Texas Needs to Rework Its Movie, TV and Game Production Incentives

The Austin American-Statesman gets it, and that newspaper doggedly is staying on the Texas Legislature's case, even if many Texas politicians and entertainment people seem to be paying scant attention.

"State officials shouldn't be cast in roles of movie producers, scriptwriters or fact checkers, yet that's exactly where Texas legislators have put them," the Statesman editorialized in its July 3, 2009, edition.

A Republican-ramrodded clause enacted into law in 2007 forbids Texas state incentives to any kind of film, TV or game project that contains "inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the [Texas Film Commission] office, in a moving image project."

Apparently, only Utah takes a similar, thin-skinned approach to attempting to "protect" how that state and its people are portrayed in movies, TV shows and electronic games. The other 48 states apparently are happy just to encourage any and all entertainment companies to spend money inside their borders and let courts, lawyers and lawsuits handle any controversies arising over "accuracy" or portraying anyone "in a negative fashion."

The July 3 Statesman editorial stated: "Legislation that denies tax incentives to movies that put the state in a negative light puts Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins in a situation that is as uncomfortable as it is untenable."

The Statesman called for the law to be rewritten "to remove the negative light criteria that Hudgins used to deny tax breaks to a movie about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."

The Waco movie project might have brought an estimated $30 million to the state economy and created dozens of jobs for Texas movie workers who now have to commute to Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico or other states to earn paychecks.

But the project about the disasterous 1993 Branch Davidian standoff in Waco should not be the only focus of opposition to the "negative fashion" clause in Texas' moving-image production incentives.

The bigger issue is how much the restrictions -- and the ongoing controversy over them -- may chill the overall movie, TV and game production business in the state.

Producers looking to spend money on entertainment projects that have Texas subjects or Texas settings may decide to go to other states, just so they can avoid all risk of running afoul of overly protective Texas legislators or a state film commission subject to political pressure and narrow-minded laws.

After all, with current movie, TV and game technology, "Texas" can be created almost anywhere. (Remember the controversy over the Civil War movie Cold Mountain, which partially was shot in Romania, with Romanian army troops serving as "Yanks" and "Rebs" and the Carpathian Mountains doubling as North Carolina?)

Some opponents of the Texas Film Commission ruling, including this writer, have voiced opinions that the Waco movie would be a work of fiction, no matter how truly "based on real events" it is, and the Texas Film Commissioner thus has been tasked by state legislators to censor fiction.

As the Statesman and others have noted before, some of the most successful and enduring movies about Texas, including Giant and The Last Picture Show, have not portrayed Texas and Texans in a positive fashion. Neither have movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and TV shows such as Dallas. But Giant and Dallas particularly have brought tons of tourism dollars to Texas and are still infusing cash decades later. And other movies and TV shows, including the definitely inaccurate Walker, Texas Ranger, also will pay tourism and "image" dividends to Texas for many years to come.

"Tax incentives should be given to projects that will have a positive impact on the state's economy," the Stateman declared in its July 3 edition. "The criteria ought be clear, and producers should understand that not everyone is going to get an incentive. Decisions on incentives should be based on the economic benefit to the state -- not on someone's slippery notion of what's negative and what's not."

The Statesman gets it and is keeping the ball rolling. Now, do any of the leading lights within the Texas movie, TV and game industries get it, and are they doing anything to help get the "negative fashion" clause eliminated as soon as possible?

Texas entertainment jobs are on the line at a time when every new job definitely counts.

-- Si Dunn