As irony would have it, Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin referred to millions of Trump supporters as racists, unworthy of tolerance, grace, or understanding in the same week that The Hollywood Reporter (THR) dropped a bombshell report alleging that big-time producer Scott Rudin, a frequent collaborator of Sorkin’s, regularly and repeatedly abused people under his employment.
According to the report, Scott Rudin’s alleged behavior has been an open secret in Hollywood for several decades rivaling that of convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein.
“For some four decades, Rudin’s abusive behavior has been chronicled — even celebrated — by the press,” reported THR. “In a 2010 profile, this publication dubbed him ‘The Most Feared Man in Town’ and called him ‘dazzlingly charming’ one paragraph after describing acts of cruelty and intimidation. In a 2005 Wall Street Journal profile with the headline ‘Boss-zilla!,’ Rudin himself pegged the number of assistants he burned through in the previous five years at 119.”
Of the litany of charges brought against Rudin, the most chilling one involved him reportedly smashing an Apple computer over an assistant’s hand, sending them to the emergency room one Halloween afternoon.
“At about 4:15 p.m. — more than 10 hours into a typical Rudin day that began at 6 and never wrapped before 8 — the Oscar-winning producer was enraged that one of his assistants failed to get him a seat on a sold-out flight,” reported THR. “In a fit of fury, he allegedly smashed an Apple computer monitor on the assistant’s hand. The screen shattered, leaving the young man bleeding and in need of immediate medical attention. One person in the office at the time described the incident as sounding like a car crash: a cacophonous collision of metal, glass and limb. The wounded assistant headed to the emergency room, and Rudin called his lawyer, according to another staffer there that Halloween afternoon. Everyone else huddled in the conference room, shaken. No one stayed until 8 p.m., with most of the staff heading over to a Times Square bar for a therapeutic drink.”
The alleged victim declined to comment on the story, but several former staffers claimed to have witnessed the horrific event.
Rudin worked with some of the best talents in the business, including Wes Anderson, the Coen Brothers, and, finally, Aaron Sorkin. Since 2010’s “The Social Network,” Rudin has been a producer on several of Sorkin’s projects, including “The Newsroom,” “Steve Jobs,” and the 2018 stage play adaptation of “To Kill A Mockingbird.” In fact, it was during the adaption Harper Lee’s classic novel Aaron Sorkin came to a realization about Trump’s millions of supporters: they were all racists, deserving of no tolerance or understanding.
“Upon reading the novel again, it struck that throughout the novel, Atticus is an apologist for racists. Throughout,” he said. “His whole thing about you have to walk a mile in someone’s else’s shoes. You really have to get inside someone’s skin and crawl around before you can really understand them. That was a way of excusing Bob Ewell. ‘Well, you got to understand, he lost his WPA job, and that really brings a man down.’ He excuses his neighbor, Mrs. Henry Dubose. A terrible racist. ‘Well you got to understand, she stopped taking her pain medication, her morphine, that makes people a little crazy.’ He excuses the whole South.”
Sorkin said that this reflection helped him to realize that liberals were being apologists about the tens of millions of people supporting Donald Trump.
“All you had to do, Mike, was look around. We were all saying the same thing about the tens of millions of people supporting Donald Trump,” he said. “I don’t get it. Yeah, we’ve always disagreed, all of us here in America. But we all have eyes and ears, right? We’re looking at the same person. What are you talking about?”
As of this writing, Sorkin has not yet commented on Scott Rudin’s alleged horrific (sometimes racist) treatment of his employees.
Related: Aaron Sorkin: Tolerating Trump Supporters Like Tolerating Racists