ABSTRACT
The relationships between Hollywood and politics are often spontaneously associated with the names of a few famous actors and directors known for being politically outspoken-George Clooney, Sean Penn, or Michael Moore, for instance, may come to mind. Sherry Ortner (2013b) begins her recent analysis of the American independent film world with a counterintuitive observation in that regard: despite the seemingly obvious political dimension of certain independent movies or documentaries, filmmakers like Michael Moore and Charles Ferguson have publicly denied this aspect and asserted the “non-political” nature of their work. This enigma invites us to explore the various meanings of the terms “politics” and “political” in Hollywood, and the ways in which the involvement of artists rallying for causes can be named and take shape without the artists feeling that they are compromising their professional legitimacy and their chances of mainstream success. The talent agents who represent such artists play a key role in the process of framing their commitments using “civic,” “social,” “humanitarian,” or “political” repertoires of action and justification (Boltanski and Thévenot, 2006).
