A Closer Look at A24's Recent Controversies
From "The Whale" to their ties to several occasions of sexual misconduct
To some, it may appear that A24 is reigning supreme as one of America’s leading independent film production companies, but for those paying close attention, it seems that the enterprise may be on the precipice of, for lack of a better term, a major shitstorm.
Just last year, the studio produced its highest grossing film, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” by the writing duo, The Daniels. This milestone comes ten years after the company’s inception in 2012. The film went on to win seven out of eleven Oscar nominations, one BAFTA, five Critics' Choice Movie Awards, a record-breaking seven Independent Spirit Awards and two Golden Globes, making it the most awarded film of all time. During the same award cycle, A24 also won big with “The Whale” starring Brendan Fraser.
This brings us to our first controversy.
Cultural Response to “The Whale”
“The Whale” is a drama film that follows Charlie, a morbidly obese and reclusive English instructor who teaches online writing courses but keeps his webcam off, to hide his physical appearance. His nurse and sister-in-law urges him to visit a hospital, but Charlie insists he cannot afford medical care and his health declines throughout the film.
While the response from film critics was highly favorable upon the film’s release, culture critics had a different reaction. Roxane Gay, an acclaimed feminist author, professor and commentator, wrote a review of “The Whale” for The New York Times in December 2022 where she highlighted the ways in which the film reinforced archaic anti-fat stereotypes.
Gay writes, “The film should ask us to see Charlie, the protagonist played by Brendan Fraser, as a person, to understand his grief and mourn with him, to hope for him to pull his life together. But that’s not how the movie was filmed. Most audiences will see the spectacle of a 600-pound man unwilling to care for himself, grieving the loss of his partner who died by suicide, eager to die himself and using food as the means to that end. The disdain the filmmakers seem to have for their protagonist is constant, inescapable. It’s infuriating. To have all this onscreen talent and all these award-winning creators behind the camera, working to make an inhumane film about a very human being — what, exactly, is the point of that?”
Coming off the heels of the pandemic during which people classified as “overweight” were considered at a higher risk, sparking anti-fat commentary to skyrocket both in online spaces and in the mainstream media, this was in especially poor taste. Gay makes it clear she does not fault the actors and correctly predicts Fraser’s award season run, writing, “His performance makes him a strong contender for all the major awards, and that’s a shame — not because he doesn’t deserve them but because what’s also being rewarded is such a demeaning portrayal of a fat man.”
She concludes the review by calling the approach to the film “egregious: exploitative and at times cruel.”
Repetitive Sexual Misconduct Accusations
David Choe (actor)
David Choe, who stars in Netflix’s new series in collaboration with A24 “BEEF” starring Ali Wong, made disturbing comments on a podcast with adult film star Asa Akira in 2014. Choe tells a story in which he coerces a massage therapist to perform oral sex on him, labels himself a “successful rapist,” but goes on to clarify, “I just want to make it clear that I admit that that’s rapey behavior, but I am not a rapist.”
He has apologized more than once over the years and swears that the story was made up.
After noting his appearance in “BEEF,” journalist Aura Bogado, a senior reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting, recirculated the clips. On April 12, she tweeted, “David Choe, as in the guy who detailed the way he raped a woman? And then came back to say it was just a misunderstood version of his reality?”
Social media users have also called out “BEEF’s” creator, Lee Sung Jin as well as Netflix and A24 for the decision to include Choe on the project despite presumed knowledge of the 2014 incident. They have not released a statement.
Andrew Callaghan (comedian)
In January of this year, multiple women went viral on TikTok for accusing the journalist/comedian and creator of the YouTube show “All Gas No Breaks” of coercion and sexual assault. One of the TikTokers whose real name is Caroline shared in an interview with Rolling Stone that she first came into contact with Callaghan at a dive bar in St. Petersburg, Florida where he was with a woman who appeared to be a girlfriend. She approached him as a fan.
She told the publication he direct messaged her on Instagram months later, seemingly in distress and asked to crash at her place, which she accepted. They went to a bar together later where he made aggressive attempts to kiss her and later pressured her into sexual acts. Caroline told Rolling Stone, “He was very pushy and not taking no for an answer. I was like, ‘No, I’m not feeling it.'”
Caroline’s account prompted more accusers to emerge including a now 24-year-old who went by the pseudonym Charlotte when speaking to Rolling Stone. Charlotte told the outlet she’d matched with Callaghan on Tinder and agreed to go out for coffee with him, after returning to his apartment for wine and a movie, she reports an “abrupt shift of tone.” She claims she and Callaghan consensually kissed, but she began to resist when the then-19-year-old started to put her hand on his crotch.
“He wasn’t taking a simple no for an answer, and consequently, it turned into me trying to make up an array of excuses as to why I didn’t want to have sex,” she told Rolling Stone. “He kept insisting that I needed to ‘get him off’ because I was giving him ‘blue balls’ by not having sex with him.”
“He wasn’t taking a simple no for an answer, and consequently, it turned into me trying to make up an array of excuses as to why I didn’t want to have sex. He kept insisting that I needed to ‘get him off’ because I was giving him ‘blue balls’ by not having sex with him.”
