Screenwriter's LA Lament: We Could Use a Hero

Writer Amy Chozick, who had to flee the California wildfires with her family, voices a complaint about the experience in a New York Times essay:

• "People keep saying the scenes out of Los Angeles look like something from a movie. Except they don't, not really. Movies need a protagonist. Every on-screen apocalypse has a leader. So, where is ours?"

Chozick has some expertise on the subject as a screenwriter and executive producer (The Girls on the Bus), and she ticks off examples of how local leaders have stepped up in previous catastrophes (including Rudy Giuliani after 9/11). In Los Angeles, she faults pretty much everyone—the mayor and the fire chief, who engaged in a public spat; the governor for taking the time to appear on a podcast to defend himself; the president-elect for hurling political insults, etc. "Our city is being reduced to ash and we're being governed by puerile social media posts and presumably by President Biden, but honestly, who knows?" writes Chozick.

Angelenos need a plan, or at least the semblance of a plan, she writes. And they need a leader to help get people through this. "Why is it that the town that gave us Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Will Smith (OK, there was The Slap but he still saved the world) cannot find a lead character to try to save us from this catastrophe?" (Read the full essay.)