Some Hollywood stars have a splashy relationship to politics, throwing big fundraisers and writing highly visible op-eds that do irreparable harm to the leader of their own political party, only to f–k off to one of their European homes when the predictable consequences play out. (Just a hypothetical, of course.) Other actors take a less flashy, more pragmatic approach: they study up on the issues they care about, connect with like-minded individuals and experts in pertinent fields, and show up to move the needle for change. Then when they do write an op-ed, it’s based on years of street cred. And the reaction isn’t “Where did that come from?” but, “Well of course Mark Ruffalo has an op-ed in the New York Times about the Paramount-WB merger — he’s been in the trenches on this for ages!”
And so Mark has, alongside Matt Stoller who is an antimonopoly policy analyst and the director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. Matt and Mark first connected in 2023 during the Writers Guild strike, which means they were raring to go with a gameplan at the ready to fight this merger. They outline those plans in the guest essay “The Oligarchs Are Starting to Lose Their Grip on Power.” An excerpt:
When we spoke [during the 2023 Writers Guild strike], Mark, like a good organizer, kept asking, “What’s the plan?” At the time, there wasn’t one. Now there is.
It is straightforward: Convince state attorneys general to do what President Trump’s antitrust enforcers likely will not, and block the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. on antitrust grounds.
After that? Go on the offensive and work to break up the studio streaming system that is stultifying Hollywood.
This plan is already in motion. Within weeks of Paramount winning the bidding war for Warner Bros., we helped bring together a loose coalition of civil society groups, unions and actors, and this coalition enlisted over 1,000 artists to sign an open letter indicating our support of state attorneys general efforts to block the takeover. Many more subsequently added their voices, and the letter now has nearly 5,000 signatories.
But the most revealing thing about that letter wasn’t the people who signed. It was the people who didn’t. Not because they disagreed — because they were afraid.
There are many reasons to block this deal, but we now believe the most fundamental one is what we encountered when asking artists to use their voices: fear. A deep, ugly and pervasive fear of speaking out.
We heard time and time again from artists, when asked to sign this letter, that they supported it but were afraid of retribution. Their fear is not unjustified. When the editorial director of The Ankler, one of the last independent trade magazines, who also founded the publication and serves as one of its columnists, was seen at an event carrying a bag of “Block the Merger” buttons, Paramount reportedly pulled its advertising in response. (The editorial director, Richard Rushfield, was among the letter’s signatories, but said he was not handing out the buttons.) One of us, Mr. Ruffalo, was suggested as a guest for a CNN discussion of the merger, but a producer later said that the network had decided to pass on the segment, and reportedly told the organizers behind the letter, “It’s a delicate subject for us at CNN given Warner Bros. Discovery is our parent company, and there are legal considerations around what we can and cannot cover or say while the merger is ongoing.” (A CNN spokesperson later said that “no one advised any editorial employee at CNN not to pursue this story.”) This merger will cause many harms in Hollywood, but one is already in effect: People are afraid to say what they think about their own industry.
…There’s good news, though. It comes in the form of a word that reliably counteracts fear: solidarity.
I’m glad to see the number of signatures on the open letter keeps growing (it’s exceeded 5,000 now), and yeah, I’m not at all surprised that Mark and Matt encountered people unwilling to sign for fear of retribution. It’s not unfounded: that’s the kind of petty power players we’re dealing with. But this is where a hypothetical Hollywood star with f–k you money could make a splashy statement that counts, that shows real solidarity, which Clooney and several other movie stars have still not done, as of this writing. Well, we have a greater star on the case: Mark Ruffalo!! I went back and checked our merger coverage, and Mark really has been embedded in the story throughout. From the open letter, to California and other state AGs working on a response, to James Cameron lobbying to Congress against Netflix, Mark Ruffalo was there. Alls I can say is, thank goodness his wife was wrong all those years ago when she predicted he was gonna die young. Solidarity forever!
Photos credit: James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Julie Edwards/Avalon, Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon