Hollywood Unmasked
By now, most of you are probably aware of the new book by Ben Shapiro, Primetime Propaganda. The book and the associated video clips that are being released piecemeal over the coming days and weeks reveal a Hollywood that not only discriminates against anyone holding conservative ideas, but does so openly, proudly and unrepentantly, completely oblivious to the terrible irony of their position. The news that Hollywood tends to tilt leftward is not exactly a headline-maker, but even I was shocked by the smug, self-congratulatory tone as reported by Shapiro.
These men and women who preach inclusion and tolerance are more than happy to exclude anyone whose political philosophy deviates from their world view, even if politics are irrelevant to the projects in question. These wealthy beneficiaries of our capitalist system, who use the highest paid agents and lawyers to negotiate the absolute top dollar for their deals, have cast themselves in the role of the Everyman, looking out for the rights and protections of everyone, provided they stay on the ideological reservation. In the end, it seems a business all about ideas is open to everything but ideas.
These executives and self-appointed Guardians of the Good are the logical legacy of a virulent strain that has infected Hollywood ever since it found a hero in the mass-murdering Joseph Stalin; they are the ones who cheapen the memory of the Holocaust by pinning the Nazi label on anyone and anything that runs contrary to their views; they are the defenders of the rights of minorities and women, unless those minorities and women happen to hold ideas different from theirs, in which case the worst kinds of racism and misogyny are not only tolerated, but encouraged; they are the sentries against McCarthyism whose methods make the Senator from Wisconsin seem benign by comparison; and they are the pathetically self-deluded members of the privileged class who see themselves as warriors in some heroic struggle when, in fact, they are merely closed-minded purveyors of mass-market junk food.
To borrow a question from Joseph Welch of the Army-McCarthy hearings: “Have you no sense of decency?”
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Comments :
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Pat, truer words were never spoken, and a more powerful indictment seldom written. Thank you for such bracing and sober analysis.
May '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Pat, there's a spot in the next Conservative Administration in Washington, DC. Wonderful succinct analysis of those in H'wood who see their role to protect the left.
Feb '11
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Pat Sajak:
These executives and self-appointed Guardians of the Good are the logical legacy of a virulent strain that has infected Hollywood ever since it found a hero in the mass-murdering Joseph Stalin; they are the ones who cheapen the memory of the Holocaust by pinning the Nazi label on anyone and anything that runs contrary to their views; they are the defenders of the rights of minorities and women, unless those minorities and women happen to hold ideas different from theirs, in which case the worst kinds of racism and misogyny are not only tolerated, but encouraged; they are the sentries against McCarthyism whose methods make the Senator from Wisconsin seem benign by comparison; and they are the pathetically self-deluded members of the privileged class who see themselves as warriors in some heroic struggle when, in fact, they are merely closed-minded purveyors of mass-market junk food.
Pat, this is hardly a surprise coming from followers of Stalin; as Stalin once said, "(i)deas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"
Apr '11
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Sajak for NEA Chair!
Nov '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
I suspect that living in Hollywood is a bit the same as living in Western Washington, where it is simply assumed as common knowledge that the right are the "extra-chromosome" types. Rarely do they allow themselves to interact with a conservative who actually thinks.
Jun '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Pat Sajak:
These men and women who preach inclusion and tolerance are more than happy to exclude anyone whose political philosophy deviates from their world view, even if politics are irrelevant to the projects in question.
It's exactly the same in academia. I was listening to Andrew Klavan this week on the Michael Savage show and he hit on many of the same points as you, Mr. Sajak.
The SUPREME irony is that the elites, be they movie makers or idea peddlers, pride themselves on inclusion and tolerance.. with their COEXIST bumper stickers and whatnot.... When, in fact, they are some of the least tolerant people in the country and are often passive aggressive or even actively aggressive toward those who think differently from them.
I love Thomas Sowell's comment that these people are always talking about how complex the world is... yet it is never complex enough for someone to look at the same data and come up with different conclusions.
Aug '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Samwise Gamgee
I love Thomas Sowell's comment that these people are always talking about how complex the world is... yet it is never complex enough for someone to look at the same data and come up with different conclusions.
I love that comment, too.
What's so funny is that when it comes to their specific discipline, academics know firsthand that people look at the same data and come up with different conclusions all the time -- or they should. Yet beyond their expertise, their imagination so often fails...
They certainly aren't able to admit to themselves that their default mode might be to presume that the world is not complex enough for people to look at the same data and come up with different conclusions. For it is part of their self-image to believe the opposite of themselves, no matter how they actually behave in everyday life.
Edited on Jun 5, 2011 at 12:40pmJun '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
It's a funny thing about human nature that the murder rate among family members is so high. We often see that internecine warfare is the most vicious.
I think that American liberals clearly hate American conservatives more than they hate external threats or foreign monsters. It's so truly absurd that they find themselves having to defend the likes of Stalin when we conservatives voice our criticisms of him and Communism.
I say this is natural to the human condition. But, in theological terms, this bestial temperament that is natural is identified with the Beast or with the animal nature of man. The higher intellect, the discriminative faculty, must try to gain control of the base nature of man. Hollywood liberals are evidence of the beast run amok.
We conservatives have to learn to fight this enemy within. It's hard to prevent ourselves from dropping to their level. I think this is the test that God has set for us. We must engage this destructive element in our society but we must not be seduced into blind hatred against them. It must be firm and clear-sighted. Ronald Reagan was a truly enlightened example of this higher man.
