David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Jon Robin Baitz doesn’t like Hollywood much
He goes on for nearly 5,000 words, eviscerating the industry’s amoral mores, simple-mindedness, striving for mediocrity, lack of giving a sh!t about the rest of the world, superficiality, idiot entertainment journalists, impossible social expectations, etc. etc. etc. I have thoughtfully condensed them to their choicest bits:
On Michael Ausiello, tvguide.com’s gossip columnist, who broke the story of Baitz’s departure:
“The writer of the … cutesy blindish item had been digging at the story like a fey Tuscan truffle pig on the hunt, pointed in the right direction by a sly studio farmer. … Like many of the people I met who write about TV, (most of whom can be bought for the price of a single commissary crepe-suzette, a keychain with the show's logo on it, and a set-visit with its grimacing star), he was possessed of the winning duo of wild arrogance and a staggering un-athletic ignorance of all life outside of prime time, the culture of which depends on low-rent journalistic toadies penning breathless wooze in exchange for future favors and future keychains, and handshakes with future stars.”
On Los Angeles and socializing:
“LA is the world capital of loneliness. In the age of isolation, this is a very special achievement. … [Internet dating] used habitually … can easily turn romance into renting, with boys queued up like your movies … on Netflix.”
On superficiality and ageism:
“But perhaps most disheartening to me, a man who adores women, is the daily LA visual horror show of how they are discarded there, no matter how desperately they try to cling to youth. LA hates and fears aging, and especially despises the revolting notion of women aging. And in LA, more than anywhere I know, women of a certain age, who should know better, are complicit in their own degradation, going to desperate lengths to dodge what should be taken for granted. [Note: This past sentence is no doubt already seared into ‘B&S’ star Sally Field’s eyeballs.] … Women should hate LA, and I will never understand why they endure it all. Why? If I were a woman, I would burn LA to the ground, and spread salt on the earth where the men all gathered. (I may do that anyway.)”
On his stymied artistic vision of his show (there was a bunch of stuff on network notes I’m leaving out):
“However, I cannot help but dream about what my version of ‘Brothers & Sisters’ would have looked like, had I been given the chance to try it my way (in an alternate universe). Perhaps not on a network, my version would fly. On Showtime or HBO or FX.”
Despite all this, Baitz holds out hope that the producers still on the show will still ask him to write an episode or two or three in the future. Based on this spectacular bridge-burning, I wouldn’t wait too long by the phone for that call, Jon.