Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1628 The Man Hiding from the Oven

At various Oscar campaign parties, the whisper PR war continues...

Many people do not take this most primitive way of spreading gossip seriously, believing that such practices cannot affect the most professional award selection in Hollywood. The judges who are qualified to vote are all industry elites, and it is impossible for them to change the voting standards because of such things and not vote for the nominee with the highest artistic value.

But Ronald found a few people to help him compile these gossips every day. Some came from the agent channels represented by Richard, and some were reported by his company's contracted people...

These people would not tell Ronald all the gossip they heard, so if one only looked at the daily summary, the situation was still good. However, the information he relied on the most, which was obtained by his assistant Yang Yanzi, did not make him feel happy.

Yang Yanzi was a person who had personally experienced both filming and pre-release marketing. She was enthusiastic and knew how to deal with people in the industry. What surprised Ronald even more was that she had good relationships with several Los Angeles companies that specialized in hosting parties for entertainers.

This may be related to her long-term work for Oliver Stone in the past. In short, after various small favors were given, Ronald heard a lot of gossip and secrets from the waiters of these party companies that Ronald and his subordinates could not find out (or were unwilling to tell him).

Ronald had so many assistants, but Yang Yanzi was the most creative, able to achieve her goals through various means and to build good relationships with all kinds of people. For this reason, Ronald considered whether to give her a more suitable position for her to display her talents.

The most terrifying news to come out of these parties was the news about Mel Gibson.

Actress Winona Ryder, along with some close friends, accused Mel Gibson of making drunken jokes with strong anti-gay and anti-Semitic overtones.

This happened before the Oscar nominations were announced. After becoming the hot favorite for all nominations with Braveheart, Mel Gibson was attending various parties.

It's no secret that most Irish people have a drinking problem, and Mel Gibson apparently had one too many whiskeys at the party and made crude jokes when he saw Winona Ryder's friends.

He first targeted one of Ryder's friends who looked very outgoing and had different sexual orientations, "Are you a Poof? There are Poofs everywhere in Hollywood now..."

Winona Ryder didn't react at the time, because using "poof" to describe a person's orientation is something only British or Australians would say. But Ryder's friends obviously understood, but for the sake of my friends, I didn't get angry on the spot, and said, "I didn't expect you to be such a person..." and left.

Winona Ryder then realized that this was an insult to those people, and she immediately argued, "Mr. Gibson, this is my friend, if you say one more word..."

"Hahaha...you like these so much, don't you too? Um...no? Wait..." Mel Gibson's words were very harassing. A common source of scandals for Hollywood male stars is the nonsense they talk after drinking.

Winona Ryder was a little overwhelmed when she heard these words. She had met very good collaborators along the way in Hollywood, such as Ronald and Coppola. Even when she temporarily withdrew from Godfather III and left Coppola aside, her relationship with him did not become strained. It was indeed the first time that she faced such bullying language from a male star, and she did not know how to respond.

"Wait, you look a bit like an oven dodger?" Mel Gibson continued his drunken bullying, this time with a more insulting tone. The so-called oven dodger is actually a metaphor for the tragic experience of the Jews during World War II, satirizing Ryder as someone who escaped the fate of the Jews in the extermination camps.

Winona Ryder was shocked by such words. She didn't know how to respond at the time and could only watch Gibson leave. But she does have Jewish ancestry. Her real name is Horowitz, a typical Jewish surname. Her father is a Jew who immigrated from Russia.

But Ryder had never met a star who dared to insult Jews in person, so she was a little at a loss and froze. She did not use a recorder to record the other party's words, nor did she find witnesses at the scene to testify. When her agent found her, everyone around the scene had already fled. In this way, this conversation became a dead end with no evidence, and there was only a "he said, she said" situation where the two could not explain it clearly even if they confronted each other.

Originally, this matter might have ended with Winona Ryder being silenced. But recently, someone is behind this rumor, which has been spreading again at Hollywood parties.

This time, it was Mel Gibson who was embarrassed. Because Winona Ryder did not make this conversation public, all the rumors were spread by word of mouth at the party as gossip. So Mel Gibson couldn't even find a place to refute the rumor.

If he wants to launch a PR campaign to dispel the rumor, he must first tell the story of Winona Ryder. Otherwise, the audience either has no idea what he is talking about or can play dumb. If he tells the story before dispelling the rumor, it will only expand the scope of the story, after all, there are still many people who have not heard of this incident.

After all, expanding the scope of the matter is not a good thing. If we assume that among those people in Hollywood, those who heard this "he said, she said" story with no evidence are half and half supportive and half opposed to this story. Then, no matter how many people Mel Gibson can convince to believe his rumor-refuting action, at least the same number of people will stand against him.

Moreover, his insults were directed at the Jewish group, which is the most powerful group in Hollywood. An individual Jew may ignore this matter based on his own interests, but Jews as a group would rather believe such stories so that they can deepen the image of the Jew as a victim.

Every day that passes, it seems that more people in the industry support Winona Ryder, and more Jews are offended by Mel Gibson's suspected words. After all, it is one thing to say something discriminatory like "Kike", and it is another to call someone a toaster.

Kike is a derogatory term for Jews. Many Jews immigrated to America, but many of them could not write their own names, so they circled them on documents instead. Kike is a derogatory term for Jews. There are similar derogatory terms for black people and Italians. Oven-hiding is a contempt for the most painful page in the history of a nation. The degree of offense is completely different... Although Jewish actors may feel more offended by words like kike, words like oven-hiding make it easier for them to stand on the moral high ground.

