November 8, 2019

Reanimated James Dean “Not a Marketing Gimmick”

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As you may have heard, an upcoming film set in the Vietnam era will star James Dean, brought back to life through the magic of CGI. Not everyone was thrilled by this news, and today the filmmaker begged for sympathy:

“We don’t really understand it. We never intended for this to be a marketing gimmick,” director Anton Ernst tells The Hollywood Reporter in response to negative criticism on Dean’s posthumous casting.

If there is a God, Ernst should be struck down where he stands. Is there a single person on the planet who thinks this was anything other than a marketing gimmick?

I dunno. Maybe this is the Trump influence at work. In the past, you had to make your lies at least superficially plausible, but Trump has taught us that this isn’t necessary. In fact, the dumber the lie the better.

Still, this is not as bad as it could be. In another decade or so, the big marketing gimmick will be to use an actual human being to play a small role in a movie. Probably a Kardashian or something.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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