Patrick Stoner welcomes your questions about movies and the people who make them. Send your questions to pstoner@whyy.org. Here's the current question and answer:
Q: Do film "junkets" corrupt the media? A: Only the tabloid media. Although a free trip might influence some folks' reviews, especially when they're new in the biz, the biggest threat of corruption on a junket is the potential for boredom to affect your professional efforts. Let me describe EXACTLY what happens on a movie junket:
Let's say a studio wants to promote a film opening. Since large numbers of people are interested in seeing and hearing from movie stars and famous directors, the movie companies are able to attract as many as a hundred print people, and about half that many TV representatives, from the U.S. and Canada. Generally, the reporters fly either to Los Angeles or New York, for obvious reasons, to screen a preview a couple of weeks before the opening and then interview the celebrities.
Generally speaking, reporters arrive on a Friday and leave on a Sunday. Sometimes these weekend trips are extended in both directions, when other studios "piggyback" their films onto an existing event. The studios like "piggybacking" because they get to share the cost of setting up the TV rooms and other expenses, and the media have the opportunity to collect material from more than one film in one trip.
The studios have been sending the media on junkets since the 1930s -- when it was all print press, of course. In the old days, they were apparently quite something: trainloads of reporters might be taken to the location where a big Western was filmed, and some were treated to farflung trips to Europe for THE SOUND OF MUSIC, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY, and other movies in the days of the big studios.
I've been doing the "junkets" for about 14 years, and they are far simpler affairs now. It's true that I went on the last two European junkets (to London) in the late '80s, but those gave me a mere glimpse of how things used to be done. Occasionally, there are interesting side "junkets" to Toronto, Orlando, New Orleans, or some more exotic place than L.A. or N.Y.C., but 95% of them are in one or the other location, because -- to paraphrase that old bank robber when describing banks -- that's where they keep the stars.
What happens on "junkets"? Well, let's take HOPE FLOATS for an example. First, it was a slight exception to the location rule -- if you count Pasadena as different from L.A. I flew five and a half hours to get there in time for an evening screening. The next morning, I interviewed Sandra Bullock, Harry Connick, Jr. and director Forest Whitaker. Since I wasn't doing a second film that weekend, I boarded an early afternoon flight and flew four and a half hours back to Philadelphia (tail winds, you know).
While I was on the junket, 20th Century Fox played the good host. They provided the hotel room and food for that day. You also get some film-oriented items -- T-shirts, bags, or caps with the film's logo -- perhaps the CD of the soundtrack or some odd item that they have created for the film. (In the case of HOPE FLOATS, it was one of those glass paperweights with Sandra and Harry's picture that has falling snow when you turn it upside down.)
It's all very cute, but it's not exactly valuable stuff. I, like almost every other media person I know, give almost all of it away. After giving the t-shirts to my daughters (for their collection), I try to spread around the other stuff to people who either think of it as silly but fun (as with the DONNIE BRASCO tissue dispenser that played the "Forget About It" speech when you took out a tissue), or, in the case of MULAN, to parents who might like to give their kids the toys. Whatever is left that nobody wants, I give to schools and other not-for-profit groups for their annual fundraising auctions. The REALLY dumb stuff, like the KING RALPH plastic plate and the RUMBLE IN THE BRONX drink coasters, I keep on a table next to my desk to amuse passersby.
So, what is there in all of this that could be corrupting? Well, this, I gather, is how some people picture it: The studios are getting free promotion for their new movies, and the media who participate are going along with this just to get the goodies. Some are even giving those films good reviews just to make sure that they don't displease the studios. None are asking the REALLY TOUGH questions about what's going on in their personal lives or about whatever other titillating tidbit is currently gracing the checkout counters. All of this goes against the concept that the media's purpose is to dig into the seamy grit of the entertainment industry and expose it to a public who "wants to know."
Now, before I respond to that perception, let me point out what anybody who has followed my on-air work since 1978, or has even read this Web page since it began just a couple of years ago, already knows: My interest in films, their makers and stars is limited to the craft and to what goes into making works that have had a profound influence on my life and on millions of others. I try to do this in a light and interesting style so that viewers (and readers) won't be painfully conscious of the educational side of it all, but I am NOT interested in the scandal du jour. If Brad Pitt confessed to me on his own during an interview that he and Harrison Ford had had an affair during the making of the THE DEVIL'S OWN, my only interest would have been in how this had affected their approach to their roles.
So, I have an easy "out" in this potential corruption discussion, since I never have and never will be looking for the kind of "hot" revelations that some producers or news directors in commercial television might desire. It's simply not what I do, and I'm thankful for that.
Having said that, honesty forces me to debunk the "junket" corruption theory. First, it's true that the studios get free publicity for their new films when their stars are interviewed, but that's not unique to the "junkets;" you see big film stars doing the network morning shows, or being guests on Leno and Letterman, for precisely the same reason, and that has ALWAYS been the case -- back when it was Steve Allen hosting the TONIGHT SHOW, long before Johnny Carson started making jokes about it. So the tradeoff of getting a desired interview with a big name star ONLY when they are hoping it will tangentially draw attention to their movie is a given. End the "junkets" tomorrow and that will still be the win/win situation for the studios and the media.
Secondly, it is suspiciously accurate to suggest that some people are giving positive reviews to films that they can't really believe are that good. Just look in the movie ads, and you will see the same names EVERY WEEK and in SEVERAL ADS at the same time; however, few of those names do the "junkets," so I suspect the real motivation is the pleasure of seeing their names repeated so often. Moreover, I have BOMBED dozens of "junket" films over the year and given the kind of mixed reviews to many dozens more, and NOBODY from any film company has ever said or done anything to me. As far as I can tell, there does seem to be a wall between the right of a critic to express his or her honest opinion and what the film people wish were said.
Finally, I don't want to sound hopelessly old-fashioned, but when did the standards of the tabloids become the ONLY ones that a "responsible" media person should follow? I believe in a totally free press, and I would fight anyone who tried to censor or eliminate even the most tasteless muckraking entertainment show or magazine, but I can't believe that it is now considered the mark of a bad interviewer if he or she isn't interested in "finding the dirt." I don't have any objection to those whose professional calling requires them to dig around in the private lives of celebrities for whatever tabloid morsel they can find, but I don't accept the proposition that this is the ONLY acceptible reason to interview those celebrities.
Nobody who spends as much time flying to distant hotels to attend these "junkets" would keep doing it after the novelty wore off (usually after your fifth or sixth one, I would say) unless you really thought they were giving you professional access that you couldn't get any other way.
So that's why I say that the only corruption of the media the "junkets" might cause would be the limited one of not being a good source of tabloid material.
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