Lights! Camera! Ezra Miller's Assault Charges!
Does heartbreak really still feel good in a place like this??
Cinema is back, baby!!! This summer is chock-a-block with blockbusters like The Little Mermaid, Barbie, Oppenheimer, No Hard Feelings, and…The Flash? Do my eyes deceive me or is the DC superhero movie that was supposed to come out 52 years ago finally premiering? And, if so, why now?
This week, I wanted to get to the bottom of this cold case (read: information on this topic is readily available), but I also wanted to talk about what movies stand to offer in the age of out-of-touch studios, Hollywood labor strikes, enablers, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whatever Warner Brothers is trying to do with DC Comics to compete with the MCU, an incredible upcoming slate of summer films, and, because you can’t have movies without her anymore, Nicole Kidman.
I reached out to someone who knows their movies, sure, but also knows what in the world is going on with Ezra Miller and The Flash and is ready to talk with me about it all—returning E4P superstar Mon Sucic.
Mon T. Sucic is still not using their advertising degree after we last checked in with them, but they love working in higher education. Originally from Connecticut, Mon has lived in Boston since 2016 where they still enjoy New England autumns and mooch off of Ivy League museums. They spend their time off making art, hanging out with their best friend’s dog, and working at a local venue’s box office.
The Flash Walked So Barbenheimer Didn’t Have Any Other Box Office Competition This Week
I thought it would make the most sense to begin the conversation where Mon and I ourselves began talking—in fair Iceland, Hawaii, Vermont, the Standing Rock Reservation, Massachusetts, and Germany where we lay our scenes.
Creative segues aside, these are all the places where actor Ezra Miller has been accused of assault, grooming, harassment, kidnapping, and other threatening behaviors at this time. Miller, the star of the aforementioned film The Flash, has, as Vanity Fair put it, “been endangering not just their career, but also their safety—and allegedly that of others—in increasingly plain sight for the last two years.”
Understandably, you might now be wondering what the fuck happened with Miller and if they are still doing things, which is why I asked Mon:
Emily: What the fuck happened with Ezra Miller??? And are they still doing things????
Mon: What a great question! And it's one that I'm not sure anyone knows how to comprehensively answer. In general, it says a lot to have a dedicated "Vermont farm incidents" section on a Wikipedia page. A SparkNotes (MonNotes?) version of everything is that Miller has been on a steep decline mentally and in the public eye since 2020:
- "Jokingly" going to strangle a fan in Reykjavik, Iceland after they sarcastically asked Miller to fight.
- A series of arrests in Hawaii for disorderly conduct, harassment, and assault, including being aggressive with a couple at a karaoke bar, breaking into a couple's bedroom, and throwing a chair at a woman.
- Tokata (Gibson) Iron Eyes, a Standing Rock activist, was revealed by their parents to have been controlled and groomed by Miller as early as age 12; the activist themself stated that Miller provided them protection in a time of need.
- A Massachusetts mother and her 12-year-old child receive a temporary harassment prevention order against Miller, accused of threatening the family and "uncomfortably" touching the child's hips.
- Housing a woman and her children at their farm with open access to firearms.
- Charged with trespassing and felony burglary for stealing bottles of alcohol from a house in Vermont.
- And, most recently, walking the red carpet at the premiere of The Flash...
One aspect of the Ezra Miller debacle that has complicated a number of things is the fact that Miller is non-binary. The story is not complicated because Miller is non-binary—in researching this piece, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the fact that no outlet and few interviewees appeared to misgender them1—but because of how their actions fit into a larger history of gendered poor behavior in Hollywood.
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The aforementioned Vanity Fair article from last September, which is frequently referenced as the most comprehensive coverage of this ongoing drama, explains that
in interviews, Miller has long fashioned themself as a Hollywood outsider and queer champion who blurs gender lines and seems to revel in provocation…Though it veered dark, the actor’s eccentricity initially struck many as endearing—a rarity in a town where most celebrities are on script even off set. Miller’s outspokenness about sexuality and gender identity earned them a reputation for empathy and progressiveness, as well as effusive internet titles like “queer icon,” “the hero we need right now,” and “our nonbinary king.” In 2018, GQ Style put Miller on its cover, and wrote, “Please God, tell us the next generation of movie stars is going to be like this.” (X)
And yet,
the piece also cited three unnamed sources who described Miller’s “openly polyamorous lifestyle” was “actually a patriarchal dictatorship where Ezra controls all the sex as the man, and plays the women against each other, screams at them, belittles them in front of others.” (X)
Interestingly, the majority of Miller’s known alleged crimes target women, seemingly lending credence to the above claim and comments made last year by my president, Issa Rae, situating Miller in the #MeToo era on the side of the abusers. Talking to Elle, Rae stated that
it feels like we’re regressing, depressingly so. There are just too many enablers for there to be real change. People have to be held accountable. There have to be legitimate consequences. Hollywood is very bad about consequences.
