What is this Gadfly?

This publication seeks to puncture Hollywood myths.

That means providing evidence-based, nonpartisan, heavily-researched longform essays on Hollywood’s most taboo subjects: activism, identity, and quality.

It seeks to challenge traditional wisdom in this subject with deep dives across the art, craft and business of movies and television.

The publication began with a simple question: why are movies getting so bad? And tries to find a variety of unorthodox, sometimes uncomfortable answers across the industry, including the highly unpopular subject of class, the strange outcomes of activism campaigns, and the flimsiness of the diversity research the industry relies on.

By analyzing these issues truthfully and objectively, the publication seeks to educate, inform, and inspire not just any kind of change, but evidence-based, well-reasoned change, wherever that leads us.

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Paid subscribers get the full archive, already over 100,000 words of essays investigating a whole variety of subjects.

This work is extremely labor intensive, and every paid and free subscriber is an argument that this work is an appropriate investment of my time.

Thanks for reading,

Your Humble Gadfly