Hollywood Fights Hard To Block Anti-LGBT Law In Georgia. In North Carolina, Not So Much

When legislators in the state of Georgia passed a bill which would have allowed businesses to deny services and administer marriage ceremonies to LGBT customers under the guise of religious freedom, Hollywood media companies quickly pushed back aggressively.

Executives from CBS, 21st Century Fox, Viacom, Starz, NBCUniversal, MGM, The Weinstein Company, Time Warner and Discovery all spoke out against the Georgia bill, HB 757. AMC, Sony and Marvel all threatened to pull production from the state. The NFL even warned the law could take Atlanta out of contention to host a future Super Bowl.

It was a full-court press and the end result was that Georgia Governor Nathan Deal vetoed the bill on Tuesday.

But while the Georgia bill wasn't yet law, an even more restrictive law is already in place in nearby North Carolina. The law was proposed, passed and signed by the governor in an unusual late night legislative session. The law is much more restrictive than Georgia's efforts, but it has drawn much less attention from Hollywood executives.

The North Carolina law, known as HB 2, bars transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates. It also supersedes any existing or future local anti-discrimination ordinances. In addition, the law prevents local officials from passing a law mandating a higher minimum wage than the figure set at the state level.

Gay rights activists filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the legality of the law. And over 80 tech CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, & Sundar Pichai signed onto a letter on Wednesday urging North Carolina’s Governor Pat McCrory to repeal the anti-LGBT law.

What's noticeable lacking in the list of companies signing the letter is any large contingent of Hollywood studios or executives. In fact, the lone Hollywood names on the list are Steve Schoch, CEO of Miramax, Bob and Harvey Weinstein and director and producer Adam Shankman.

Cynics would note that while film and television production is a near billion dollar business in Georgia, film and television production is almost non-existent in North Carolina after the state scaled back its financial incentives program in 2014. Currently, the lone major television production in the state seems to be ABC's reboot of Dirty Dancing.

None of the studios I spoke with on Wednesday would discuss the North Carolina bill on the record, although several promised to have a statement in the near future. At least from this vantage point, it seems that Hollywood is very interested in LGBT rights when it might make for an uncomfortable production environment. But if you're a state that doesn't get a lot of money from Hollywood, then you are apparently out of luck.