Elon Rutberg, frequent Kanye West collaborator recently went on a Twitter rant accusing the film La La Land of depicting a "destructive naivete" and stating that he left the theater declaring the film as "fascist". Rutberg is credited with co-writing on New Slaves, Black Skinhead, Bound 2, etc. He was also a creative director on the Yeezus tour, and also worked on Kanye's Famous visual. La La Land just recently fared well during the Golden Globes taking home seven awards for Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and more.
La La Land is written and directed by Damien Chazelle. He also wrote and directed the Oscar-winning film Whiplash. In his tweets Rutberg criticizes the film's main characters (played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone) for not acting in correspondence with what he believes is the reality of a career in Hollywood.
In his series of tweets Rutberg elaborates by condemning the film for being an inaccurate representation of the realities and struggles of success in Hollywood. He defines Fascism as, "a conspiracy of business and military elites to seize control, and use whatever means necessary to sedate its populace," and comments on how when an inordinate amount of money is put into a film, is guaranteed to be a success, audiences will relate to the message of the film and perceive its caricatures as reality, that show business and a career in Hollywood is simple and easy to achieve. This is the "dangerous naivete" that Rutberg speaks about.
Rutberg grew up in Hollywood and in an interview with Pitchfork said, "For every one success story in Hollywood or on Broadway as far back as they have existed, there are a million voiceless unfulfilled dreams," La La Land's setting and plot are something that Rutberg obviously cares very much about. And he isn't afraid to voice an opinion that isn't easily swallowed which is why he has done, and continues to do so much work with Kanye West.
Rutberg has since deleted the tweets which he said he would do before he started the rant, stating that he was "treating Twitter like Snapchat" using it to house his "ephemeral tweets". Later on he released another stream of tweets further elaborating on his views and his reasoning behind his accusations. Rutberg studied Film and Dramaturgy at NYU, he grew up in Hollywood where both of his parents were artists. In these tweets he urges the public to consider, "the truths - statistical, demographic, personal - of those who did make it to the top and why."
Read Elon's tweets below:
Here's a followup article to take a look at!
