Horror Has A Leadership Problem
Horror has a problem.
It has a problem with gatekeeping, it has a problem with leadership, and it has a problem with access.
And it has a problem with the alt-right and letting bad behavior slide while patting it’s back for it’s “progressivism.”
2020 has been a clusterfuck of epic proportions for the genre, and not just because Covid-19 is making us wait a year to see the new Saw movie. No, it comes down to the people holding the reins of horror, the ones who open or close doors at their whim and foment cliques we in the industry compete to get into, looking at lengthy series of sexual assaults and bigoted attacks and saying, “yeah, that’s okay.” It’s the distributors, magazine editors, streaming services and others who pay lip service to things like diversity and inclusion while doubling down on keeping heinous people not only employed, but, in some cases, famous enough to promote insidious supremacist messages.
The past couple days has seen two simultaneous bouts of drama rippling their way through Horror Twitter. One involves the furor surrounding the arrest of Dallas-based filmmaker Adam Donaghey for raping an underage girl who worked on a film he produced, 2017’s critically-acclaimed metaphysical drama A Ghost Story (a movie already burdened with the presence of another man accused of sexual malfeasance, Casey Affleck.) The other involves, as has become something of a norm nowadays, Southern-fried horror host Joe Bob Briggs, as an article he wrote in August, mocking the ways LGBTQIA folk opt to define and brand themselves, began to make the rounds again.
Both men have largely been supported by Cinestate, Dallas Sonnier’s Texas-based multimedia company that produces some of the most buzzed about films on the indie horror scene, films like Joe Begos’s war-vet siege film V.F.W. and Keola Racela’s testicle-popping Satanic comedy Porno, in addition to owning media companies like Fangoria, the newly back in print titan of the horror magazine industry, and Rebeller, an online film site that acts like a resource for “outlaw cinema” but has quickly taken on a decidedly right-wing bent. Sonnier has employed Donaghey on his films for several years, including on the two aforementioned films. Meanwhile, They’ve given Briggs a platform to spew hateful rhetoric aimed at marginalized communities, a platform enhanced by his frequent appearances on the Shudder streaming service — and the right-wing website Taki, a site owned by a known Nazi sympathizer.
There’s no denying that Joe Bob Briggs is a monumental force in the horror world. It’s not hyperbole to say that I, and many other horror-loving folks of my generation, would not be the horror fans we are without him, that “MonsterVision” was a defining moment in our childhood development into becoming the mutants we are today. He is and was important to a lot of us. Enough so that the first, 24 hour straight run of “The Last Drive-In”, his return to horror hostdom on Shudder, literally broke the Internet, the influx of new subscribers jumping onboard just to watch him make a comeback took the service off guard and shut down their servers.
That made Briggs and “The Last Drive-In”, initially designed as a one-off special event , into a central piece of programming for Shudder. In the wake of that historic return, Joe Bob has returned for holiday specials and then, finally, an actual show, now in the middle of its second season. It’s a gift lovingly sent from Satan to the horror fans to have this modified “MonsterVision” back — but each new iteration has seen diminishing returns. And this is largely due to Joe Bob Briggs’s insistence on repeatedly attacking marginalized folk using outdated humor that isn’t so much off-color as punching down.
The newly dusted off article about Briggs’s confusion with acronyms isn’t the worst thing he’s ever written, and taken on it’s own, can play like an old man’s misguidedly “humorous” take on his own attempts at dealing with a rapidly changing social sphere. But the article doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it exists on a continuum of incidents in which Joe Bob has proven himself to be less kind to marginalized communities than either he or his protege Diana Prince (aka, Darcy, the Mail Girl) try to make him out to be. The LGBTQ article is one of a piece with the kerfuffle he created over Black Christmas in December and an article he wrote about our “need” to listen white supremacist speakers — the latter, like the LGBTQ article, published on Taki.
That all renders Briggs’s comments and his (and Prince’s) subsequent justifications for making the comments he makes, all the more suspect, as it does the defenses of his followers. This isn’t a one off mistake, or someone taking him a little too seriously; this is a series of incidents, repeatedly happening, and aligned with supremacist tastemakers. Briggs has a cowardly policy of refusing to make public apologies — in other words, refusing to take accountability for his behavior, actions and the ways they may make large swathes of his viewership feel genuinely unwanted by him. (This is probably the point where I should reveal that I am bisexual myself; thus as someone who — once — looked up to Briggs, while also being the target of his vitriol, this is a difficult place to find oneself in.)
