David Simon announced that he wouldn't film his next HBO series in Texas in response to the state's draconian anti-abortion laws. Simon is best known for creating The Wire, widely considered one of the greatest television shows of all time. Loosely inspired by Simon's experience as a police reporter, The Wire looks at the illegal drug trade, law enforcement, and other Baltimore municipal institutions. The show ran for five seasons, airing between 2002 and 2008.
Simon is also known for creating several acclaimed TV series and miniseries, including Homicide: Life on the Street, Treme, and The Plot Against America. Simon has long been interested in the frustrations of byzantine bureaucracies and entrenched inequality. His Oscar Isaac-starring HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero details the tension that arises in a federally mandated scattered-site public housing development. The Deuce, Simon's last full-length series, follows the legalization and growth of the porn industry in 1970s New York. In the show, Simon showcases the agency, humanity, and fallibility of sex workers and porn actors. As is common in his work, government and police corruption abound.
Simon took to Twitter to announce his decision not to film his upcoming series in Texas. The state's extreme new law, known as S.B. 8, effectively bans abortion in the state and relies on private citizens—not health professionals or law enforcement—to enforce it. Simon leveraged his position as an employer in making his decision. "I can't and won't ask female cast/crew to forgo civil liberties to film there," tweeted the showrunner. Simon then stuck around to respond—sometimes in a fiery manner—to deterring posters, including those who claimed that pulling production wouldn't help Texans. He wrote, "My singular responsibility is to securing and maintaining the civil liberties of all those we employ during the course of a production." Check out Simon's original Tweet, plus his responses, below:
Simon positions his decision not as a political one but as a matter of ethics. He is not, he insists, attempting to undermine the utility of a perceived boycott. Instead, he reiterates the point that he is protecting his employees' civil liberties. Insofar as shooting his Texas-based non-fiction miniseries, Simon is officially looking for locales that resemble the Dallas Fort Worth area.
Simon's refusal to shoot in Texas isn't the first time a powerful creator is withholding production in response to the legislature's passage. In March, Mark Hamill and Logan director James Mangold announced that they would be boycotting filming projects in Georgia in response to the state's restrictive voter laws. Georgia—affectionately nicknamed "Y'allywood"—is one of the most popular filming locations in the country due to its tax incentives. Filmgoers and TV fans will have to wait and see if more industry members follow The Wire creator's lead in Texas.
Source: David Simon / Twitter
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September 23, 2021 at 01:45AM
