Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 189 They Have the Right to Know the Truth
Investigating BT TV, which emerged from nowhere, was not difficult for Jamie Crosby, a veteran in the industry.
Moreover, this industry is basically transparent. As long as one is willing, the general situation of any TV station can be known.
It took him more than half an hour to read the last page of the investigation material about BT TV. The last page showed that BT TV's latest activity was to cooperate with Marvel Animation Production Company under New World Pictures to launch a cartoon to attract black teenage male audiences.
The information shows that this cartoon is adapted from a Marvel comic book "Black Panther: Jungle Outing" which had extremely poor sales in the 1970s.
In addition to this cartoon, the information also shows that the TV station has a large number of TV programs that have been completed or are in the later stage, including "Nigger Boss", a black version of the Godfather, a crime comedy "Weeds " about a black single mother who takes risks to start a business in order to raise her children, and is trying to win the away broadcasting rights for the football team Los Angeles Rams, as well as a series of variety reality shows similar to FOX's style but with lower moral standards.
Looking at the list of BT TV's self-produced variety shows, Jamie Crosby, who has worked in the television industry for many years, couldn't help but exclaimed "Wow".
"Daddy America" is a program about finding relatives, helping black single mothers who want to find a stable meal ticket to find their husbands who disappeared after they were on the show.
"The Almighty Gun Modifier" is a popular science program that teaches you how to live frugally. For example, from the perspective of saving money, you can buy the cheapest gun, and then use various modification methods to make it perform better, making it more practical and more effective.
"Mothers of My Children", an emotional reality show, mainly tells the story of the extravagant life of a rich man and his many wives or mistresses.
"The Strongest Pregnancy Makeup Queen" is a reality show that claims to focus on pregnant women. The women participating in the show are all single pregnant women. With the help of the program crew, they will cover up their bulging bellies, chat up with rich men, trick them into going to bed with them and register for marriage. If they successfully help their babies in their bellies find long-term meal ticket partners, they can receive a bonus of up to 100,000 yuan from the show.
"Big Brother is Watching You", a program that satisfies the desire to voyeurize others and allows the audience to play the role of God to those participating.
In "Who Wants to Marry a Rich Man", fifteen gold-digging women compete for a wealthy bachelor. Except for not being able to harm him with force, they can use any means. In short, the purpose is to destroy the image of other women in the men's minds, so that they can have the last laugh and put on a wedding dress and give themselves to the other party.
"Wife Swapping Game", two families exchange their mistresses. The two women have to be called "Mom" by children they have never met before, and "Dear" by men they have never met before in a completely unfamiliar family, and start a new family life with these strange faces.
In Jamie Crosby's view, these programs are obviously aimed at gathering lower-class black audiences, and their purpose is roughly the same as FOX. Now the three major American television networks are all planning cable TV, taking paid subscriptions as a new trend, and putting more and more exciting programs on pay channels, allowing audiences to pay to watch.
But in reality, a large number of lower-income groups, such as blacks and Latinos, still watch free TV networks because they find it unacceptable to have to pay a subscription to watch TV.
Before the show started, FOX spent a lot of money on a survey and the data it obtained showed that the number of black people watching free TV was 44% higher than the non-black group, and most of them were low-income blacks.
This is also the reason why FOX continues to launch programs such as "America's Most Wanted" and "Temptation" that are more exciting than the free programs of the three major TV stations. If it were not for the support of the Republican Party, and the fact that it had just relied on the Republican Party to resolve some obstacles to entering the television industry and it was not convenient to sing against the ruling party, FOX would have long attracted and curried favor with more black people by criticizing the various racial ills of the Republican government.
"Tommy Hawke, Tommy Hawke..." Jamie looked at the name of Tommy, the boss behind BT TV station, and fell into deep thought.
A young man who graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science and became famous in the software industry did not join a sunrise industry, but instead came to the television industry, which has already been a bloody battlefield, to start a business.
And even before they start broadcasting, they have stockpiled so many self-produced programs?
You know, even large TV networks will not take such high risks. After they have established a project, they will contact six to eight advertisers to make sure that those advertisers are willing to pay to cover the costs for them, without having to spend their own money, before they officially enter the production phase.
"Who the hell is this guy?"
And apart from its own programmes, the document reveals nothing about BT's television network, except that BT has no record of holding the backbone of any independent television network.
When Jamie saw this, he specifically asked the secretary if there was a mistake in the writing. How could such a big project miss such an important issue? If a TV network wants to gain a foothold, it must have its own TV station.
