RECENTLY FIRED stock analysts and laid-off AIG employees are queuing up for barista jobs at Starbucks and burger-flipping auditions at McDonalds, with 30 to 40,000 CitiGroup workers soon to join them. In this catastrophic environment one's thoughts inevitably drift to another industry dominated by obscenely remunerated second-raters, thieves, rascals and sociopathic half-wits, all turning out the bloated cultural equivalent of Humvee and Escalade - our beloved Tinseltown.
RECENTLY FIRED stock analysts and laid-off AIG employees are queuing up for barista jobs at Starbucks and burger-flipping auditions at McDonalds, with 30 to 40,000 CitiGroup workers soon to join them. In this catastrophic environment one's thoughts inevitably drift to another industry dominated by obscenely remunerated second-raters, thieves, rascals and sociopathic half-wits, all turning out the bloated cultural equivalent of Humvee and Escalade - our beloved Tinseltown.
What cutbacks and downsizing will become necessary when these guys finally feel the pinch? And what remedies will be offered? Fat-trimming and downsizing really aren't the Hollywood way, of course - not in a culture where the size of a mogul's private screening room is vital to his fragile sense of self-worth. But hard times are surely a-comin', and stern cost-cutting measures may soon prove horribly necessary. Here are some ways that the industry might cope with the coming slump.
First off, hire fewer movie stars and lots more dogs. As the Obama children recently proved, there's nothing like a doggie story to blow scads of bad news right off the front page. Depression on the way? Mass layoffs impending? The skies above Wall Street thick with plummeting stockbrokers? Who cares? Check out this insanely adorable puppy! And it applies in Hollywood, too, albeit in a different way; just look at how many human-filled pieces of movie-dreck were recently crapped on by Beverly Hills Chihuahua. I foresee big comebacks for Moose, who played Eddie in Frasier. Rin Tin Tin, Lassie and Benjy could all soon be bigger than Brangelina.
Do the math: Cost of Brad Pitt: $20 million per picture. Cost of Enzo: two cans of Alpo per day, a spot of walkies, and a couple of saliva-coated chew-toys. Savings? Immense!
Hollywood producers could also hire more kids. There's not a single superstar in the entire cast of High School Musical 3,and look at the boffo box-office it pulled down.
Sure, soon enough they grow up and learn to negotiate harder than Henry Kissinger, but it's not like the world's ever likely to run out of brats - this isn't Children of Menhere. Get rid of 'em: there'll be another exploitable kid along any minute. Just ask Mickey and Judy.
A further option is to fire more waste-of-space movie stars. Clint Eastwood - pension him off! De Niro - get that sellout outta my face! It's perfectly easy, no one cried when they eighty-sixed Ben Affleck and replaced him with his much cheaper little brother Casey. Ed Norton - who watches that self-important prat? Ashley Judd? What's the last hit she was in? Show 'em to the down elevator!
And finally, Hollywood could follow the lead of Steven Soderbergh with Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience, and cast more hardcore porn stars in leading roles. They already perform the most degrading feats for a fee ranging between $1,000 and $6,000 per day, the top end of which is half the hourly craft-services bill for John Travolta.
They may draw a lot of water over in Porn Valley, but on the other side of the hill they're nobodies. And they'll be grateful for the promotion - usually when they show up in mainstream movies they're playing dead (Kobe Thai in Very Bad Things), playing strippers (Nautica Thorn in Knocked Up) or just playing themselves (Asia Carrera in Logjammers, the porn movie in The Big Lebowski).
You might discover someone interesting now that the porn-to-mainstream crossover taboo has finally been exorcised. Sasha Gray has a brain in her head, loves European art-house movies — and her original choice of nom-de-porn was Anna Karina, in honour of Jean-Luc Godard's first missus.
Who knows what benefits might accrue from walking the cheapo side of street? As Dinosaur Jr once advised us: Start choppin'!
• (Guardian service)