Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood

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An expos of patterns of harassment and bias in Hollywood, the grassroots reforms under way, and the labor and activist revolutions that recent scandals have ignited.

It is never just One Bad Man.

Abuse and exploitation of workers is baked into the very foundations of the entertainment industry. To break the cycle and make change that sticks, its important to stop looking at headline-making stories as individual events. Instead, one must look closely at the bigger picture, to see how abusers are created, fed, rewarded, allowed to persist, and, with the right tools, how they can be excised.

InBurn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywoods corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Lost, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more. Interviews with actors and famous creatives like Evan Rachel Wood, Harold Perrineau, Damon Lindelof, and Orlando Jones abound.Ryan dismantles, one by one, the myths that the entertainment industry promotes about itself, which have allowed abusers to thrive and the industry to avoid accountabilitymyths about Hollywood as a meritocracy, what it takes to be creative, the value of human dignity, and more.

Weaving together insights from industry insiders, historical context, and pop-culture analysis,Burn It Downpaints a groundbreaking and urgently necessary portrait of whats gone wrong in the entertainment worldand how we can fix it.

Reviews

"This book is urgent and necessary, and I am excited to see Maureen Ryan bring it into the world. So many of the books about misconduct and abuse in the entertainment industry focus on One Important Man, and we know the problems are deeper and wider than that at every level. An examination of the systems and traditions that enable abuse and prop up abusers, helping them fail upwards and ensuring there will be a bottomless churn of vulnerable workers for them to exploit is so needed right now. Burn It Down is that book." Erin Keane, Editor-in-Chief of Salon and author of Runaway "Maureen Ryan is a dogged, clear-eyed reporter, legendary for her miles-deep exposs of Hollywood abuse,toxicity and bullying. In Burn It Down, she makes a powerful case for a less romanticized view of the entertainment industry,one that rejects the ugly traditions of the past, holds bad bosses accountable, and marks a path to a better future." Emily Nussbaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New Yorker and author of I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution "Burn It Down does the heavy lifting in helping to uncover not just the ugliness of the behavior of high-profile individuals, but the mundane abuses common in the broader television and movie landscape. Maureen Ryan is a tenacious and meticulous reporter, a sharp and passionate writer, and an advocate for a fairer and better industry. Theres a reason a lot of network personnel with a lot theyre trying to keep in the dark hate nothing more than to see Maureen coming with a flashlight and a pen." Linda Holmes, New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and host of NPRs Pop Culture Happy Hour "Maureen Ryan is a rigorous thinker and a lovely writer and does terrific and necessary work to trace the places where entertainment and injustice intertwine with profit and abuse." Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies "Maureen Ryan is a necessary agent in questioning the status quo, and Burn It Down masterfully takes on Hollywood power structures that need to be reckoned with and changed." Ira Madison III, co-host of the Crooked Media podcast Keep It and author of the forthcoming essay collection Pure Innocent Fun "Maureen Ryan is not only a keen critic with a fair and far-reaching eye. She is also a leader in dismantling systems of oppression and abuse in Hollywood. Her reporting has single handedly brought consequences for abusers in positions of power. I am continually inspired and grateful for her work in my industry. She makes the entertainment world safer." Felicia Day, New York Times bestselling author of Youre Never Weird on the Internet and Embrace Your Weird "As a journalist, Mo Ryan saw the need for #MeToo coming years before it went viral. And that means that even though the constant headline-grabbing virality has subsided, Mo knows that there is still much more work to do. There are unfortunately many more painful truths about show business that have to be dug up. And there are also more skeletons in closets that need to be dragged out into the light. Mo is fierce, funny, unbossed, and unafraid." W. Kamau Bell, New York Timesbestselling author of Do the Work: An Antiracist Activity Book, director, and executive producer

Author Bio

Maureen Ryan is acontributing editor atVanity Fair and has covered the entertainment industry as a critic and reporter for three decades. She has written forEntertainment Weekly, theNew York Times,Salon,GQ,Vulture, theChicago Tribune, and more. Prior to joiningVanity Fair, Ryan served as the chief television critic forVarietyand theHuffington Post. She has served on the jury of the Peabody Awards and has won three Los Angeles Press Club Awards.