For example, FOX directly bought six TV stations as flagship TV stations, and other partner TV stations provided assistance, which allowed audiences in most parts of the United States to watch FOX programs.
If you simply use cooperative TV stations to fill your own TV network...
"I think as a young talent, this Tommy Hawke is unlikely to be a fool, because that would be like a bunch of leeches lying on him and sucking blood crazily."
…
While some people were wondering behind his back whether he was a fool, Tommy was being visited by someone.
It was a young black director whom I had met once, Spike Lee.
Young is only for other directors. In fact, Spike Lee is five years older than Tommy.
However, in front of the money, Spike Lee could only bow his head and silently accept the words of praise for his youth and potential from Tommy, a potential investor who was younger than him. Although he knew that the other party had no ill intentions, Spike Lee always felt that such compliments as "young and promising" were full of irony coming from Tommy's mouth.
Tommy Hawke, who is younger than himself, lives in a mansion in the North Side of Beverly Hills and is worth billions. Tommy Hawke, who is five years older than himself and whom he praised as young and promising, comes to him for help with the mere three million budget for his new movie.
In fact, Tommy's praise of Spike Lee was not meant to be ironic. In his opinion, this young black director was actually quite promising at a young age. As early as when he graduated from college at the age of 22, he started his own film company. The only difference was that the name of the company was a bit strange: Forty Acres and a Mule.
The so-called "Forty Acres and a Mule" was a military order during the American Civil War, issued by William Sherman, commander-in-chief of the Northern United States Army. For those black slaves who fled to the North to gain freedom, if they were willing to join the army and fight, their families could get forty acres of land. For those who were disabled and unable to work on the battlefield, their families could also get an additional retired mule to use for land reclamation.
Spike Lee used this company name to remind himself to never forget what black people have experienced on the road of film.
With a company name like that, there's no way he could get investment in Hollywood, where so many white people gather. Most of the time, he even has to shoot promotional commercials for various brands to maintain his company's livelihood and ensure that it doesn't close down.
In fact, his first film, "Sure Win," released in June 1986, had an impressive box office of seven million.
For various big Hollywood productions, this box office number is equivalent to a bad movie, but you have to know that the total cost of this movie is only 175,000 US dollars. Spike Lee shot commercials for several years to save up enough budget, and then finished shooting the movie in twelve days.
This movie, which promotes feminism throughout the film through the black heroine's slogan "The tool is on my body, I decide who I want to sleep with", has received a lot of praise for its political correctness, bold story and beautiful composition. All film critics who have seen the movie think that Spike Lee will become a famous film director in the future and gain a place in Hollywood.
In reality, after seeing the exaggerated revenue-to-expenditure ratio of "The Winning Eleven", major Hollywood film companies also rushed to hold up real money and actively seek cooperation with Spike Lee.
The bespectacled black boy was flattered, and then he carefully introduced the ideas for his second film that he had carefully prepared to the producers from the Hollywood film companies who came to his door.
After hearing this, the film companies never contacted him again.
It wasn't the movie budget figure that scared them off. In fact, the budget of the new film was not high, only six million, which is considered a small production in Hollywood. What's more, with Spike Lee in the lead, the film companies were willing to take a small gamble for a big win. The other party was able to get a box office of seven million with a cost of seventeen thousand. If the cost was raised to six million, wouldn't there be a chance that the box office would at least exceed fifty million?
What really scared off the film company was the script in Tommy's hand at the time.
The name is "Do Whatever You Want", and there is a line of small words at the end: Inspired by the racist killings in Howard Beach, in memory of my dead black brother, Michael Griffini.
Tommy was no stranger to the Howard Beach incident, a vicious incident that occurred in 1986.
Late at night, four black youths living in Brooklyn said they were going to drive to Queens to settle their salaries, but their car broke down on the road.
The young man who was driving stayed behind, while his three companions, led by the deceased, went to the Howard Beach community to find a pay phone, hoping to call a towing company to help tow the car.
However, Howard Beach is a white community. From the moment they entered the white area, the three black men were humiliated by the white drunkards, prostitutes and other people wandering on the streets, who told them to get out of their area. They failed to find a phone number, but instead met a group of white youths holding baseball bats and car wrenches and grinning at them in front of a pizza shop.
The two companions were knocked to the ground and their lives were unknown. The deceased Michael was covered with wounds, but he struggled to escape. However, when he was chased by white youths, he lost his way and rushed onto a road, where he was hit and killed on the spot by a speeding car.
