More on omnicompetence

Spending so much time on the subject of how money influences entertainment and entertainment journalism got me to thinking about Pauline Kael's prescient 1980 essay on the changing business model of the film industry, "Why Are Movies So Bad? or, The Numbers."

This passage is a bit off topic for that thread, but it does fit nicely with another, what happens when successful assholes buy their way into an industry they know nothing about, convinced of their own omnicompetence. [Emphasis added.]

There are direct results when conglomerates take over movie companies. Heads of the conglomerates may be drawn into the movie business for the status implications—the opportunity to associate with the world-famous. Some other conglomerate heads  may  be  drawn  in  for  the  women,  too;  a  new  social  life  beckons,  and  as  they become  social,  people  with  great  names  approach  them  as  equals,  and  famous  stars and producers and writers and directors tell them they’ve heard from other studios and about ideas they have for movies. The conglomerate heads become indignant that the studios they run have passed on these wonderful projects. The next day, they’re on the phone raising hell with the studio bosses. Very soon, they’re likely to be directors and suggesting material to them, talking to actors, and company executives what projects should be developed. How bad is the judgment of the conglomerate heads? Very bad. They haven’t grown up in a show business milieu—they don’t have the instincts or the information of those who have lived and sweated movies for many years. (Neither do most of the current studio bosses.) The corporate heads may be business geniuses, but as far as movies are concerned, have virgin instincts; ideas that are new to them and take them by storm may have failed grotesquely dozens of times. But they feel that they are creative people—how else could they have made so much money and be in a position to advise artists what to do? Who is to tell them no? Within a very short time, they are in fact, though not in title, running the studio. They turn up compliant executives who will settle for the title and not fight for the authority or for their own tastes if, in fact, they have any. The conglomerate heads find these compliant executives among lawyers and agents, among television executives, and in the lower echelons of the companies they’ve taken over. Generally, these executives reserve all their enthusiasm for movies that have made money; those are the only movies they like. When a director or a writer talks to them and tries to suggest the kind of movie he has in mind by using a comparison, they may stare at him blankly. They are usually law school or business school graduates; they have no frame of reference. Worse, they have no shame about not knowing anything about movies. From their point of view, such knowledge is not essential to their work.Their talent is being able to anticipate their superiors’ opinions; in meetings, they show a sixth sense for guessing what the most powerful person wants to hear. And if they ever guess wrong, they know how to shift gears without a tremor. So the movie companies wind up with top production executives whose interest in movies rarely extends beyond the selling possibilities; they could be selling neckties just as well as movies, except that they are drawn to glamour and power.