#TelltheTruthHollywood: An Open Letter to Hollywood in the Time of #BlackLivesMatter

June 25, 2020

The past few weeks…months…have been a true test of everything. The highs of finally releasing our film to so much love and adulation, doing a victory lap in LA, rubbing shoulders and getting all the thumbs up, leaving town to take a breather and reflect and then BAM! Corona Virus and the madness that is our current White House Leadership. And for the first time we’re really and truly all in this together. Our fates affect everyone else’s, and no amount of money, trust funds, special hook ups can save you. A little flu bug can take us all out. But its disproportionate and some of us are being taken out faster than others. Our leaders are showing their true, unbridled colors and its not all pretty. We’re all scared and terrified and lonely and on edge. And then George Floyd, and we were all forced to sit there and deal with it. With the reality of how Black lives are devalued in our society. It strikes a chord: we’re all outraged and devastated and just EXHAUSTED.

And now comes all the businesses that have been struggling through this pandemic in the first place. All the privileged folks who are suddenly called to shame in a way that can’t be avoided and we don’t want empty promises. We can’t take one more…not one more. My comrades, my film family, we got together after we’d had a moment to grieve and decided it was time to tell the truth. We wrote a letter. We got friends and allies to sign it. We were heard across the pond in the UK, they adopted it and got their friends and allies to sign it. And so now we wait. Hollywood, you have the power to make earth-shattering changes here. Don’t fuck it up.

Here’s our letter and here’s our UK counterpart’s letter.