A member of the subreddit dedicated to his YouTube endeavors, r/Channel5 thoroughly recapped each accuser’s story, which you can find here.
Callaghan responded to the accusations in a statement released by his legal representation on January 13, 2023 where he reported feeling, “devastated that he is being accused of any type of physical or mental coercion against anyone.” He went on to post a now-deleted video on Instagram in which he emphasized that he wanted to take accountability for being a self-proclaimed “sex pest.”
"…I think I want to have a more nuanced and important conversation about power dynamics, pressure, and coercion," he said in the video. "For a long time, I was behaving in a way that I actually thought was normal. I thought that going home from the bar alone made you a loser. I thought that persistence was a form of flattery, and I thought that if, at first, somebody was reluctant, they were playing hard to get, just try harder. And if you think someone is feeling you, make a physical advance and see if they go with it."
The allegations came shortly after the release of his film recapping the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, “This Place Rules,” made alongside A24, which debuted on HBO Max in late December.
NBC News reported that upon reaching out to a spokesperson for HBO Max following Callaghan’s statement, they were directed to A24 for comment. They did not respond to the request.
Sebastian Bear-McClard (producer)
Just last month, Variety broke the news of Sebastian Bear-McClard’s laundry list of sexual assault allegations. Victims claimed that the “Uncut Gems” producer and estranged husband to Emily Ratajkowski abused them in various forms ranging from the use of ableist slurs to grooming and harrowing accounts of sexual assault.
The victims pointed to specific incidents that took place during the production of two films made by A24, “Uncut Gems” and “Good Time.” According to the Variety report, “The allegations raise serious questions about why a 17-year-old girl who had no agent at the time was filming nude scenes on the set of a movie. There’s no ironclad rule barring underage nudity, but there is a general Screen Actors Guild requirement that employment conditions not be ‘detrimental to the health, morals and safety of the minor.’”
“The allegations raise serious questions about why a 17-year-old girl who had no agent at the time was filming nude scenes on the set of a movie. There’s no ironclad rule barring underage nudity, but there is a general Screen Actors Guild requirement that employment conditions not be ‘detrimental to the health, morals and safety of the minor.’” -Variety
Further, Anne Henry, co-founder of BizParentz, an advocacy group for child actors told Variety, “It sounds like they circumvented the entire safety structure of our industry by hiring somebody on Instagram who was not a union member, who doesn’t know her rights. Normally, minors have to have their contracts court affirmed, and there’s lots of other hoops in order to cast a minor. This is so not normal. Everything is wrong about this situation.”
In addition to the abuse suffered on set, one victim claims she was never paid for contributions to the film and was merely bought her cigarettes after shooting her scenes. She does not receive residuals from A24 for her role and according to a Variety source, the individual appeared in promotional content that was presented to buyers at the Cannes market, where A24 purchased the film.
As for the Safdie brothers who directed both films, they claim in a statement through their representative that they were unaware of his behaviors and cut ties with Sebastian in July 2022 once they were brought to light. Notable, considering the statements weren’t made by the victims until August.* Both Emily Ratajkowski and A24 have failed to issue any statement at all.
Nicholas Braun (actor)
A mere two weeks after news of Sebastian Bear-McClard’s sexual misconduct came to light, alleged victims of “Succession’s” Nicholas Braun began to circulate online. While A24 is not connected to “Succession,” Braun has previously starred in one of the studio’s films, “Zola,” which was released in 2021 and follows the story of an infamous Twitter thread about a hoe trip gone wrong. He plays Derrek, the insecure, lost puppy boyfriend of Riley Keough’s character, Stefani.
Braun was first directly accused by a TikTok user who shared photos of her and some friends partying with Braun at Coachella when she was just 16. In the video, she claims that Braun tried to invite her back to his hotel room, an invitation she declined, informing him she was in high school. She claims this did not deter him and that he eventually found another underaged girl to take advantage of: “He gave me his number, and he invited me back to his hotel room. I declined because I didn’t want to get assaulted. But I later found out that same day he actually f–d someone else who I went to high school with, who was also underage.”
This opened the floodgates, prompting several online users to come forward with their own, similar accounts. Reddit threads, old and new, have been discussing Braun’s “creepy” conduct shown at his New York bar, Ray’s, a Lower East Side concept, opened by Braun and Justin Theroux alongside hospitality industry vets Carlos Quirarte, Taavo Somer and Matt McCormick in 2019. Accusations of Braun utilizing Ray’s to take advantage of drunk young women have popped up in conversations across r/SuccessionTV, r/popculture and r/FauxMoi.
One commenter said, “It was common knowledge amongst girls at my college that if you went to the bar he owns and he was there, you’d probably end up sleeping together. It’s so horrifying reframing that in this light.”
Nicholas Braun’s story has not yet been picked up by a mainstream outlet.
It’s worth noting that A24 has not commented on any of the allegations or the cultural response to “The Whale,” instead choosing to ride the wave of their award season sweep and this choice is clearly being endorsed by the media, as not one outlet has drawn these connections. What will it take?
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