Top 10 Dark Truths About the Film Industry

Every good piece of visual media starts with a good script. For being the starting point of the whole ordeal, writers have seldom been treated fairly in the industry. Recently, they’ve faced everything from low pay and poor benefits to a lack of residuals and the looming threat of AI. In 2023, both film and television writers had enough, and the Writers Guild of America voted to strike after failing to reach a deal with studios. Stories of writers struggling to make ends meet flooded the news which made it clear this was a long standing issue. It took over 140 days before negotiations were agreed upon and for the strike to finally come to an end.

From “The Godfather” to “The Sopranos”, organized crime has been depicted on screen time and time again. However, Tinseltown has also seen its fair share of real life crime. Take for instance, Mickey Cohen, a Los Angeles based crime boss in the 1940s. After Bugsy Siegel’s murder in 1947, Cohen rose to dominate the West Coast and forged connections with all sorts of Hollywood royalty including Frank Sinatra. His imprint on Los Angeles continues to live on with actors like Harvey Keitel and Sean Penn portraying him in films such as “Bugsy” and “Gangster Squad” respectively.

“No animals were harmed in the making of this film” is a common disclaimer used in credits of motion pictures. Sadly, the truth is a little less humane. The mistreatment and outright abuse of animals behind the scenes and sometimes, even on screen, is a long standing issue in Hollywood. Dating back to the early years of cinema, productions like “Stagecoach” and 1925’s “Ben-Hur” saw animals suffering and even dying for the perfect shot. More recent flicks, like 2012’s “Life of Pi” faced backlash due to leaked evidence that animal actors were being put in dangerous situations.

What do Sylvester Stallone, Simon Rex and Matt LeBlanc all have in common? Well, each of them have worked in adult entertainment. From non-sexual roles to full-on nudity, some of Hollywood’s biggest names earned their stripes by making appearances in X-rated films and series. However, these stepping stones are not only limited to actors. Directors Wes Craven and Francis Ford Coppola both dabbled in the genre before hitting the big time with more well known films. Even Jon Hamm participated in the making of blue movies working in the art department!

To be an actor in Hollywood means living under a microscope where every inch of one’s physical appearance is up for criticism. Unfortunately, this has led to performers seeking unhealthy and unsafe practices to achieve and or maintain unrealistic beauty standards. Infamously, screen icon Judy Garland was subjected to a dangerous diet and prescriptions when she was just a teenager under the order of MGM. While many stars today have spoken out about the pressures to obtain perfection in the spotlight, it sadly remains one of Hollywood’s biggest prevailing issues.

For a storytelling medium, film hasn’t always allowed space for diverse stories – especially in Hollywood. For decades, North American cinema has cast out non-white creators, even going as far to cast caucasian actors as POC characters. Take for instance, Mickey Rooney playing I. Y. Yunioshi, a Japanese man, in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. In recent years, the conversation around race in Hollywood has become an ongoing discussion, thanks in part to 2015’s

Hollywood is a pressure cooker for adults, let alone for child actors. From Drew Barrymore to Macaulay Culkin, these former kid actors are just some of the famous faces that had a rough time being young in the spotlight. The mistreatment of these workers is about as old as Hollywood itself. Just take Shirley Temple’s memoir where she described the “black box punishment”, a method of discipline where young performers were made to sit on a block of ice if they misbehaved. Then there are those like Brooke Shields, who were forced to take on age-inappropriate roles. Always a controversial topic, childhood and Hollywood have had a long and complicated relationship that is above all else, disturbing.

There are a number of reasons so many celebrities fall victim to substance use disorder. Recreational drugs are enormously easy to come by in Tinseltown but, more than that, they’re often encouraged. In the early 2010s, Dennis Quaid confessed that when he first came to Hollywood in the ‘70s, he discovered that some films actually carved out part of the budget to spend on a particular substance we won’t spell out here. It went under the “petty cash” budget, and was frighteningly normalized among cast and crew. Dan Aykroyd, a non-user, also admitted that it was used as a “reward” during filming of his 1980 comedy “The Blues Brothers”.

In Hollywood, sometimes the real life drama is more dramatic than anything that could play onscreen. With so many personalities and egos in the mix, there’s bound to be some unsavory behavior that requires some polishing. Enter the role of the fixer: a highly skilled individual who can make celebrity problems disappear. From straight-up crimes to other illicit activity, fixers scrub away secrets and keep negative press at bay for some of show biz’s most elite players. Famous fixers include former PI, Anthony Pellicano and producer Eddie Mannix. The latter inspired the 2014 Coen Brothers flick, “Hail, Caesar!” and was portrayed by Bob Hoskins in 2006’s “Hollywoodland”.

The term “Casting Couch” underplays the dark and sinister nature of one of Hollywood’s most disturbing skeletons. If you’re unfamiliar with the euphemism, it represents a devastating pattern involving people with power in the industry luring and soliciting acts of “intimate” services from up-and-comings in exchange for things like auditions and roles in films. The repulsive practice dates back to the early years of movie-making. Notoriously, MGM titan Louis B. Mayer threatened those who did not comply. More recently, disgraced former film mogul Harvey Weinstein was found guilty and sentenced to prison for his disgusting assault, harassment and abuse within the Hollywood system. Horrifying stories continue to emerge from survivors of these crimes, proving show business needs a serious wake-up call.