position of power.
HE SAID, ‘IF YOU LEAVE, I’LL RUIN YOUR CAREER.’ AND HE DID.