People defend Joe Bob Briggs as a satirist and all of this as part of his shtick — but shtick that is racist, sexist and homophobic is still racist, sexist and homophobic. It is possible to make a satirical persona out of a bigot, but that requires more than just spouting off bigoted rhetoric and jokes, and requires a precise handling. Stephen Colbert understood this; he spent years playing a pompous right wing buffoon, but made sure the joke was always at the expense of the character he created, not at anyone else for their race, sex or orientation. John Bloom — the man behind Joe Bob — fails to do that. The jokes aren’t at his expense, or at least the character’s expense, but at the expense of members of his audience, particularly those that aren’t straight, cis white men.
Bloom created Briggs as a way of reassessing “redneck” stereotypes, contrasting a shitkicker persona with the erudite, very intelligent man Bloom really is. He wanted people to rethink Southerners as being something other than “dumb hicks.” That is a very reasonable goal; everyone wants their various identities to be seen and not turned into a caricature. But in that goal, he can’t mock Joe Bob, because it goes against the designs of the character. Instead, Briggs/Bloom goes after everyone else, including, and in his current incarnation, especially, marginalized communities. Satire without a target is not satire, and too many people hide behind the excuse of satire to justify their bigotry. “Haha, it was all a joke,” they say, “I didn’t really mean it, man, don’t be so uptight.” But creating a persona and then spouting off bigotry without commentary is just hiding your bigotry behind a mask. One could even go far as to say that Bloom, the man, is potentially using Briggs, the creation, as a way to get away with saying thing he wants to say in real life, but knows he can’t.
Briggs’s article could have been funny with a few tweaks, making it clear he’s mocking himself for not quite getting “it”, for example. Instead, it just mocks the people using the acronyms, and tries to bury that mockery in the end with a tidy, “love is love” coda. It doesn’t work, and it especially doesn’t work in the context of who published the article, Briggs’s stubborn refusal to apologize, his defensive railing against “cancel culture” and its placement in the shadow of even worse articles.
Yet Briggs still gets a platform to preach in the horror community, thanks to his weekly communions on Shudder and his home at Rebeller (another sure sign Briggs’s shtick is no longer the satire it may have began as.) Whenever someone dares to critique or question Briggs, an army of his fans descend like buzzing gnats to harass, insult and harangue the critic making charges, often using very right wing rhetoric of calling us humorless and overly sensitive scolds who don’t get it. It’s the same tactic that Trump supporters take whenever their hero is attacked. The Ol’ Snowflake Move.
And this is where we bring in Cinestate, because they are the glue that ties these dramas together. As I said before, they own Rebeller, a website that leans so far right they’ve earned praise from Ben Shapiro, which is weird in that they also own the very left leaning Fangoria, which makes them, at best a company invested in absurd both-sidesism, as if there should be equal weight given to people who want to kill marginalized communities and, well, those marginalized communities themselves. Rebeller presents itself as “outlaw” but there’s nothing “outlaw” about editor-in-chief Sonny Bunch’s numbingly seen-in-before “rattle the PC Police’s cage” hucksterism.
Cinestate is also the company that has employed Adam Donaghey since the company released their misbegotten update Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, a film that turned the anti-Nazi killer dolls of Charles Band’s original into Nazis themselves, murdering their way through a Russell Stover’s chocolate box collection of minority stereotypes, which, frankly should have been sign of things to come.
When Donaghey was arrested, a statement was quickly put out by Cinestate stating that they cut ties with the producer, even signing off their statement with the rather definitive kiss-off “may God have mercy on his soul.” The problem is that, almost immediately, Cinestate was revealed to be hypocrites. A Reddit thread devoted to the Donaghey case, complete with comments from numerous members of the Dallas film scene, painted a far different picture: Donaghey as a known creep and predator, burning bridges with his behavior — until finding a home at Cinestate. An audio recording of Donaghey admitting to his behavior was passed on to Cinestate exec Amanda Presmyk, who then continued to hire Donaghey for multiple other projects until finally his predatory behavior caught up with him. Beyond that, the thread notes that film and football legend Fred Williamson sexually harassed a makeup artist on the set of V.F.W, but was unpunished even as she was forced to quit the set. In addition, there are further comments that paint Cinestate sets as playing fast and loose with safety in regards to its actors.
