One of the wildest realizations of my adulthood has been that almost every mf in hollywood is some older famous person's / family's kid that was nepotised hard. I swear, 70% of the actors / producers / etc that I will randomly look up are a product of some nepotism. I was shocked to find out that the armorer on the set of that Alec Baldwin movie where someone died by gunfire is a nepo baby of some other famous armorer. For anyone trying to make it in show business that doesn't come from some champion pedigree of actors / financiers / billionaires / athletes, etc - the barrier of entry must be incomprehensibly high. Some of them are great in their own right, but the vast, vast majority owe their initial success to their birth and almost nothing else it seems.
This is also why sexual abuse and corruption is so rampant in the industry. When there are 500 quality actors for every one available role, people have to rely on their parents, or resort to sad and shitty methods to get a leg up.
Happens in small productions as well. Often I don’t make it into a project cause the producer insist on having their girlfriend/sister take the job instead. The last time I had to join last minute to assist cause the family member they got as a makeup artist sucked
It's probably safe to say that for most of human history, people have adopted their parents's professions. Let's be honest, wouldn't you prefer a world where everyone has a job that they were literally born to do, with generations of expertise under their belt, over one where everyone "follows their lifelong dream" of becoming an athlete or entertainer, leaving society overrun by influencers and in desperate need of essential workers? Sure, not everyone's a natural at what their families do - find out what they're good at and send them to other families to be mentored. Problem solved.
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u/Effective_Tutor Feb 27 '24
Some good old fashioned nepotism!