Every now and then, a trend or hot take appears and everyone suddenly wants to give their opinion on it. In this hot minute, the hot topic is “nepo baby” or nepotism baby. In the world of entertainment, this version of a connected benefactor is a child of an actor, musician, producer, someone in the industry. The origin of this touchy subject (for some) is from a New York Magazine article titled How a Nepo Baby Is Born.
Nepo fever is rampant
The article is behind a paywall, so I can’t tell you what’s it all about or why suddenly this topic is something to dissect. But nepo babies from all industries have been around forever. Why it’s suddenly top of mind is peculiar. Perhaps the writer of the article, Nate Jones, lost out on a promotion to a nepo baby or is envious of the time privilege saves you on one’s rise to stardom. Who knows? What I do know is that whether it was private sector or public sector, it was rampant with nepotism.
And I’ll admit that since I saw others partaking in it, I too, felt entitled to pull strings whenever I could. I’ve hired at least three people to work in my team. All three had their CV’s fast tracked because I knew them or of them and I trusted that they were the best candidate.
Now, I’m going to defend myself by saying the types of roles I hired for is dependent on hard skills in analytics and digital marketing. I’m also known at work as a Subject Matter Expert, so I would never consider someone even if they were a friend if I wasn’t confident they could do the job. And the irony of this all is that I’ve always been able to get friends jobs either with myself or with others, but I myself have never been handed a job because I had an inside tip. I never realized this until a friend of mine, a VP at a tech company, commented how I was one of the few people she knows who’s only ever gotten a job by applying for it. Meaning, I wasn’t a nepo baby.
But I’m not special. A lot of people get jobs based on a combination of merit and luck. Even though I myself have never personally benefited (yet) from getting a job because I knew someone, the way people are taught to get their foot in the door in most jobs these days is through a nepotistic path.
Who you know is necessary for advancement
In business school, it was drilled into our brains that networking was critical to our success. One of the gems they taught us was if you want to start a conversation with someone, ask them about themselves because people love talking about themselves. We even practiced shaking hands with confidence and learned about social etiquette.
When I moved into the corporate world, all I ever heard from senior leaders was go have coffees with this person and it’s all about relationships if you want to succeed. It’s practically mandatory for new hires in a lot of places to do rounds of coffees and intro sessions with various colleagues they will need to form alliances with. So if we’re trained and taught to network and create relationships as that’s the way to maneuver through the corporate jungle, then why are we scrutinizing the nepo babies? We want to position entertainment as an industry where nepotism is unique, but it isn’t. Whether it’s Hollywood, politics, journalism, banking, or whatever, nepotism all works the same.
Name recognition helps
I’ve seen many times when someone’s kid was hired and the group that they were hired into reaped the benefits of having a VIP. You got what you needed faster. You got an answer faster. And people are suddenly more cooperative. But in entertainment, the dividends returned can be even higher. Sometimes all you need is that bit of name recognition for your project to be greenlit or get a few more tickets to be sold. Earned impressions are hard to come by and having a celebrity’s kid associated with a project can generate that awareness.
The horror movie Smile from this year starred Sosie Bacon. I don’t need to tell you who her dad is. Or her mom. Sosie’s debut was in a movie called Loverboy directed by her dad (of course). She was also a (cringe) Miss Golden Globe in 2014. The press release mentioned how she has the “perfect credential”s because her parents, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, are both Golden Globe winners.
But Sosie Bacon isn’t the only Hollywood offspring with a faster track to stardom. Gwyneth Paltrow, Brooklyn Beckham, Kate Hudson, Drew Barrymore, Jamie Lee Curtis, Maude Apatow, Lily Collins, John David Washington, Zoe Kravitz, O’Shea Jackson Jr., the British Royals are just a few.
Talent is bountiful, but not opportunities
Jamie Lee Curtis and Kate Hudson have spoken out about being tagged with this moniker. Understandably, there is defensiveness and evidence provided of how they have had to earn their way with their own talent. As Hudson put it, “…if you work hard and you kill it, it doesn’t matter.”
That is true. Sosie Bacon was amazing in Smile. She carried the film. It’s not as if her parents are in the movie with her. She did her thing. As do many of these actors, singers, directors, models and so on. Jamie Lee Curtis’ parents are a bit beyond my time, so I never knew them. But I know exactly who Jamie Lee Curtis is. She is one of the coolest and most talented legends today. The way she spoke about Ke Huy Quan in this Entertainment Weekly interview shows you how generous she is.
Hudson is correct that talent is talent. As a fan and consumer of movies and music, if something is good, then it’s good. And it’s not because someone is related to someone. Sosie Bacon is tremendous in Smile. Only Jamie Lee Curtis can kick Michael Meyers’ ass.
Although talent is undeniable in a person and bountiful amongst many no matter their relatives, the reality is that the number of jobs available is finite. Whether it’s a corporate job or a Hollywood job, there’s only so many spots available. Someone can work for years at a bank and climb to a certain level, but then never go further. Why? Because only friends of friends or the nephew of the guy who used to be in charge need apply. Or, it can be as undramatic as a new grad who applied for a million jobs and doesn’t ever make it to the final round of interviews because the job is already promised to an insider.
And if we’re being real, most of these insiders tend to be white and already of significant privilege. That’s why you can walk into a company and see generations of the same kinds of leadership because all they do is recycle the same friends and family members.
Who can forget Sofia Coppola’s acting career that was mostly thanks to her father, Francis Ford Coppola. Who knows how The Godfather Part III would have turned out if another actress had a shot at the part.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game
It was a bit of a tale of two stories in that Entertainment Weekly interview featuring Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Quan is talking about how Hollywood wasn’t interested in an Asian actor and getting auditions was hard to come by in his later teens. Would things have been different if Quan’s parents were Hollywood legends?
But at the end of the day, someone is selected for a job because someone approved of the hire. I have worked with so many nepo babies, friends, neighbors, siblings, schoolmates, etc. But the thing I try to remember is that the reason they’re here is because someone agreed to it. What’s often overlooked is the person who approved of the nepo hire. There’s usually benefits and ulterior motives behind the decision that are advantageous for that person. It’s got nothing to do with the team or the project or even the person being hired. They want the fame and glory and whatever else that comes with the hire.
So as everyone talks about nepo babies and debate their worth, let’s recognize that people are people. If they want to do what their parents do, then that’s their choice. There’s a lot of things in life that aren’t fair. Sometimes you catch a break and sometimes you don’t. But I believe everyone has their own place and everyone can find it. If someone gets a leg up because of nepotism, then that’s their thing to deal with.
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