{"id":596078,"date":"2023-10-31T03:16:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T00:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/mahas-problematic-post-can-hollywood-move-on\/"},"modified":"2023-10-31T03:16:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T00:16:16","slug":"mahas-problematic-post-can-hollywood-move-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/mahas-problematic-post-can-hollywood-move-on\/","title":{"rendered":"#Maha\u2019s Problematic Post: Can Hollywood Move On?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n Last November, CAA held a town hall on antisemitism, part of a series<\/a> hosted through CAA\u2019s Amplify Presents program, described as \u201ca network of changemakers\u201d working toward \u201csystemic change for communities of color.\u201d The program was introduced by agent Maha Dakhil, who said it was \u201cfocused on fighting antisemitism and promoting allyship.\u201d Next up was CAA co-chairman Richard Lovett. \u201cThis morning, we will learn once again how much words matter,\u201d he said, \u201cand the damage caused by human beings with large platforms who do not use their platforms responsibly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Twelve months later, Dakhil finds herself at the center of a firestorm ignited by her own use of a large platform: Instagram, where she had 27,000 followers before she locked her account and deleted her posts. In the wake of her comments on the Israel-Hamas War, Aaron Sorkin fired her. High-level Hollywood executives including Spyglass Media<\/a> chairman and CEO Gary Barber, as well as Sony Motion Picture Group President Josh Greenstein, called CAA leadership to express their concern. Steven Spielberg\u2019s people quickly had IMDb delete information on two pages \u2013 his and hers \u2013 that had erroneously listed her as one of his agents.<\/p>\n

\n As has been widely discussed in Hollywood, on Oct. 18 \u2013 more than a week after Hamas\u2019 terrorist attack on Israel \u2013 Dakhil reposted a statement from an account called Free Palestine that read, \u201cYou\u2019re currently learning who supports genocide.\u201d Dakhil added, \u201cThat\u2019s the line for me.\u201d She then posted a photo captioned, \u201cWhat\u2019s more heartbreaking than witnessing genocide? Witnessing the denial that genocide is happ<\/a>ening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Manager Guy Oseary, an Israeli-American who represents Dakhil\u2019s longtime client and friend Madonna, says he called Dakhil when he saw the first post. \u201cI mentioned to her that the posts could be very triggering for your Jewish friends. There\u2019s a word in there and how it\u2019s laid out could be very triggering,\u201d he says. \u201cShe didn\u2019t realize it would be a trigger for people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Dakhil quickly took the posts down and issued an apology: \u201cI made a mistake with a repost on Instagram story, which used hurtful language. Like so many of us, I have been reeling with heartbreak. I pride myself on being on the side of humanity and peace. I\u2019m so grateful to Jewish friends and colleagues who pointed out the implications and further educated me. I immediately took the repost down. I\u2019m sorry for the pain I have caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Dakhil also began to work the phones, calling people to apologize. But within days, she lost her role as co-head of motion pictures and resigned from the agency\u2019s internal board, for the time being. Within agency ranks, however, there is still tension. CAA declined to comment.<\/p>\n

\n Among those who know or have worked with Dakhil, none have said they believe she is antisemitic. But some thought her posts were inconsistent with her image as a social-justice warrior, present at the founding of the ill-fated Times Up. \u201cShe always puts herself front and center\u201d on such issues, says a colleague, \u201cAnd then there\u2019s [the Instagram posts] that do not jibe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n According to sources, Dakhil \u2013 unanimously praised as a highly effective agent \u2013 was on the brink of signing a major new deal at the agency. It\u2019s not clear whether the terms will change now that she is no longer holding leadership positions.<\/p>\n

\n CAA leaders \u2014 already dealing with tension over the distribution of money in the wake of a change in ownership and a lawsuit alleging the agency was complicit in sending clients to meetings with Harvey Weinstein \u2014 have been laboring to save Dakhil\u2019s career at the agency, reaching out to both the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, with which the agency had a pre-existing partnership. The ADL confirms that Dakhil has been in talks with CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt but declines to provide further information. The AJC has provided a tutor.<\/p>\n

