If the Warner Bros. Campaign of Silence Around Ezra Miller Succeeds, We Are All Screwed

By the time this piece goes live, Warner Bros. and DC’s The Flash will have premiered in theatres. The studio, which has faced immense change under the questionable leadership of new CEO David Zaslav, has spent months pushing this film as not only a franchise game changer but one of the best superhero films ever made. It’s the kind of buzz any studio would crave, especially since this production faced multiple director changes and endless pressure thanks to the wobbly nature of the DC franchise. Of course, that’s not what’s gobbled up the most headlines. The elephant in the room is the leading star, whose absence during the promotional cycle has only further fuelled speculation over how the industry seems to go out of its way to shelter accused abusers.

Ezra Miller has been markedly missing from the promo of The Flash, which is unique given their status as the protagonist who is front and centre on all the posters. They made one appearance at the recent world premiere, where they were welcomed on-stage with a barrage of applause. They thanked Zaslav, Warner Bros. Film Group heads Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, and DC Studios stewards James Gunn and Peter Safran for ‘your grace and discernment and care in the context of my life. And in bringing this moment to fruition.’ Miller is not doing interviews for the film. There will be no talk-show appearances, no fun videos with Vanity Fair or Wired, and no sad face puff piece profiles with the trades. Presumably, after this premiere, they’ll go back to wherever Warner Bros. is keeping them out of the way, and at a safe distance from questioning about the myriad accusations made against them.

Miller’s rap sheet feels like a parody of a celebrity behaving badly. We have footage of them strangling a woman and throwing her to the ground in 2020. They were arrested in Hawaii and charged with disorderly conduct and harassment (Miller pleaded no contest to the karaoke incident and was fined $500.) They were slapped with a restraining order after barging into the bedroom of a couple and threatening them (the couple later withdrew that petition.) They faced another restraining order in 2022,this one from the Standing Rock Sioux tribal court on behalf of 18-year-old activist Tokata Iron Eyes. According to a former resident of Miller’s farm in Vermont, Miller believed that people criticized their relationship with Iron Eyes because she is ‘an apocalyptic Native American spider goddess’ who, along with Miller as Jesus Christ, will bring about an Indigenous revolution. That same year, ANOTHER person was granted a temporary harassment prevention order against Miller after they said that Miller threatened the woman’s family and showed inappropriate behaviour towards her 12-year-old child.

As this was going on, Warner Bros. stayed silent. In August 2022, a representative of Miller released a statement saying that their client had gone through ‘a time of intense crisis’ and was receiving treatment for their mental health. Miller does seem to have been suffering from some major problems, and Warner Bros. was keen to stand by the star of their $200 million+ tentpole picture. There never seemed to be any question of dropping Miller or even truly condemning their reign of terror across multiple states. Throughout this crisis, we kept seeing articles on how The Flash was so good, and really, isn’t that what truly matters?

In avoiding Miller, Warner Bros. doubled down on a promotional tactic of blind positivity: forget the mess that’s all around you before this movie is just that good. Plenty of critics ignored the Miller problem to herald The Flash as a new peak in superhero cinema’s greatness! It’s so wonderful that Tom Cruise called up the director to praise his work! And look, Michael Keaton is back as Batman! Pay no attention to the person punching someone in the face then engaging in felony burglary and accused grooming.

This isn’t a terrible strategy from Warner Bros. It’s just a louder version of the age-old separating art from the artist conundrum that is a highly common part of modern cultural discourse. How many times have we heard people lament that the accusations of child abuse levelled at Michael Jackson make them sad but they just can’t stop spinning ‘Thriller’? Then again, that requires the person to acknowledge the potential wrongdoing in the first place, and more often than not, they’ll simply claim it was a set-up or witch-hunt (hello, Johnny Depp cultists.)

This doesn’t even seem to be a much-needed educational moment on mental health for Hollywood and America at large. The focus never truly seemed to be on Miller’s health (and, let’s be clear here, mental distress can greatly impact our behaviour but it doesn’t turn you into an alleged groomer who strangles women). Rather, it became a shield, a way to turn sympathy around for a person who was causing a lot of harm. It’s insulting to everyone dealing with mental health issues as well as those who faced Miller’s wrath (and it’s unfair to Miller, whose medical wellbeing deserves to be more than a talking point for a corporate entity’s boardroom concerns.)

I said many months ago that I worried the Miller spin could set a new standard for Hollywood. If The Flash ends up being a big hit, it opens the doors for other studios, other powerful figures, to replicate this model and protect accused abusers as frequently as they desire. It’s not as though this would be impossible to implement. Frankly, it might be easier than spending months trying to prep your sh*tbag of the moment to behave themselves on the junket cycle. We’ve already seen how obscenely detailed and verifiable accusations of assault and abuse haven’t stopped the likes of Roman Polanski from being hired for decades. A hell of a lot of journalists and publications are happy not to push back for fear of losing precious access, and it’s not as though the current state of the celebrity interview is one of intense scrutiny towards its subjects these days. When you hold all the power, it doesn’t take much for everyone else to fall in line.

The reckoning of #MeToo seems to have tapered off, with the mighty promises of seismic chance across all walks of life falling extremely short of our lofty hopes. The backlash to the most anodyne forms of accountability has throttled any hints of progress, with self-confessed sex criminals like Louis C.K. riding a new wave of popularity thanks to right-wingers who have turned forced culture wars into a new political force. Don’t doubt for a second that the established powers, the ones who were so terrified at the prospect of consequences for their exposed rot, aren’t thrilled by this return to the status quo. There was never any money in doing the right thing. Warner Bros. is banking on that right now. And if it works, we are f**ked.