Cinestate and the Donaghey situation reminded me of earlier this year, when newly formed distributor The Horror Collective was caught with its pants around its ankles in regards to their first film, Greenlight. As that film basked in an avalanche of accolades (including from me) during its VOD run in late February, it came out that one of the secret producers of the film was none other than Contracted director Eric England, accused of abusing and assaulting ex-girlfriend Katie Stegeman two years earlier.
Timelines to how much and for how long England was involved remain muddy. The Horror Collective put out a press release stating that England was removed from the project very early in the process, and a Facebook post from the director corroborates that. But comments from various film critics and festival programmers contradict that statement, as do posts written by The Horror Collective’s Jonathan Barkan when he was editor-in-chief of Dread Central. Barkan posted news stories about both England’s abuses as well as his involvement in Greenlight, long before The Horror Collective even existed, and the timing of his articles do not line up with The Horror Collective’s press statements. In a word, Barkan should have known the depth of England’s involvement in the film.
And we haven’t even gotten into the drama earlier this involving Dilara Elbiri, Jason Lei Howden and Guns Akimbo yet either.
In the wake of the recent Joe Bob dust-up and the Donaghey stuff, I keep hearing the same thing on Twitter: people are tired, people are exhausted, and more importantly, why is the horror community, usually so inclusive, so open, so welcoming, just repeatedly sweeping these things under the rug? Why do these stories break, only to fail to get traction on the big horror sites? The answer is simply this: access. Control. Keeping the status quo. The problem is with the decision makers in horror, the heads of companies like Cinestate and Shudder, and the way they have fostered, knowingly or not, a culture of fear amongst those who would speak up, allowing bad behavior to be tolerated, unabated and unchecked.
In an editorial on his website Gayly Dreadful, Terry Mesnard remarked on the situation, and included in his piece that very idea — a thought that a lot of us have expressed, the fear that speaking up will be the end of any kind of career in the horror industry for us. I felt that fear coursing through my veins the entire time I crafted this article. And its that fear that lets this kind of treatment to go on, unquestioned. Push back is career suicide.
A large part of that fear is due to the fact that much of this behavior is tacitly “okayed” by the folks who reside at the top of the horror hierarchy, as nebulous a concept as that is in a community as large as this one is. Joe Bob is a nostalgic icon, and thus Shudder keeps bringing him back, even as he continuously demeans, antagonizes and puts off a large segment of their audience. Cinestate controls the biggest horror publication in the land. You don’t even have to be an unknown; “The Last Drive In” music supervisor John Brennan and producer Justin Martell have gone off on a cruel crusade against esteemed genre critic Scott Weinberg for daring to speak up against the almighty Joe Bob, a deeply unprofessional act that will just be another thing buried and forgotten.
Those who speak up are subjected to nothing but abuse, and then have to live in fear of being punished by the powers that be for having opportunity taken away from us. This becomes even more concerning when you are part of a marginalized community, and thus not afforded opportunity even in the best of times, let alone those when you have to speak up or continue to be aggressed against.
So when you have an opportunity to be published in Fangoria or have your film become a “Shudder Exclusive” what happens when something occurs that crosses your ethical barrier? Fangoria EIC Phil Nobile, Jr, a genuinely decent guy who stands up for all kinds of communities, reassured Mesnard that people wouldn’t be excluded. And I believe him. But what about Sonnier? As it is, a makeup artist got cast off V.F.W. because she didn’t want to give a blowjob to Fred Williamson. Who’s to say he wouldn’t deny access to interviews, reviews or hire people to be on his films should they balk at abusive treatment?
Because of that worry, people don’t speak out. Being in Fangoria could make a writer’s career. Why bite the hand that feeds? So a choice is made: swallow your anger and behave or be cut off. And I don’t begrudge the writers trying to support themselves and their families in a deeply insecure and tenuous time for freelancers, for not wanting to rock the boat.
