Sarah Polley is apparently set to direct the “live action” Bambi for Disney. Now, leaving aside my utter conviction that, a, it isn’t actually going to be live action in any reasonable sense of the word and, b, it shouldn’t exist, I don’t find Sarah Polley either better or worse a choice than any other competent director. If she wants to do it, either because she thinks it sounds fun or because she thinks the money sounds good, that’s her choice, and I’m certainly not going to shame her for taking the job. Just that the job exists, you know? But there are people who definitely will, because she is Selling Out.

Liz Phair tells the story of people shaming her for making a popular album full of songs she wanted to make because its popularity meant she was Selling Out. Metallica suffered similar criticism for The Black Album. And if it’s hard not to roll your eyes when “Lust For Life” plays on commercials, that’s only one facet of the jewel that is complaints about people selling out. Any time anyone with indie credentials, whatever those are, makes something popular and commercial for whatever reason, they’re accused of selling out.

One of the most interesting recent takes on this has been on Mayhem, of all things. Floyd Pepper, in a fit of pique, writes a song about his love of soup. This gets sold as a jingle, and he discovers that he likes writing jingles. It drives some of the drama of the last few episodes. He gets so involved in jingle-writing that he agrees to break up the Electric Mayhem. And I mean, of course he gets told that he’s selling out, but he also is doing what he loves, and is that selling out or just what everyone tells you is the ultimate goal? That whole “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” thing that drives my small business owner friends nuts.

Now, I don’t want to tell you that Sarah Polley’s dream has long been to direct a CGI monstrosity that will be called live action because Disney doesn’t want to admit it’s just a different kind of animation. Frankly, I find that kind of unlikely. However, maybe her goal is to do something for Disney, given that three of her childhood acting roles appeared on The Disney Channel at one point or another. (If this is the case, Sarah, seriously, contact me about my Merlin Jones pitch.) Maybe she loves Bambi and figures she’ll mess it up less than anyone else. And, yeah, maybe she’s doing it for the money.

But maybe doing it for the money is okay. After all, Sarah Polley’s got to make a living, too. And maybe she’s doing the Spielberg “one for the studios, one for me” thing to get her more clout and more ability to do the movies she wants to, and let’s not forget that we got Schindler’s List out of that. Or maybe she’s doing the Michael Caine “I have seen the house it paid for” routine, the Baron Larry “the money, dear boy” routine. You know what? Directing’s a job, too. If Women Talking didn’t make enough to Sarah Polley to not take a job for the money, that’s a problem, but that doesn’t make her wrong to take a job just for the money.

Obviously I do not write these for the money, but if you want to give me money on my Patreon or Ko-fi, I wouldn’t turn it down.