Hollywood’s Socialism Boom: Emboldened Leftists Agitate for Radical Change - Hollywood Reporter

Many of these industry protesters, a diverse group dressed in various shades of red, are members of the fast-growing Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and its Hollywood Labor group.

“The people who come and stay at this hotel, who are our bosses or the people who we’re working for, they interact with these [hotel] workers on a daily basis,” says Neda Davarpanah, a DSA member on the leadership board of Hollywood Labor and a writers assistant.

“I joined because I want more democracy in the U.S.,” Delaney, a lifetime DSA member, says.

DSA-LA members are happy to call out more centrist Hollywood labor groups.

“I’ve met people who were covering three desks and never had a moment to go to the bathroom; at bar after bar you hear from people who go, ‘Yeah, my job makes me want to kill myself.

“The goal with DSA isn’t to create a class war, the goal is to create a dialogue and conversation with not only those that are below the line but also those above the line,” says postproduction supervisor and chapter member Albert Andrade.

DSA-LA says it started 2020 with about 1,700 members and over the course of the year brought on thousands more.

Nearly a century ago, says film historian and Tender Comrades co-author Patrick McGilligan, Hollywood knowledge workers like readers and story editors formed the “militant factions” of that era’s intellectual leftism.

Also during lockdown, Hollywood Labor launched The Redlist, a socialist answer to Franklin Leonard’s The Black List that foregrounds scripts that “promote left-wing narratives in entertainment, and … highlight the experiences of the poor, the disenfranchised and the oppressed.” (Members point to Snowpiercer and Us as model Redlist films.) Now the group is planning a rollout of its own cheeky renditions of that L.A.

These will be introductory guides to workers who are new to the industry that may detail local labor laws and explain “meetings” culture.

“Hollywood Labor’s goal is to bring more workers over to our socialist program — socially,” explains Daniel Dominguez, an organizer for health care unions and a DSA chapter member.

Adam Ruins Everything star Adam Conover, who is not a DSA-LA member but is supportive of the group, says that he sees “DSA-LA, and especially their Hollywood Labor committee, as part of the overall political awakening of Hollywood labor,” noting that the group’s “most important” ongoing work is as an organizing entity that can prod the industry’s many and often divergent entertainment unions.

DSA-LA members want to unionize video game and VFX workers, whose fields largely haven’t been organized.

The group also encourages members already in unions to become more involved, run as delegates and push more aggressive organizing and reforms.

Recently, DSA-LA union members participated in efforts to separate the union federation AFL-CIO, which represents Hollywood unions, from a police union under its umbrella (they have not yet succeeded).

If DSA-LA organizers do ever gain meaningful power in the industry and its unions, “they’ll work to divest from things like police unions,” says writer, actor and DSA-LA member Sarah Sherman (Magic for Humans).

Adam West, a longtime costumer, union representative and DSA chapter member, says they want entertainment industry workers to remember that “the power rests in the membership of the unions — not in the elected leaders, not in the hired representatives, not in the overall international structure.”.

Another popular talking point for members: how Hollywood’s much-touted diversity efforts ring hollow when early-career industry salaries remain so low, a point IATSE members (and particularly those in Local 871, which represents writers assistants and script coordinators and has members in DSA-LA) are also making with their #IALivingWage campaign.

Since it began four years ago, Hollywood Labor has offered a gateway for industry workers to get involved in local issues, and for those looking to branch out, DSA-LA has committees dedicated to electoral politics, health care justice, climate justice, housing and homelessness, and a number of other areas.

That DSA-LA is not myopically focused on Hollywood itself, and shows industry workers they can repurpose their professional skills for the benefit of a larger community, can be a draw.

that were not just about networking,” says Hollywood Labor leadership board member and screenwriter Alex Wolinetz.

DSA-LA member and former Time’s Up Entertainment executive director Raman’s victorious, homelessness-focused 2020 campaign for City Council was a “touch point” for many in the chapter, says Dominguez.

DSA-LA organizers who work in the industry say they want to push the entertainment business — and its unions — to start weighing in more on local politics

“I want to get people in Hollywood more involved in the issues of the community, because Hollywood is very insular,” says Suarez-Sikes

Some members say DSA needs to focus on efforts specifically for communities of color and making inroads with more working-class people in Hollywood, and not just “lofty lefty educated writer types,” in the words of Adams

Doherty contends that DSA-LA’s Hollywood union efforts present “a classic wedge point” in American organized labor, exposing a tension between blue-collar lifers and younger activists who want revolutionary change