If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d live in Hell and rent Texas.
- Gen. Phil Sheridan
Having escaped Texas after 10+ years there, I must confess to missing a few (but not very many) things. Chief among those few things is the bizzaro world that is Texas politics. Yes, there’s the reality that Texans would vote for a ham sandwich if it had an “R” behind it. There’s the uber-Jesus-y, thoroughly whacked out Texas GOP. Then there’s Governor Rick Perry, who I’d describe, but frankly, words fail me. There’s simply no way that I could do just to his self-absorbed, highly partisan, and completely-ignorant-of-the-facts appeal to Texas’ “low information” voters.
Governor Goodhair (and his Texas Film Commission) has outdone himself, though, with his campaign to attract filmmakers to Texas. The idea, of course, is laudable, if not horribly original- provide tax incentives to lure movie productions to Texas. Most states do this sort of thing in one form or another, but Texas is, at least so far as I know, the only state that exercises veto authority over a movie’s content…after the movie’s release. Yes, that’s right; if some low-level political hack in Austin doesn’t like something about your movie, you’re not going to get the incentives that the Texas Film Commission committed to paying you.
I haven’t seen Machete, but I do know that in early 2009, Governor Goodhair went to Robert Rodriguez’ studio and had himself quite the photo op. In lauding Rodriguez’ decision to film Machete in Texas, Perry made it clear (or at least he seemed to) that Texas was serious about the movie business. Or at least he was until Machete came out and it became clear to Texas Conservatives (and Governor Goodhair) that the film was not exactly the Texas travelogue that the Texas Film Commission and the Governor appeared to have been expecting.
Machete was shot in and around Austin, meaning its creators are theoretically eligible for $1 million or more in incentives available to projects that film in Texas — an economic development thank-you of sorts for doing business here. But there’s a catch: It’s up to Bob Hudgins, the director of the Texas Film Commission, to decide if the film runs afoul of a state law that denies such incentives to any movie including “inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”…. In Texas, unlike many other states, film incentives are approved and distributed only after a movie wraps, all spending in the state is completed and the final product is submitted for review to the film commission. Almost always this comes after the movie has been released in theaters…. “It’s silly,” Linklater says. “If this mechanism had been in place, The Last Picture Show probably wouldn’t have been made — [and] all these great Texas movies. It’s a huge can of worms, and everybody wishes it would just go away all together.”…. “It’s censorship,” Avellan says. “It is. I mean, come on.”
In the case of Machete, it’s clearly not the final product that Governor Goodhair and the Texas Film Commission were looking for. Given that one of the characters is an evil, self-absorbed Texas politician, I suppose one could infer that Rodriguez was taking a cinematic and barely-concealed jab at a certain Governor and/or other thin-skinned Texas politicians. Because Texas’ tax incentives are rebates paid out after production wraps and the final product has been approved by the Texas Film Commission, actually getting paid can be problematical. Given the highly political nature of anything in Texas, the Texas Film Commission exercises what’s effectively editorial control over a movie. This is no small thing from an artistic standpoint, but it can be devastating financially if a production is being run on a shoestring to begin with and receipt of promised tax incentives was part of the budget. If the Commission decides that they don’t like a film, or merely portions of it, they essentially have the power to force a director to fall in line and make it more palatable to the Conservative powers that be…or risk not getting paid.
In the case of Machete, director Robert Rodriguez stated unequivocally that without Texas’ tax incentives (close to $2 million), he wouldn’t have been able to make his movie in Texas. Once he was able to secure a commitment for those incentives, Rodriguez agreed to proceed with production in Texas. It wasn’t until after Machete was wrapped that the problems began and the Texas Film Commission reneged on their commitment. For a state who Governor Goodhair has stated is committed to attracting the movie industry to Texas, the Texas Film Commission sure has an odd way of showing their love. How many production companies do you think are going to be willing to film movies in Texas knowing that the state wants to exercise editorial content AFTER a movie has wrapped production?
So…what’s the moral of the story? If you want to make a movie, you might want to keep in mind that Texas talks the talk…but walking the walk might just involve something we like to call censorship. If you’re not willing to make Texas and it’s political leadership look like something out of a Chamber of Commerce travelogue, you might just be taking a significant financial risk.
It’s really true; when you’re talking about Texas politics, you just can’t fix stupid.