\n But some in Hollywood are not convinced that Dakhil, the daughter of Libyan immigrants, needs tutoring, or that she could have been unaware of the impact of her words. Some industry insiders have passed around a strongly worded letter to the editor that Dakhil had sent to the UCLA\u00a0Daily Bruin<\/em>\u00a0in 1996 when she was an undergraduate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The letter is hardly some kind of smoking antisemitic gun. Dakhil complained about the\u00a0Bruin<\/em>\u2018s account of a rally to protest an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon that killed 106 people. She objected to the paper\u2019s characterization of the rally as a Muslim event when \u201cpeople of all colors, races and religions were present.\u201d She also noted that the article in question failed to mention \u201cbrutal Israeli forces [who] mercilessly raided innocent victims in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n To detractors, the 1996 letter reveals that Dakhil was outspoken about conflicts in the Middle East even as a teenager. \u201cIt shows\u00a0that you have\u00a0a long history with a very specific thought process,\u201d says a former colleague. \u201dYou went to UCLA in the \u201990s, you were so vocal that you wrote a letter, then you became an agent, you\u2019re on the board of CAA, and now you say your Jewish friends are educating you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Says a multi-hyphenate CAA client: \u201cI was more stunned by the stupidity of it \u2013 an agent whose company represents so many Jewish icons, to post something like that,\u201d says this person.\u00a0\u201cTo use [ignorance] as an excuse was getting a lot of eye-rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Likely because the issues are so polarizing, few have stepped forward publicly either to praise or condemn Dakhil. Ava DuVernay posted a photo of a smiling Dakhil captioned, \u201cMy brilliant agent, Maha Dakhil, A true gem,\u201d but DuVernay did not respond to a request for comment. J.J. Abrams wrote a letter in support of Dakhil\u00a0to agency leadership but didn\u2019t make it public.\u00a0On the other side of the coin, Dan Erlij, a senior UTA television agent, posted: \u201cApparently \u2018the line\u2019 for getting fired in this town is NOT posting hate speech that is also demonstrably false on the public platform. Who knew?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Inside the agency, the waters are still roiling. Says a CAA insider: \u201cWe all wonder, what did Steven say? What did Natalie say? What about Salma?\u201d Israel-born Natalie Portman, a Dakhil client, is said to be exploring a possible change in representation. She declined to comment. Dakhil is said to be very close to client Salma Hayek, whose husband, Fran\u00e7ois-Henri Pinault, just acquired a majority interest in CAA, and whose father is a Mexican of Lebanese heritage. Hayek, too, declined to comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n One former associate says some of her detractors simply resent her success. \u201cShe\u2019s been on a rocketship of growth, and there\u2019s a certain amount of schadenfreude,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I never saw her be an asshole. Maybe judgmental \u2013 there\u2019s no vulnerability there. She has a very tough veneer. Obviously, in our sexist society, a guy gets credit for that, and a woman gets called a bitch. But I was always very impressed with her. She earned her success, which is sometimes hard there.\u201d Says another former insider: \u201cWhen you\u2019re a hardcore person like that and the tide turns on you, everybody wants to bring you down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n To some in Hollywood, Dakhil\u2019s troubles stem in part from her disregard of the credo embraced by Lew Wasserman and CAA co-founder Mike Ovitz: The agent should never be the story. Dakhil has been especially public, through advocacy and through her relationships with clients. She posted pictures of herself with such clients as Tom Cruise and, of course, Madonna, who Dakhil called her \u201cdear sister\u201d in a now-deleted Instagram post from an August celebration of the superstar\u2019s 65th birthday. (One photo showed Madonna kissing Dakhil, tongue out, in the backseat of a car, seemingly a callback to the 2003 moment when the star kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera at the MTV Video Awards.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Such images have led some detractors to say that Dakhil had come to see herself as talent. A CAA insider recalls an Instagram post of Dakhil primping in a bathroom at Cannes. \u201cThat was a tipping point for people rolling their eyes at her Instagram,\u201d this person says. One former colleague asks, \u201cDo you know an agent with 27,000 Instagram followers?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Another issue raised by several industry insiders is why Dakhil is being allowed to apologize and get tutoring when CAA abruptly fired popular agent Jay Baker in 2021 after he made a joke that offended manager Jewerl Keats Ross. Ross, who along with Baker represented Moonlight<\/em> director Barry Jenkins, had asked Baker to arrange a screening so he could watch an actress who was being considered for an upcoming project. Baker responded that the request reminded him of a crack-addict scene from \u2018Menace 2 Society\u2019\u201d and sent a YouTube link from the film.<\/p>\n

\n In a subsequent email, Ross said he had initially laughed but later reconsidered. \u201cI am a Black man in America,\u201d he wrote. \u201cNo Black man in America wants to think that a white person thinks that asking for a favor is like asking for crack.\u201d Baker apologized but was fired after 20-plus years at the agency.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think people should be given a chance to reform,\u201d says one producer, but that\u2019s not how they\u2019ve done business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n A former colleague notes that Baker and Dakhil used to be close friends, adding, \u201cHe was convicted pretty quickly and then bye bye.\u201d Says another: \u201cHe made a bad joke. Inappropriate, I\u2019m sure. Did he deserve to be fired for it? That was him trying to be funny\u2026 Now, here you have another adult, very knowledgeable on the subject, who says something much worse, and she\u2019s just been demoted off a committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Some are left wondering how the incident will ultimately play out. Will Dakhil be reinstated to her previous positions, as some believe is likely? If not, will she accept the demotion? \u201cIt will be interesting to see if there\u2019s a real punishment or not,\u201d says a competitor. \u201cWhen she walks around town now, people are going to look at her sideways. Words have consequences.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last November, CAA held a town hall on antisemitism, part of a series hosted through CAA\u2019s Amplify Presents program, described as \u201ca network of changemakers\u201d working toward \u201csystemic change for communities of color.\u201d The program was introduced by agent Maha Dakhil, who said it was \u201cfocused on fighting antisemitism and promoting allyship.\u201d Next up was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":596079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/GettyImages-1663843971-H-2023.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[8547,80562,146383,146696],"class_list":["post-596078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-aaron-sorkin","tag-caa","tag-israel-gaza-conflict","tag-maha-dakhil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}