As for why I was listening to conservative talk radio (🤢) in the first place, that’s all the play at my job. I usually tune it out but can’t use earbuds for safety reasons and I’m not high enough on the totem pole to change the station. I won’t specifiy the exact program because I believe it’s regional.
I’ve been excited for Alex Garland’s Civil War for months now. A24’s been killing their drama films recently and it’s been refreshing having what I thought was an unapologetically left-leaning major media studio who’s found success through authentic, grassroots support. After hearing what felt like four ad reads for the movie in an hour and knowing that means A24 paid money - gave direct financial support - to a show that, amongst other things, spends hours a day promoting bigotry, Russian propaganda, and J6 apologetism, has ruined it for me.
Am I just overreacting here?
I have yet to see the movie so I can’t really comment about the content/message as it relates to conservative media, but at the end of the day, A24 is a business, and their marketing won’t really care that much as long as it generates more money in return from the exposure. They will only pull back if it starts to hurt their bottomline. I honestly wasn’t even aware that A24 was left-leaning. I know their whole deal is being the indie/grassroots type of production company, but do they specifically market themselves as left-leaning?
I understand your frustration though.
Same here. I was planning on getting tickets this weekend, but knowing that a portion of my money will be going to support conservative hate commentators has made me change my mind.
This is true, but they’re also (AFAIK) still privately-owned, which doesn’t make them beholden to the same “line go up at all costs” legal requirements of public businesses. They could have conceded some monetary returns of it meant keeping their principles, IMO.
Maybe it just speaks to how poorly I view the right nowadays, but A24 always seemed pretty leftist to me. More than almost any studio of their size or larger, they seem to emphasize the stories of marginalized folks in a way that (again, to me) felt authentic. Their movies always featured POC or LGBT performers or characters that didn’t just feel like tokens but also didn’t hand-wave the experiences of belonging to those groups. Which is why I feel especially confused that they’ve decided to fund the people that make a living off hating those same groups.
It could also be that they have X million to spend on marketing and they liason with a company that owns radio stations, they just give them x amount of money to advertise in certain markets based on whatever numbers the station gave them and let the station figure it out.
Not sure why you think they are left. I’ve seen nothing to indicate that. They may be but it’s not obvious from their films.
Also private equity just bought into them heavily. So whatever they were, they won’t be in the future which I find depressing.