A prominent Hollywood talent manager believes that Kamala Harris’ loss to President Donald Trump in November shows that Hollywood no longer drives the culture as it once did since the plethora of celebrities who endorsed Harris failed to alter the outcome of the election.
“Hollywood doesn’t matter as much as it thinks it matters,” the unnamed talent manager with A-list clients told Vulture. “You had the biggest stars in the world support Kamala Harris. She couldn’t have drawn more powerful advocates. And it didn’t move the needle. What does that tell you? It’s unsettling because the people and things you hold in high esteem don’t drive the culture. As much as I love movies, they aren’t the driver anymore.”
As Breitbart News reported, dozens of A-listers endorsed Kamala Harris, with an unprecedented blitz of endorsements coming in the final days of the campaign. Among the stars to publicly back Harris were Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Stiller, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Lopez, and Julia Roberts.
TOPSHOT – US producer and actress Oprah Winfrey (L) holds up US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ hand as she arrive onstage during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 4, 2024. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
The Vulture article provided a Hollywood snapshot for the second Trump administration, with sources telling the outlet to expect more media merger activity, less woke-ism, and a concerted effort to not alienate half the country with political sermonizing.
“The movement away from ‘woke’ was already in motion even before Trump got re-elected,” a major movie producer told the outlet.
“We’ve been seeing the departure of executives at the studios that had been hired to promote DEI in film and TV. Hollywood had swung too far left over the past few years and there was bound to be a reckoning.”
In one instance, the Walt Disney Company reportedly dialed back its anti-Trump messaging in the forthcoming Marvel superhero movie Captain: America: Brave New World.
A technical crew member on the film with knowledge of test screenings and the reshoot process spoke about a character portrayed by Harrison Ford — Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, an autocratic military leader who morphs into a crimson-hued superhuman.
“He’s this very powerful general who becomes kind of a fascist and turns into a raging Red Hulk. That was seen as an allusion to Trump,” this source told Vulture.