The stuff that’s happening with Ezra Miller is, to me, a microcosm of Hollywood. There’s this person who’s a repeat offender, who’s been behaving atrociously, and as opposed to shutting them down and shutting the production down, there’s an effort to save the movie and them. That is a clear example of the lengths that Hollywood will go to to save itself and to protect offenders.
At a time when the greater LGBTQ+ community is constantly the target of baseless accusations of grooming, manipulation, and indoctrination—á là the Lavender Scare, as we discussed last summer—it’s painful to watch a queer star commit those exact crimes. Whether we want to believe it’s true or not, there’s still a different cadence when discussing queer actors and stories in Hollywood, which makes Miller’s villain arc all the more frustrating to wrestle with.
With that in mind, I asked Mon:
Emily: Problematic cisgender celebrities are a dime a dozen, but is there a different feeling or weight to the problems when they're caused by a non-binary actor?
Mon: Speaking personally, watching Ezra's fall from grace has been a gut-punch (not literally, and not caused by Miller themself). They were one of the first iconic non-binary actors that were openly out and unabashedly themself. They emitted this unique charisma and energy that a lot of queer people identified with.
For myself, I was always excited to see where the wind took them in their public appearances. How could we forget their iconic Met Gala 2019 look? But when the choking video first came out, I remember feeling The Ick towards Miller. Because cis celebrities are often in so much drama, especially cis men, I feel like the shock factor isn't always as big as it was with Miller.
Miller was important to me and many other queer people, but thankfully, there are many more openly trans and non-binary actors like Emma Corrin, Dua Saleh, Bella Ramsey, and ER Fightmaster who are gaining more media visibility and speaking openly about their gender identity for people to look up to.
Obviously, the only person accountable for Miller’s actions is Miller themself which sucks because, like every other abuser in their industry, they’ve just been allowed to say they’ve taken accountability without any consequences for their actions. Putting the power “to change” back into the hands of those most comfortable with harming others has never and will never make sense.
And yet, it doesn’t stop there. What if I told you there were powers that be who saw all of this unfold and thought, “How can we make this so much worse?”
I’d Like People with Superpowers in Tights to be Excluded From This Narrative
By now, we’ve all heard about the ongoing Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strikes in response to some bald-faced shittiness shown by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP)—if you’re here looking for unbiased journalistic integrity, I have some news for you, friend.
The long and short of things is that major studios (partnered together as AMPTP) are not willing to meet the demands of writers or performers in the new age of streaming services and artificial intelligence technology. The demands that are apparently too egregious? Please pay more of the money generated every time a piece of work is streamed in the form of increased residual checks, and don’t steal actors’ faces or writers’ words after feeding projects into AI.
Knowing all of this, it’s not surprising that even after everything has come to light about Miller’s violence, Warner Brothers claimed there were only three options they potentially had moving forward with The Flash:
If Miller received professional help, they could give an interview explaining their behaviour and then do limited press for the film, which would be released as planned; if Miller did not receive help, then they could be excluded from all press for the film and the role would potentially be recast for future projects; or if the situation with Miller deteriorated further, the film could be canceled as a "last resort". The latter would be an "unprecedented move" because of the film's large $200 million budget, though the cancellation would come after Warner Bros. Discovery had already canceled the nearly complete $90 million film Batgirl that was being produced for the streaming service HBO Max.
Option 1 was seemingly selected as Miller released a statement announcing they would seek treatment for “complex mental health issues,” which, then as it does now, strikes me as really fucking icky. I’ve talked very candidly about mental health here a number of times and, while I don’t deny there is evidence Miller’s mental health has been in a decline for years, explaining away the hurt they’ve caused in this way feels a lot like when politicians respond to acts of gun violence by claiming the shooter was mentally ill: yes, mental health is part of the problem at hand, but holy shit, that is not the squeaky wheel to grease up first.
It does a disservice to Miller’s victims and those with mental illnesses to address their allegations in this way because Warner Brothers couldn’t stand to admit they had made a very expensive mistake. It is disgusting to witness people’s lives being played with—as here I’m conflating those affected by Miller with the writers and actors whose livelihoods are on the line—by those who are focused on keeping their own paychecks as big as possible.
Setting my own qualms on this aside for now so that I don’t spend the rest of this piece fixated, I asked Mon:
Emily: Why do you think Warner Brothers continued with releasing The Flash despite everything?