Is is true of every site or company? Obviously not. But its that perception of fear that prevents people from speaking out, and when assaultive and abusive behavior is allowed to continue unabated, than that tells people, particularly people who belong to the groups being assaulted, that the folks in charge don’t care and won’t do anything. Cinestate and Sonnier have told women everywhere they don’t care about them. Sonnier and Shudder have told LQBTQ and POC people they don’t care. They told through their actions, thus reinforcing the belief that marginalized communities are not welcome in horror.
Now that’s, of course, not entirely true either — Shudder produced the black horror doc Horror Noire and is now hard at work on a queer horror doc, as well. But it sends a muddled message when they also promote people who’s talk and behavior runs antithetical to what those docs represent. Yes, diverse, and even sometimes uncomfortable voices are necessary in a community so as to present different perspectives, challenge staid beliefs and avoid echo chambers. But it should not at the expense of people being further marginalized and made to feel unwelcome.
When the Donaghey story broke, no decided to run with it for weeks, until just recently when Dread Central covered it as I wrote this article. This isn’t an unusual occurrence in horror. for example, when Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 star Caroline Williams went on a racist rant in the wake of the historic Oscar win for Parasite earlier this year, no one said a peep. The horror community is a family, but its a family with a tendency to bury its dirty little secrets and pretend as though nothing has ever happened, and that needs to stop.
A large part of that is who is “in charge” — and the majority of them are straight, white men. Shit gets ignored on a wide level, from studio heads to lead programmers to editor in chiefs. Bad behavior and ignorant statements are tolerated, ignored, swept away and sometimes even rewarded. Donaghey should have been shitcanned and refused work years ago; Briggs should have had, at least, a talking to by the powers that be at Shudder. And the people who dare to call them out should not have to suffer the slings and arrows of an army of frothing mad fans who feel they are justified in their own abuses because the powers that be have implicitly made it okay for them.
I’m not calling for a revolution or to overthrow the people at the forefront of the horror class, though some more women, POC and queer folk being added would be nice. Nor I am necessarily calling for the cancellation of people like Joe Bob Briggs (Donaghey, however, can be thoroughly cancelled as far as I am concerned.) What I am asking for is a change in perspective and for people to do better. If Joe Bob is really as nice as people say he is and really does care about the LGBTQ community, or any other marginalized community, as Prince claims, than he has to first get over his no public apologies rule, and then he has to show that he cares through continual growth, understanding and respect for the community. What worked for him in the 90s does not necessarily work today. He can still do his off color humor, but he needs to rethink and re-frame how he utilizes it. And he and Prince need to use their mighty pull with their fans to normalize a less rabid, vicious and angry response to critiques; as it is, it feels very much as though they do not support it. And then, if still they continue to resist growth and learning and refuse to act with empathy, than that’s when Shudder needs to rethink about giving them a platform, especially in the wake of the documentaries they produce.
As for Sonnier, like all producers and company heads and such, he needs to abandon the outdated boys-club mentality and actually take creeps and predators in their orbit to task and refuse to continue to give them work in the shadow of overwhelming toxicity. People like Donaghey get away for so long because people like Sonnier let him get away, at least until it finally becomes an embarrassment to them. Behavior like Sonnier’s enables behavior like Donaghey’s, and, further, the refusal of horror websites to even delve into these kinds of stories and call out predators and those that protect them only assists in the perpetuation of this behavior.
(As for the disconcerting dichotomy between Fangoria and Rebeller? I’m not sure there is an easy answer for that. It’s hard to reconcile a company that gives a podcasting platform to a drag duo with one that tries to convince us that Bryan Adams’s recent racist social media rant wasn’t.)
Ultimately, it’s up to the folks who retain the power to make sure stories aren’t swept away, abuses aren’t tolerated and all sorts of voices are heard. A lot of these so-called leaders speak progressive, but act regressive, and its those people, in the wake of months of madness, who need to look at themselves in the mirror and see if their actions stand up to their ideals. At least, that’s the optimistic, Utopian hope I have for things. But, right now, one thing is for certain.
Horror has a problem.