We at TVWriter™ agree unanimously that the following is a (perhaps the) most excellent article on real world showbiz reality. Or, for that matter, any business reality.
In the words of the most famous witch in Oz, “What a world…!”
Hix Pix Fox Flix
by Shawn McCreesh
If you’re young, beautiful, have a power job, money to play with, and a Brentwood Zip Code, Los Angeles can be a lot of fun.
Unless you’ve got Donald Trump’s name on your résumé. The scarlet T burns bright in Hollywood. It’s why Sean Spicer can only get work dressed as a bloated fishing lure on ABC and why Debra Messing got all House Un-American Activities Committee ahead of Trump’s Beverly Hills fundraiser this week, demanding that his donors be outed by name online.
So when Hope Hicks, one of the president’s closest confidants and his former communications director, arrived last year after taking a job as Fox’s chief communications officer, she wasn’t the toast of Tinseltown. Since then, it’s hardly been an episode of Entourage.
Recently, during a boutique fitness class at a local gym, Hicks was recognized and confronted by the instructor. Not everyone felt comfortable sweating next to someone who’d done Trump’s bidding. So Hicks collected her things and bounced.
The job is no cakewalk, either. Although Fox is a haven for many a Trump dropout, Hicks’s gig is big-time by anyone’s standards. Robert Iger’s Disney gobbled up much of 21st Century Fox this spring in a $71.3 billion acquisition, a salvo in the coming streaming wars. That left Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s heir apparent, to spin the remaining properties—Fox’s news, sports, and cable channels—into what the town now refers to as “New Fox,” making Hicks his lieutenant. “That job she’s doing has a real, fiscal impact,” said one top Hollywood exec. “It’s not the job version of a mercy fuck.”
Mercifully enough, the liberal entertainment press has not ripped Hicks to shreds since she took her new position. “There was certainly a high bar coming in because the instinct of a lot of the reporters out here was to trash her,” said one veteran reporter who frequently interacts with Hicks on the beat. “Even before she took the job, people at Fox wondered, ‘Why are we hiring this Trump lackey, oh my God….’