Well, sure, but “You know why I have money and you don’t? Because I was a privileged white male in Hollywood in the 1970s who went to film school when tuition was $1500” doesn’t really grant him the moral indignation he’s grasping for.
If he thinks the autograph seekers are not-fan leeches just in it for the money, why does he keep signing them? Dude, don’t whine that you just gave some guy $1000 of value for nothing when you could far more easily have not done that.
Here’s moral high ground in that situation:
“Sorry, if you want an interview, contact my agent. I charge $1000 per 30 min, minimum 30 minutes, and donate the funds to charity X. Sorry, if you want an autograph, I do multiple well publicized signing events each month, I charge $165 per autograph, all proceeds to charity Y. I match those donations with personal funds, so your contribution helps twice as many people. Thanks!”
Fame does not entitle you to a celebrity’s time and money, no matter how much money you spend on what they produce, how much money they have, or how indignant you are about their white privilege. It doesn’t entitle you to George Lucas’s autograph or politeness any more than it entitles you to see Jennifer Lawrence’s genitals.
Of course it doesn’t. I never implied that it did. That was not the point I was making. Your conflation of this situation with that of assholes releasing private photos of celebrities is absurd, and your implication that I would support such a thing is insulting.
Obviously, nobody is entitled to free use of a celebrity’s time, or any possible monetary gain from having taken that time. Lucas can give, sell, or refuse autographs as he sees fit, and nobody is entitled to pass judgement on him for doing so. But in the first video where Lucas is lecturing the autograph hounds, he’s not dismissing them on those perfectly reasonable grounds. He’s dismissing them because he thinks they’re lazy do-nothings with no ability to make their own way. He’s dismissing them because he actually believes that he has eleventy billion dollars in his pocket only because of his glorious talent and paramount work ethic, and not at all because he was able to go to film school at USC for for $1500/year instead of $51000, and not at all because he was a white dude in Hollywood at exactly the right time and place to get very very lucky.
Lucas can give, sell, or refuse autographs as he sees fit. His reasons for whining about it demonstrate that he’s an entitled, arrogant ass. Just as the autograph hounds aren’t entitled to judge him for not wanting to give out autographs, he’s not entitled to judge them for not being lucky enough to be one of the richest people in the world. And if he’s stupid enough to keep giving away something he claims is worth $200, he’s not entitled to be huffy when people keep asking him for it.
I’m pretty sure he signed the stuff of the people he judged to be fans looking for a personal keepsake, and refused to sign stuff for the people he judged to be scalpers.
