Beginning in the 1990s, a growing number of U.S. states introduced incentive programs designed to attract film and TV productions. Those advocating for incentives – a group including legislators, local businesses, Hollywood studios, and creative workers – have argued that these programs produce a range of favorable economic outcomes for production workers, state-based media infrastructure, and ancillary industries like hospitality and construction. Those opposed – a group that includes skeptical legislators and other local business leaders – have also deployed economic arguments, albeit ones that point to the limited benefit of such programs for the state. For example, such stakeholders have highlighted the lack of a long-term economic impact, arguing that incentives largely only create short-term job opportunities that last for the length of a production.
Historically, there have been a consistent set of economic arguments marshaled both for and against incentives from state to state. However, in recent years, as political polarization has become more pronounced in the U.S., debates about incentives also have become more politically and culturally charged in many locales. The case of Texas is an instructive example. After appropriating modest funding for its first incentives in 2007, the state’s commitment has ebbed and flowed for nearly two decades. Drawing from observation and interviews with key figures involved with lobbying for production incentives in recent legislative sessions, we will discuss how and why the process has become increasingly fraught. More specifically, we will show how different groups involved in promoting an increase in incentive funding have sought to evade ties to Hollywood’s business practices, culture, and content even as they aimed to attract that industry’s investment. In so doing, we also consider the ways in which the working worlds of state and local-level media laborers are recontextualized within and subject to a wide range of state-level political battles.