The whisper PR effect seems to be very good, so similar "rumors" have begun to spread, such as Nicolas Cage's "acting skills". In the movie Leaving Las Vegas, he drank a lot of alcohol before each shooting and got himself half drunk before performing.

Such "acting skills" are not worthy of any awards. Before the filming of the movie, Elizabeth Shue also went undercover among the streetwalkers in Las Vegas. I wonder what she can do to win the award...

Not long after this kind of gossip began to spread, it was captured by Yang Yanzi's "eavesdropping network" and transferred to Ronald's desk.

It was obvious who was behind this. Ronald felt very unhappy and picked up the phone and asked Richard to connect to Harvey Weinstein at all costs.

"Ronald, it's great to talk to you. Now is the critical moment of the Oscar competition. I have three or four calls waiting for me to answer..."

Weinstein made this excuse when he first opened his mouth. On the one hand, he said that he did not deliberately avoid answering Ronald's call. On the other hand, he said that if you don't have anything important to do, don't blame me for not wanting to spend time chatting with you.

"Very good, Harvey. If you keep up this attitude, I think you'll be able to have some peace in a few days, and no longer be bothered by calls from award PRs..."

Weinstein seemed to be lifted by someone's neck, and he instantly got rid of the lazily lying on the sofa enjoying the actress's massage. He waved his hand, asked the actress who had great potential to win the award to leave the room, then sat down solemnly and responded to the microphone:
"I'm just kidding, Mr. Li, is there anything you need my help with?"

"I don't like to joke around when I'm talking about business, Harvey. You have to understand that just because I didn't spend a lot of money on a public relations war with you this year doesn't mean I can't do it."

"Yes, yes..." Weinstein was sweating. Miramax's weakness was that it was short of money. His movies needed to win awards to boost the box office, and he didn't have much money to invest in a public relations war.

Although various tricks can save money, if a tycoon like Ronald really wants to ignore the return and invest huge sums of money to play with him, Miramax's award-winning projects will face great difficulties. Ronald's words really hit their biggest weakness.

"I didn't do a lot of PR... This is a fair competition..." Weinstein thought about it and decided to answer like this. His tricks were actually very covert. If he didn't admit it, the other party might not be able to find out all of them...

"I don't care whether you have done it or how many public relations wars you have fought, there is one thing I agree with..." Ronald said this, as if he heard Weinstein on the other end of the phone breathe a sigh of relief.

"But I won't accept any malicious black PR. I don't want to hear any more slander against Nick and Elizabeth, whether it's from the media or gossip at your party. As for other things, I don't mind fair competition..."

"Okay, this is my idea too. Let's compete fairly..." Weinstein had a plan in mind. After all, it was just a verbal agreement. If people start spreading gossip, I won't be able to control it.

"I said, I will not accept any malicious slander of the films released by my company. If I hear such things again, you should know that a film like The Postman will also have flaws in its eligibility for awards."

Ronald slightly flipped open a trump card, The Postman was a key project for Miramax, if the issue of eligibility for the award was exposed, then a lot of the judges' votes would be lost, no judge wanted to vote for a film that would be disqualified, it would make them look stupid.

"Uh..." Weinstein didn't know how Ronald knew about the financing problems of this Italian film. But he was ready to give up the attack and leave Las Vegas.

Anyway, Nicolas Cage won most of the previous Outpost Awards, so attacking him didn't have much chance of success. It's just that he saw that attacking Mel Gibson was very effective, so he wanted to expand the record of negative public relations, his most powerful weapon.

Ronald put down the phone and signed to increase the public relations budget. He held more parties to spread more positive messages. Then he sat on the sofa and pondered.

"Want me to put Mel Gibson on the line?"

Not long after, Richard arrived and asked Ronald if he wanted to team up with Mel Gibson to deal with the negative PR.

"Let me talk to him..." Ronald thought for a while. In fact, among the award-winning projects he was competing for, he was competing with Mel Gibson for Best Actor and Best Director for Braveheart.

"If there's anything I can do, just let me know. I really don't like fabricated statements like this. If the Oscars get caught up in a negative PR war like this, it's definitely not good news for good movies... Yeah, okay..."

Ronald spoke a few words to Mel Gibson and then hung up.

Sure enough, Gibson was also a little wary of him, after all, there was a layer of competition. And behind Mel Gibson stood two major Hollywood gangs, the Irish gang inherited from old Hollywood, and the Australian gang that has been increasing recently.

As an Irish-American who grew up in Australia, Mel Gibson can be said to represent these two influential groups. Their individual influence is undoubtedly not as great as that of the Jews, but when they are combined, they are also a force that cannot be ignored.

In the golden age of Hollywood, there was an Irish gang, including John Ford, James Cagney, and Spencer Tracy. In addition to their commonality of being Irish, they also believed in Catholicism.

After the 1980s, the leading figures of the older generation gradually died out, but the main body still remained, and some non-Irish immigrants who believed in Catholicism were absorbed.

The Australian gang is a group that has been growing slowly in recent years. They do not have the strength of the Irish gang and their numbers are small, but they support and help each other more.

A whisper public relations war between the two sides began, and many rumors about Winona Ryder's character began to circulate.

Although she was not nominated this year, Americans believe that if your character is questionable and you have lied before, then the truthfulness of your other statements will also be questioned.

What is even more disadvantageous to her is that Jewish actors have received many benefits from Jewish connections in Hollywood. This rumor undoubtedly said something that people dare not say in their hearts...

In the minds of those non-Jewish actor judges who had lost their roles to Jewish actors, Mel Gibson had become a substitute for them to curse.