Chapter 1: What is the premise of the HBO Max series Hacks?
From Wired, this is The Big Interview, where we'll get to know the people beyond the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's Global Editorial Director. The Emmy Award-winning show Hacks takes its final curtain call this month.
The hit HBO Max comedy series follows the professional and personal relationship between young comedy writer Ava Daniels, played by Hannah Einbinder, and legacy comedian Deborah Vance, played by Jean Smart. It's now in its fifth and final season where we find Deborah struggling to mount a comeback and under a restrictive contract.
Ava! No results. Unbelievable. Yeah, they've taken down every late night clip. This is criminal. Hang on.
It's funny, moving, and ultimately has a lot to say about the business of show business. The series tackles a range of issues, from the challenging relationship between Ava and Debra, to the creep of AI into Hollywood, to network censorship.
It's also one of my favorite shows, so if you haven't seen it, pause this podcast episode, go watch seasons one through four, and then come back, because the statute of limitations on spoilers from seasons one through four is now over, and I will do my best not to spoil anything I've seen from season five.
I am so pleased to welcome two of the show's creators and showrunners, Paul Downs and Lucia Aniello, who also happen to be married, which I was just telling them I had no idea until I started getting ready for this taping. So congratulations on being married and welcome to The Big Interview.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
You should have been there. You should have been there.
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Chapter 2: How does Hacks explore the relationship between different generations of women?
And Lucia, I'm curious, you know, obviously you have another co-creator, Jen, who's not here. But how did the three of you think about writing those characters? Like what was important to you in centering the show around the relationship between these two women?
Well, I think one of the things that was appealing to us was the idea that, yes, they are two women of different generations and who are both comedians and they have a lot in common and a lot not in common. But we were really interested in the collaboration between two female artists because that is what they are. They are comedians who love creating work. And that is in the end of the pilot.
Spoiler if you haven't seen, but you should go see it. They don't get along in their initial meeting at all. And they just argue. But there's a little spark. And that little spark is they're making jokes about each other. They keep pitching on them and they try to make it better. And you can see that it's a creative turn on for them.
And so for us, the idea that these women in the process of creating art together become more and more entrenched in each other's lives and it does change them as people and then therefore changes the work as well. I think we're really interested in the way that the material comes from their lives and their lives then bleeds back into the material.
And so for us, you know, that was something that I don't think we had really ever seen before. And it was really exciting to us to kind of explore.
Gender comes up in the show over and over, right? I mean, both of these women in a variety of ways deal with sexism, with gender dynamics, with sort of gender tropes. What about what you have seen and experienced in Hollywood and in the industry sort of feeds into the way that's shown, the way that's portrayed to the audience?
Well, you know, one of the things that is really central to the show is that these are two women who were cast aside from the industry. You know, Debra had to carve her own path and get a residency in Vegas after a very public divorce and sort of a media shaming.
And, you know, I think that we really wanted to explore what it means to be a woman in comedy in particular because so many women in comedy didn't have the same opportunities that their male counterparts had.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do women face in the comedy industry according to the creators?
Read the fine print and then negotiate a better contract. I want to talk to you about AI, too, which is obviously a huge and very fraught topic for us, for our audience. You know, it's been top of mind for me recently. We just closed our next print issue and package, which is all about AI and work. And one of the pieces, truth stranger than fiction, applies very well here.
It's from an underemployed I hope she doesn't mind me saying that she describes herself as underemployed, an underemployed Hollywood writer who's now making ends meet by doing gig work, training LLMs. And it's like her and a bunch of her friends. And they're just like running from slack to slack, trying to like get gigs, training LLMs. It's very, very bleak.
It's a very bleak story about not only artificial intelligence and how it's made, how it's trained, how these models come to be, but also about the entertainment industry and sort of what is going on with employment prospects for people. I'm curious about how you're seeing AI affect your world right now.
You know, we are hearing about it and talking about it so much, but we personally do not use it in any way, shape or form. We personally won't work with people who use it. We are completely anti-AI in the creative process in any possible way. I think it's been completely forced upon the creative world as a way to minimize our talent, minimize our ability to have employment.
And it's frankly insulting. And I feel badly for this woman because, yes, there should be a more sustainable industry that doesn't force her to be in this position. So I'm not necessarily frustrated at her, but the system that is forcing her to be in this position. For us, and this is something that we do explore in an episode, the creative process, we got that.
We do not need AI coming in and disrupting the thing that is about humanity. The last thing we need in the expression of humanity is robots coming in and telling us how it should feel and how it should look. It's so deeply offensive to me on every level.
Even if it comes down to, and I know that people feel differently about this, even if it's like, oh, I don't want to write that email, I'll have AI write that email for me. Just the fact that you're not willing to, you don't want to think, you simply don't want to think.
The repercussions of people not wanting to think is so disturbing to me because really they don't want to think because it doesn't feel good. They're literally trying to avoid feelings. And the more that we take feelings out of being human, and we do that over and over in every different way of our lives, where does that leave us?
Not to mention the fact that people aren't reading as much because of AI, and so their reading comprehension is plummeting. I mean, it's so disturbing to me on so many levels. I really... I have to stop talking. I'm getting damn pissed off. It's okay.
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Chapter 4: How does the show address themes of media censorship?
You'll be smarter every time you listen. And these days, that's priceless. Listen to Marketplace on your favorite podcast app.
I'm going to end with a very quick game if you'll indulge me.
Yes.
Okay. The game is called Control-Alt-Delete. We made it up ourselves. And you can take turns or you can each do your own. But I want to know, what piece of technology would you love to control? What piece would you love to alt, so alter or change? And what would you love to delete, vanquish from the earth?
With a caveat, a disclaimer, so many people have said AI that my producers are now forcing me to get more specific. You need to say specifically, what about AI or what specific type of AI? Because it can't be all AI.
Right.
That's the only rule.
Okay. Okay. I'm just going to start with alt, which is internet. I got an alt internet because on one hand, like it's the reason I feel I have a career. Like I said, we started out on YouTube. I literally learned how to edit using YouTube and like the internet, especially in that kind of right after I graduated late aughts, early 10s. like really made my career possible.
So I can't totally hate on internet, but it just feels like, especially in, sorry to say it, this like AI slop culture where it's like, I just don't know what's real and what's not. It's getting so scary. It's getting crazy that you cannot believe what you see. And so I do feel that like anything that isn't real should not be allowed to be uploaded. So I'd like to control that. The internet.
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