The New York Times dug even farther into Steven Spielberg’s pants today, with a feature by Michael Cieply about Tropic Thunder, a new Ben Stiller movie from DreamWorks. It’s a “parting gift” from DreamWorks to its owner Paramount, we’re told.

The feature, the lede story in the arts section, is a case study in how a mainstream piece of journalism can be working a not-so-subtle agenda for one side in a dispute. Consider this passage about the film’s prospects, right after the stuff about the “parting gift”:

The movie clearly has hit potential. Directed by Mr. Stiller, it has an ensemble cast also including Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, Steve Coogan and Nick Nolte, not to mention Tom Cruise, in a raucous cameo as a vulgar studio chief.

But Paramount executives also face the delicate task of selling what may be the raunchiest comedy yet in a summer that has seen more than its share. […]

If they fall short, a production budget of about $90 million and tens of millions of dollars in marketing money are at risk. A soft performance would also compound the embarrassment of “The Love Guru,” the Mike Myers raunchfest that flopped when Paramount released it in June.

In other words, DreamWorks has handed Paramount a sure hit, which the studio may screw up, just as it did The Love Guru … and if it does… it’s an embarrassment for Paramount.

This seems crazily biased to me. Why does DreamWorks get credit for doing a Ben Stiller movie in the first place? Night at the Museum made nearly $600 million worldwide; isn’t Stiller doing DreamWorks, a failed studio, the favor? And if it’s a flop, wouldn’t that mean the thing wasn’t that much of a gift in the first place?

And since when is it such a delicate task to sell a raunchy movie? Ben Stiller has been the star of the most lucrative of all of them, after everything from There’s Something About Mary to the Meet the Parents movies.

Leaving aside the Spielbergophilia in the Paramount contretemps (see my previous entries on the subject here and here) this “it’s rauchy and risky!” meme is the more journalistically insidious.

I want to make clear, Cieply is a serious guy and the Times coverage of Hollywood is in the main serious as well. But by playing the angle up, Cieply is plainly furthering the PR plans of the studio for the film, as he has been during the whole Paramount/D’Works dustup.

It’s hard to read the story and not laugh:

[DreamWorks exec Stacey] Ms. Snider acknowledged the risks inherent in the film. It is the first from DreamWorks, she said, to use a so-called red band trailer, which attempts to limit access to online viewers 17 or older. (Visitors to tropicthunder.com can view it only after clicking on “Restricted” and entering name, ZIP code and birth date.)

Note how now Snider is agreeably “acknowledging the risks” of a movie that isn’t risky—as opposed to, say…

“… unpersuasively trying to promote the idea that it is unusual or risky to produce a raunchy Ben Stiller movie,”

or …

“… gamely trying to put the best face on the once-high-minded DreamWorks’ latest indignity, the release of a lowbrow Ben Stiller comedy in an attempt to give her, Spielberg and Geffen a bit more leverage as they try to extract themselves from their ill-advised sale of DreamWorks to Paramount.”

And further, we have the bit about the trailer, reported with complete credulity—a transparent ploy to make the R-rated movie seem naughty and appeal to kids (any of whom over the age of say, six, can easy type in a fake age to see the trailer).

The writer also makes it seem as if that’s the only place to see a trailer for the film, when of course there’s also the usual un-red-banded version on all the usual trailer sites. A more honest assessment of the strategy might be: “… and to play up the film’s raunchy appeal, the company is hosting an oh-so-naughty ‘red-banded’ trailer on its site, compete with an access restriction any eleven-year-old can navigate with alacrity.”

And to complete the PR bonanza for the company he even finds a little web site that is complaining about the use of the word “retard” in the film—another suspiciously synergistic bit of manufactured controversy for a marketing effort that apparently has the machines running full time.

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Previously in Hitsville:

St. Steven Spielberg
Return to “The Spielberg Zone”
Indiana Jones Agonistes
Scary Steven Spielberg!