Sep '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
I think it's time the Subcommittee on the Constitution, lead by Representative Franks of Arizona, take this matter up in the Congress. Rep. Franks should call in some of our favorite movie stars, directors and producers (preferably those with the worst reputations for discrimination like this) and their victims, and grill the liberals until they cry uncle.
How many times have we suffered to listen to these jerks as they issue their usually sanctimonious blather about this or that social issue. It's time the shoe is put on the other foot.
Dec '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
An interesting insight into this as it relates to Hollywood is in the book Comrades and Chicken Farmers by Kenneth Kann. It's the story of the Jewish immigrants to Petaluma, California, who became chicken farmers for various reasons. Pauline Kael ("I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon") grew up in Petaluma: the Jewish community there was split between small business types who saw chickens as a profitable living and Communists who saw chicken farming as a proletarian way of life. (The book relates the story of my great-uncle Sol Nitzberg - it uses a pseudonym - who was tarred and feathered by the local American Legion chapter for supporting an apple pickers' strike.)
The same split existed in early Hollywood. The moguls were Jewish businessmen who evolved from news and cigar stands into nickelodeons into film production. When they hired nephews and cousins as writers, they didn't realize they were importing Communists and would-be Communists.
Jun '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
... academics know firsthand that people look at the same data and come up with different conclusions all the time -- or they should.
They certainly should, though often, they do not. I'm thinking of the brilliant piece in First Things this month by William Happer as a perfect example of how scientists (I use the term loosely) will bury the work of others in their field whose conclusions challenge their own.
Academics, like Hollywood screenwriters, have only one product: their ideas. Without their ideas they have nothing and have to go work at Starbucks and get stared at by Rob Long sitting in a rent-a-car outside their place of work all day - laughing (seemingly) to himself. That's why they overkill any threat that suggests their ideas are flawed. Because they don't want to work at Starbucks.
They don't have their stunning good looks to fall back on like you and I, Midge. Perhaps we can never relate to them.
May '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Larry Koler:
We conservatives have to learn to fight this enemy within. It's hard to prevent ourselves from dropping to their level. I think this is the test that God has set for us. We must engage this destructive element in our society but we must not be seduced into blind hatred against them. It must be firm and clear-sighted. Ronald Reagan was a truly enlightened example of this higher man.
Agreed. At the same time, we must not allow ourselves to be bullied into false notions of politeness and remain silent when someone crosses a line. We must make it clear that the sort of hostile behavior which the Left has adopted as normal is unacceptable.
We are called to be gentle and patient. That does not mean apathetic to justice and truth.
Jun '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Yes, from a Hollywood Left perspective director Elia Kazan was more abhorrent and evil for "ratting out" Tinseltown Communists and Communist sympathizers than Joseph Stalin who was at the same time exterminating millions and sendings untold numbers to the Gulag Archipelago. It's the same logic as applied to Dick Cheney who anyone-who-is-anyone knows must be more evil than Sadam Hussein who authorized mass murder and rape. That's why it's difficult for me to stomach such high-minded moralists like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and Janeane Garofalo. I don't need these "cattle" to lecture me on what's right and wrong.
Mar '11
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Uh, no. Abolish the NEA Chair... along with the NEA. If you want Sajak in Washington, then give him a real job with a real purpose, not a useless dog and pony show on the taxpayer's dime.
Dec '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
The most abhorrent is Pete Seeger. When the Molotov-Ribbentropp Iron Pact was signed, he wrote a song denouncing the draft and the useless waste of American lives on warmongering. When Hitler swept through eastern Poland toward Russia, Seeger simply changed the lyrics to urge FDR to draft every red-blooded American boy.
Later, Seeger would perform songs from Mao's Long March and Cultural Revolution. Ask him about it today and he might grudgingly admit that "mistakes were made" by Stalin and Mao.
Apr '11
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Douglas
Uh, no. Abolish the NEA Chair... along with the NEA. If you want Sajak in Washington, then give him a real job with a real purpose, not a useless dog and pony show on the taxpayer's dime. · Jun 5 at 11:43am
Let's go a step further and abolish BOTH of the NEA's. The National Endowment for the Arts and the National Education Association (Unions or anything that resembles them should never be a part of education.).
Aug '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Stuart Creque
Later, Seeger would perform songs from Mao's Long March and Cultural Revolution.
Not to mention Guantanamera. Over and over again.
It is the folk-song version of Pachelbel's canon.
May '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
"the logical legacy of a virulent strain that has infected Hollywood ever since it found a hero in the mass-murdering Joseph Stalin" Have you noticed that liberals will speak in the most hateful terms about conservatives and libertarians, venom dripping from their lips with every word? And yet they never speak that way about actual communists. (Or about fascists, as long as those fascists call themselves 'progressive'.) This tells you everything you need to know about liberals.
Aug '10
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
Ten years ago I was a member of the Screen Actors Guild and had a budding and successful career in Hollywood, but I made a fatal misstep. At a SAG gathering for Rod Steiger I mentioned - before the talk began - that Charlton Heston was a pioneer for civil rights and had marched with Martin Luther King. Suddenly everyone went quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. I was politely invited to recant, and was offered a temporary insanity defense as the easy-out.
"Forgot your meds today?...Surely you jest... How much have you been drinking?..."
But I stuck to the truth. I was never invited to another party and I never worked again.
Mar '11
Re: Hollywood Unmasked
I realize that the Hollywood left is self-reinforcing and that much of the social scene is propelled by the desire to be rub elbows with people who can advance and maintain one’s career. But I don’t think that fully explains why many of the most vocal lefties seem to be so removed from reality. Is it because fantasy is their stock and trade? Is an ability to see the world as it is, with all its inconsistencies and contradictions, actually detrimental to their crafts?