Amazon Studios Founder Criticizes Hollywood’s Turn To Ideology Over Entertainment: “Making Customers The Enemy Of Your Industry Is Never Viable”
In performing a personal postmortem on Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign, Amazon Studios founder Roy Price has opined that the explanation for her recent loss is the same as the one behind Hollywood’s ongoing cultural decline: Namely, that they both insist “on catering to an ideological bubble while alienating vast swaths of the potential audience”.
A veteran of the Hollywood production scene, Price previously served as the VP of Creative Affairs for Disney TV Animation from 1993-2000, during which time he oversaw development of such hits as Recess, Pepper Ann, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and the founder of both Amazon Video and Amazon Studios in 2008 and 2010, respectively.
Unfortunately for Price, his time at Amazon ultimately came to an end in 2017 after company producer Isa Hackett accused him of making unwanted sexual advances towards her during a 2015 Man in the High Castle after party.
As relayed by Hackett and recapped by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Kim Masters “In [a] cab, Hackett says Price repeatedly and insistently propositioned her. ‘You will love my dick,’” he said, according to Hackett, who relayed her account to multiple individuals in the hours after the alleged episode.”
“Hackett says she made clear to Price she was not interested and told him that she is a lesbian with a wife and children,” Masters added. “Hackett says Price did not relent in the cab or once they arrived at the Amazon party. As she talked with other executives, she says that Price stepped close to her and loudly said, ‘Anal sex!’ in her ear.”
Price has long held that Masters’ accusations were off-base, explaining in a 2023 post to his personal Price Point Substack blog, “I definitely never said, “you will love my dick” or anything crude or aggressive like that. That is absurd.”
“Everything said in the [cab] was at least intended to be in good humor,” he wrote. “Remember, another person [an as of yet unidentified Amazon exec] was sitting right there. He was interviewed by Amazon in their investigation and I have personally asked him whether I said anything like that and he said no.”
However, despite an apparent internal Amazon investigation into the incident conducted in 2015 determining that the incident merely warranted a verbal warning, Price was suspended in 2017 following after THR’s article brought the situation to public attention. Shortly after, he resigned from the company, going on to found his own consulting firm International Art Machine.
In light of his first-hand experience with Hollywood’s ‘activist leanings’, Price took to his aforementioned Substack blog on November 13th to share his thoughts regarding the self-defeating similarities seen in both the entertainment industry and Harris’ presidential campaign, asserting to his readers, “both Hollywood and Harris speak to an America that exists mainly in Hollywood HR departments, Columbia’s faculty lounge, and at CNN and MSNBC [and] America is changing the channel on all that.”
To this end, Price argued that the main ‘flaw’ exhibited by both entities was their “underlying contempt for the audience.”
“Wokeness, both in politics and entertainment, carries within it a strong and explicit element of hostility – particularly toward white people and men,” he said. “While this approach initially gained compliance through social pressure and corporate acquiescence a few years ago, such accommodations were, of course, temporary. Amongst the people, and in courtrooms, by 2024 wokeness has become toxic. To a large part of the audience, it is an embarrassing, widely resented, relic of the past, and the people need to see that acknowledged by candidates.”
Following a recap of how audiences at large had grown tired of neo-liberal scolds and their often over-the-top and pearl-clutching political rhetoric, Price then opined, “To succeed in art, you have to put art before politics. There are few exceptions.”
“Why did Hollywood people embrace wokeness with such fervor?” he asked. “For most people it is conformity. Hiring decisions are subjective in Hollywood, so there is always pressure to conform. In addition, at this point some people believe that if not for wokeness they would not have their jobs. (They’re probably right about that.) “
“Hollywood is having a difficult time partly because, like Kamala Harris, it has been denying the reality of the audience,” Price continued. “It has not been meeting customer expectations, mostly because it disdains them. It is time to focus on doing well, making great shows, hiring the best people, and responding to customers. Meeting customers where they are. Giving the people what they want. Because making customers the enemy of your industry is never viable.”
Drawing his thoughts to a close, the Hollywood veteran ultimately posited, “Hollywood should make more fun movies and pursue excellence without restraint.”
“It should serve everyone and meet the culture where it is,” Price reasoned. “The super woke may have to leave, or perhaps some can walk it back. But Hollywood could also start by confronting the original sin of this recent era by distinguishing between those excluded for legitimate reasons and those purged in a feral moment of vindictive frenzy to capture power.”
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