> Of course, like a swagger, the signal is not so much the tantum itself as the fact that someone can get away with it.
It also links to a paper[1] about NBA players that deals with this phenomenon. Here's the abstract:
> Casual empiricism suggests that celebrities engage in more anti-social and other socially unapproved behavior than non-celebrities. I consider a number of reasons for this stylized fact, including one new theory, in which workers who are less substitutable in production are enabled to engage in greater levels of misbehavior because their employers cannot substitute away from them. Looking empirically at a particular class of celebrities - NBA basketball players - I find that misbehavior on the court is due to several factors, including prominently this substitutability effect, though income effects and youthful immaturity also may be important.
[1]: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=609946
I don't think so.
"Of course, like a swagger, the signal is not so much the tantum itself as the fact that someone can get away with it."
He's working from a different script, playing a different game, appealing to a different audience. It's staged drama like professional wrestling. The uselessness of the American media helps him along, too.
But it's shockingly accurate in its depiction of the film industry: movie studios, agencies, the politics of it all, the day to day details, the personalities, and so forth. Hell, even Ari is closely based on a real-life superagent who happens to be named Ari.
I've never been a mover and shaker in Hollywood, and I fled that business long ago. But trust me, I certainly lived and worked in that scene for the better part of a decade. Entourage comes closer to capturing the details and feel of Hollywood than any other depiction I have seen in recent memory. Every so often I actually had a hard time watching the show because it dredged up all sorts of awkward memories and nostalgia.
Ever see the show Entourage? Ari Gold can throw tantrums, and he does. (Constantly.) His underlings don't have that privilege. If one of them ever tried to throw an Ari-style tantrum, he'd be out on the street in five minutes flat. [Full disclosure: I worked at a talent agency a long time ago, and what was depicted on Entourage was accurate enough to have passed as a documentary.]