Mon: Short answer? Money, and the great big audience magnet that has been superhero movies over the past decade. DC and Warner Brothers had been in discussion over The Flash after Miller's arrests, but that didn't seem to put the breaks on the promotion of the film overall.
Emily: Do you think it's ethical to move forward with a project if the lead is a problem in the ways Miller has been?
Mon: Not really. DC and Miller's team have taken the lens of "complex mental health issues," which can be supported by statements from Miller's previous collaborators, but that reasoning doesn't excuse the breadth and intensity of Miller's actions. Things with Miller border on cult-ish, and it seems like a disservice to their former fans and current victims to keep them spotlit in a major franchise.
Emily: Follow up: was The Flash too important for fans to lose, or was it too expensive for the studio to lose?
Mon: 100% the studio. I don’t think The Flash as a superhero pulls in as many die-hard fans as other DC characters like Batman or the Suicide Squad. DC and Warner Brothers have been trying to claw toward Marvel's MCU success without much progress; they don't have something akin to the Avengers or Spiderman fanbase dedication.
As David Zaslav (President and CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery) continues to leave destruction in his wake, there's a steeper disconnect between the corporate and creative sides of the film industry. These superhero movies, remakes, and live-action adaptations often seem like a cash-grab or "guaranteed" way to get people in seats at the theaters.2
But at the same time, we see the success of independent movies made by smaller production companies. A24 soared through the Oscars last year, receiving the most nominations for a studio for films like The Whale and Everything Everywhere All at Once. Additionally, A24 is one of the few studios approved to continue shooting by SAG-AFTRA during the current strikes, as they've met the union's terms. It's that simple!!
I hope that the momentum and perseverance of the strikes prove to the larger studios, like Warner Brothers, that creatives and consumers are willing to contribute to genuinely meaningful work that maybe doesn't orbit around a group of people with superpowers in tights.
On that note, I’d simply become a cultural pariah if I didn’t couple Mon’s last line with the ever-iconic Martin Scorsese-Marvel Cinematic Universe beef for the perfect segue into our final section:
We Come to This Place For the Nicole Kidman AMC Theatres Ad
Much like summer in the words of Kyle Cooke from Bravo’s Summer House: the movies should be fun! All of this? Not fun. To close, I wanted to ask Mon questions that have nothing to do with the residual robber barons or Ezra Miller, but rather about what they love about movies themselves:
Emily: Not to be so Martin Scorsese about it but in the age of intentional blockbusters like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC's Attempted Cinematic Universe, what is the value of movies to consumers?
Mon: [I love the way this question is phrased. My answer is combined with some of the above!]
Emily: What about going to the movies do you love the most?
Mon: As an adult, it's been the ability to treat myself to an escape. I love the grime of sitting in a huge theater like an AMC while a handful of other gays in the crowd all whisper the Nicole Kidman intro reel together, shoes sticking in popcorn and ICEE residue.
But I can’t write an article about movies without a shoutout to the Coolidge Corner Theater and Brattle Theater. These two places have been the venues for me to see so many films over my college and young adult life: Lady Bird, Aftersun, Spencer, Everything Everywhere, and Parasite (twice) to name a few that have stuck with me.
Going to the movies is more of an experience and event than just watching something at home off a TV or laptop.
The last time I was in an AMC Theatre, I thought I was in a fever dream. Anyone who has been to the one in Times Square—which sits just above both a David & Buster’s and the bankrupt Applebee’s that you must descend through to exit as if they are each separate rings of Hell—will understand that the endless escalators up and down give visitors the feeling of being in a liminal space.
Around you are nooks and crannies filled with memorabilia from movies you’re not 100% sure ever existed, and you can’t stop racking your brain for any confirmation that they did before you’re spat out onto the street where it is somehow always midnight no matter when your movie started.
Anyway, I wanted to end by asking Mon:
Emily: Which blockbuster movie were you or are you most looking forward to seeing this summer, and was it The Flash?
Mon: At the time of writing this, I’m prepping my outfit for the cultural moment that is Barbenhiemer. I'm having an Oppenheimer moment, hopefully not becoming death, destroyer of worlds, while my friend is taking the role of Barbie.
So many thank yous to Mon for being so patient and willing to have this conversation with me!!! It’s one I was so looking forward to and, if you’ve made it all the way to this point, surely you know it did not disappoint.
No E4P next week!!! See you back here in August!!!
Additionally complicating matters, the VF article noted that those “who have been close to Miller, sometimes misgender[s] the actor, who is said not to insist on they/them pronouns in private.”
I’d be remiss not to link here to one of my favorite articles, in which it was reported that Zaslav was too chicken to watch Fleabag because of the sex scenes.