People always tell me, ‘You’ve got the best job in Washington,’” says Dan Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture, former nine-term congressman from Kansas, former director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and, since 2004, successor to the legendary Jack Valenti as CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). “And they’re right. But their assumption that I have lunch with Angelina Jolie, and that Julia Roberts and I talk every day is not right. My job is to represent the economic interests of the movie business. What I am, basically, is the ambassador of the movie industry here in Washington.”
Three years ago, when Valenti announced he was stepping down after 38 years as top gun of MPAA, rumors flew regarding possible successors. Among the names bruited about were Representatives Billy Tauzin (R-LA), David Dreier (R-CA) and Mary Bono (R-CA); former U.S. Senators George Mitchell (D-ME), John Breaux (D-LA), and Law and Order star Fred Thompson (R-TN), as well as former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke. When the smoke cleared, Dan Glickman had the job, for which he is said to be paid $1.5 million a year. Some expressed surprise, but the more savvy noted that during his 18 years as a moderate Democrat in the House of Representatives, Glickman served on the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property within the House Judiciary Committee, and the House Agriculture Committee. The piracy of movies is a major ongoing problem for the motion picture business, and this experience was undoubtedly key. Nonetheless, there was no denying that on first glance Dan Glickman was no Jack Valenti.
Valenti, a “Technicolor” extravaganza next to Glickman’s low-budget black-and-white, was famous for his rhetorical flourishes. He once told a congressional committee that the VCR was to the American public as “the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.” By contrast, when Glickman was asked by New York Times reporter Deborah Solomon if it would be hard to follow the “flamboyant” Valenti, he gave a classic Glickmanesque answer: “It’s true, no one knows who I am, but I am hoping that will change.”
Valenti’s hyperbolic comparison of the VCR with the Strangler was made nearly 25 years ago, but it signaled the reality of a problem that has only intensified. “Our biggest challenge is piracy, [as is] protecting the content of our companies and of the creative community generally, in terms of making sure it’s not stolen or copied illegally,” Glickman says. “We’ve just completed a study which shows that the loss to our companies”—Disney, Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., Sony and Universal—“is about $6 billion dollars a year, and the loss to the whole industry, directly and indirectly, is about $18.5 billion dollars. It’s a big problem.”
MPAA faces other threats: “Fewer people are going to theaters, and more and more people are buying our product in DVDs and home videos. The box office is up this year, but there are so many competitive choices, such as other forms of video entertainment, sports events or iPods.”
The new technology in general and digital technology in particular has turned out to be a two-edged sword. While it allows people to enjoy the products of the entertainment industry without leaving the comfort of their own homes, it also allows them to do so without paying for those products. “Through litigation, working with law enforcement, education, and offering new business models like iTunes, or [by] offering movies online, we’re trying to address this problem in a comprehensive way.” Glickman says that using the new technology approach is particularly helpful on college campuses, “both as a tool to get new business, and as a tool to block and filter out infringing material.”
The 62-year-old Glickman admits that while “my 4-year-old grandson is more proficient than I am” when it comes to technology, his current media-focused responsibilities—though different from his work as a public servant, academic or senior advisor in a major D.C. law firm (Akin Gump Strauss, Hauer & Feld)—are every bit as enjoyable.
“When I was in Congress, I saw at least 100 films a year. Rhoda [his wife] and I went to the movies twice every weekend. Now, it seems I’m either in a movie seat or an airplane seat—but I usually get to see a movie while I fly.” Fortunately for Glickman, who traveled extensively as Secretary of Agriculture, often to China for trade negotiations (reportedly one of the reasons Valenti tapped him as his successor), he likes flying as much as he likes movies. Glickman has an old-fashioned love of the movie business. Asked why people should care any more about that industry than, say, the automotive, he says, “Entertainment is good. People need influences in their lives that make them happy ... and film plays a very powerful role in making peoples’ lives more enjoyable. From an economic standpoint, film is responsible for $25 billion dollars worth of sales domestically—that’s box office, home video, DVDs, the whole kit and caboodle—and then billions and billions more overseas.
“The entertainment business,” he says, “is a powerful American industry that employs nearly a million people, directly and indirectly. So many industries have gone ‘off shore,’ but this, the only industry in which America has a balance of payments surplus, is still a big winner for America.”
If the man Variety calls “the MPAA topper” begins to sound like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for Hollywood, it’s probably because he thinks of himself that way. The Kansas native says: “I believe in Midwestern values. I used to call my father for advice, and he’d say, ‘What would Harry Truman do?’ To this day, whether it’s politics or the entertainment business, I still ask myself, ‘How will it play in my hometown?’”