After the incident, the blacks said they just dropped anchor and came to the white community to make a phone call, while the whites said no one went to collect paychecks late at night, and that a knife was found on the blacks. The four blacks were simply planning to come to Howard Beach to rob white people.
This is the whole incident. It sounds like a trivial matter of a black man dying. If those white people were replaced by black people, there would definitely not be any ripples.
The point that caused a sensation was that a group of white people killed a black person.
Subsequently, a black march broke out in New York, and countless black civil rights activists emerged like mushrooms after rain, traveling thousands of miles to the scene of the incident to demonstrate, hoping to increase their influence and have the white murderers sentenced to death.
White people were not to be outdone. Many white people rushed to New York from all over the place to support the murderer. They held up slogans such as "Niggers go home", "White supremacy", "Give slavery back to America", and confronted the protesting black people.
There were several conflicts between the two sides.
There were even exchanges of fire between white gangs and black gangs in New York after the incident, and several lives were lost on both sides. However, the police investigation stated that it was not related to the case. They tried to downplay the racial conflict and prevent the incident from continuing to ferment around racial discrimination.
The reason why Tommy knew about the news that happened in New York was not because he cared about black people, but because his father Colin mentioned it when he called.
Tommy only learned about it when his father mentioned on the phone that his favorite and outstanding employee, Wilson, had gone to New York to participate in a demonstration.
Mr. Wilson has a relative who runs a convenience store in the local area. That relative frantically called his relatives and friends from all over the country, inviting them to go to New York to show his support, calling for the innocence of white people and that the killing of black people was just self-defense.
Mr. Wilson, as a typical example of the lower class white people in Rhode Island, naturally would not refuse such a thing. What kind of world is this? Is it illegal to kill a nigger? Back then, my ancestors killed niggers in Rhode Island until they were almost extinct, comparable to endangered animals, and never spent a day in jail.
Although Dad and other workers had no plans to go to New York, they all agreed with Wilson's opinion. So they decided to take the initiative to pay for Wilson's travel expenses to express their support for the white people in New York.
This matter has not yet come to an end, but as it stands, some of the white murderers changed their ages and were acquitted as minors, some were diagnosed with mental illnesses, and some even had their prosecution dismissed by the court because witnesses refused to cooperate.
The families of the deceased black victims are still struggling to appeal.
Now, both the federal government and the New York government are frantically trying to downplay the impact of this incident, but the black director in front of him wants to make it into a movie. No wonder those film companies have backed out.
The government won't cause trouble for a black director, so will it also cause trouble for the film companies?
"Mr. Hawke, I know your past. You have always promoted women's employment and technological equality. Even now, you are still paying attention to the black community and want to provide them with programs they like. You even helped Miss Vanessa Williams. You are a true friend. I mean it." Spike Lee saw Tommy was speechless for a long time after he finished reading the script. He thought that he had the same concerns as those film companies, so he said in a consoling tone:
"It's okay if you refuse me. I understand your difficulty because we all know that many people hope that this tragedy and the victims will be completely forgotten."
He and Tommy had met once before. BT TV wanted to invite him to help direct the pilot episode of "Nigger Boss". The two sides even sat down together to discuss the script and character issues. However, because he wanted to make a movie more, he turned down the opportunity to cooperate.
However, although the cooperation was not successful, Tommy left a deep impression on him. He was a very friendly white young man. And from Vanessa, Spike Lee knew that it was Tommy who gave her another chance.
"Why would I reject you, Spike? I'm just thinking about this story." Tommy came back to his senses and looked at the director in front of him:
"You know what? I've talked to people before about my original intention for joining the television industry, which is to let the American people see the truth and not let the truth be buried by countless lies."
After saying this, he handed the script back to Spike Lee with both hands.
Spike Lee said excitedly: "Sir, the income from my previous movie plus the investment from some small investors is only 3.1 million, which is still far from the total budget of 6 million..."
"What's a budget?" Tommy took out a cigar from the mahogany cigar box on the table and handed it to Spike. "I don't understand movies, and I don't ask for anything in return. I only have two small requests."
"Of course, sir." Spike took the cigar with some excitement and stared at Tommy in disbelief.
"First, my TV station wants the right to broadcast it. Second, we need to make it realistic enough to let the American people know what black people experienced on that day." Tommy said with a serious expression.
"We cannot allow the American people to continue living a lie. They have the right to know the truth."
