Global Perspective: A Note from the International Academy’s Bruce Paisner

Bruce L. Paisner is the president and CEO of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Screenwriter William Goldman would have known how to think about COVID-19. The brilliant and prolific author of screenplays from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to The Princess Bride is most famous for three words: “Nobody knows anything.” He said them about Hollywood, but it sounds like it could have been written by someone covering the U.S. government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The whole quote is: “Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for certain what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and if you’re lucky, an educated one.” The quote is from Goldman in his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade. The sentiment is what one walks away with from every briefing by the White House Coronavirus Task Force or our elected leaders.

For those of us who have labored with Goldman’s conclusion throughout our industry careers, his insight about movies gives a unique route to understanding what’s going on with the virus. The very fact that so much is in doubt helps explain all the different theories, the changing deadlines, and the pervasive lack of certainty. What is particularly troubling is that people die. In the world of Hollywood, movies die, but not people. However, in the pandemic world we all inhabit today, there is an almost Hollywood-like sense of uncertainty. The scientific uncertainty is obvious: treatments don’t necessarily work, vaccines may or may not materialize, and one person’s minor inconvenience is another person’s death sentence. Why? The reality is, scientists don’t know. Indeed, the landscape keeps changing, and more research brings forth more theories. But none dominates. Added to the scientific and medical uncertainty is the political squabbling. Is wearing a mask a sign of intelligence and good health, or is it a political statement of weakness?  Anyone who has ever watched different departments of a studio or network try to win or stop a green light for a movie or a series will understand this kind of political fight. It’s inevitable in the entertainment business. But it is one of the great failings of America’s political system in the early 21st century that it has come to infect how we approach and treat a medical and public health emergency.

The scientists and doctors are doing their best, especially given all the restraints. Thousands of people around the world are developing vaccines and searching for interim treatments. But there are many blind alleys and much false hope. And, unfortunately, the scientists and the doctors are noticeably constrained by the politicians.

Which brings us to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Robert Redfield, ADM Brett Giroir and the rest of the scientific/medical team who serve on the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Admirable as they may be as doctors and disease specialists, the politics of our time have required them to continually pull their punches. I have yet to see a statement or interview that doesn’t try to reconcile the scientific and medical positions they must want to express with the anti-scientific, anti-medical position of their boss, President Trump. Up the mountain, down the mountain, and try to be sure that every position can be reinterpreted or explained away as needed. One sympathizes deeply with them, but the spectacle of watching them do it day after day is dispiriting. The reality may be that they always may have known more than they were permitted to say. Yet they lived with the restrictions. Perhaps they were constrained by the fact that they are federal employees and were not about to resign.

Recently, Dr. Fauci, and to some degree Dr. Birx, have seemed more willing to speak their minds and disagree with President Trump. Perhaps they have concluded that ‘nobody knows anything’ is not the phrase they want associated with their role in the coronavirus pandemic.