Kanye Collaborator Elon Rutberg Clarifies La La Land Comments
Earlier today, Kanye West collaborator Elon Rutberg (who worked on Yeezus, The Life of Pablo, and more) took to Twitter to comment on Damien Chazelle’s musical film La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. In a series of tweets, Rutberg called it a “fascist film” because “‘Fascism’ is a conspiracy of business and military elites to seize control, and use whatever means necessary to sedate its populace.” Rutberg then intentionally took down the tweets, which, as he wrote, he had planned to leave online “for maybe 5 minutes.”
In a phone conversation with Pitchfork, Rutberg clarified his reasons for taking down the tweets. “It was explicitly treated as a corner online barroom conversation with some trusted friends and cordial acquaintances,” he said of the deletion. “We are entitled to have brief intense thoughts that go away.”
Rutberg also elaborated on his thoughts about La La Land in a series of subsequent tweets. On Twitter, he wrote, “For every one success story in Hollywood or on Broadway as far back as they have existed, there are a million voiceless unfulfilled dreams.”
Speaking with Pitchfork, he stressed the need to acknowledge important musicals of the past, as well as the many people who made them happen: “We always have to honor the fact that the stories we’ve been told at a distance have real people’s struggles and stories at the core of them. When it comes to Hollywood, Broadway—where we get our dreams out—that’s where we have to start.”
Rutberg continued: “As someone who grew up in Hollywood in enough of years before the internet to have a sense of how the town worked, and who lived and fought behind the scenes of 17 Broadway shows, the stories that speak to me most proudly come from the sweat of everyone I’ve experienced, whether they made it onto the stage or didn’t.”
He closed the conversation, “We have a wealth of musical storytelling that otherwise has been quietly receding into silence.” He added, “That’s ultimately what dramaturgy is: Doing your homework and exploring all corners and all voices, and ensuring that it’s infused in corners of the narrative itself. We can’t honor the world around us and tell stories about it if we cannot build the bridges themselves.”
Find Rutberg’s latest Tweets below:
Lol.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Ephemeral tweets and piquant cultural observations notwithstanding, today is actually a pretty important day for me elsewhere.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
So some loving comments and clarifications…
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
I’m not a public figure (with respect to the far cooler people in my proximity), but I understand the pick up…
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
That said – @matthewstrauss_ – it would have been nice to be reached for comment or something approaching
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
My e-mail is on my website
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
An article lives far longer and more visibly than any tweet ever will, so – regardless – a correction and clarification is needed
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Specifically re: “the tweets have since been deleted”
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Which – without context – implies some form of retreat, when an ephemeral was the explicitly stated purpose
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
(ps all these tweets are going to come down soon as well – except for choice, nice things
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
So, some clarification…
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
My mother is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, and sculptor…and my father and painter and 40-year veteran of the Hollywood TV/film industry
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
I grew up on Hollywood studio lots – specifically Universal (where my dad worked from 1982-1990) and Warner Bros (fr. 1992 until he retired)
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
When I was 18 years old, a friend handed me a copy of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Sunday in the Park with George”
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
And I credit that friend, and that broadway score, for saving my life.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Instead of pursuing film, I went to NYU to study theater directing – with a specific eye on how to carry the musical into the 21st century
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
(bragging rights: Degree is specifically a theater directing degree with an emphasis in dramaturgy and musical development)
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Spent one season as the first musical theatre literary resident @phnyc had in the 21st century
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Playwrights Horizons, for the record, is where “Falsettos”, “Sunday in the Park w George”, “Assassins”, “Floyd Collins” premiered
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
I then spent became the head of creative development for Broadway producer Jeffrey Richards – where we opened 17 shows in under 5 years
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
My entire life has been spent in the company of passionate, committed artists yearning to express their voice…
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
…in a world that – prior to the bounty that is the internet – redeemed essentially no one (statistically speaking)
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
Every child born to this earth has dreams they wish to manifest into reality – we are all artists – very much so – in that sense.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
So – to be clear – wet blanketing any artist’s work of passion? Absolutely not.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
However, just as my original missive was merely a brief thought for the few people who follow me…
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
…we are all a part of one on-going conversation – of which we are all a party to, and therefore have responsibility as well
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
The higher the platform, the higher responsibility…especially in a world where people can do the googling themselves.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
And thankfully the clarification and comment requests are coming in – so i’ll leave those comments to the faithful reporters…
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
As we all know, perception and data can often tell quite different stories – and it is any artist’s obligation to reconcile the two.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
For every one success story in Hollywood or on Broadway as far back as they have existed, there are a million voiceless unfulfilled dreams.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
The forces that shaped that past and the stories we tell about it are entirely bound up in how limited our means of communication were.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
That past is over and we very explicitly need to be in the business of making up for an abundance of lost time and silenced dreams.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
We also need to honor the truths – statistical, demographic, personal – of those who did make it to the top and why.
— ELON (@elonrutberg) January 10, 2017
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