Hollywood’s Peculiar Relationship to Profit
by Endre BaloghAs a classical musician, I can claim a certain connection with the Hollywood creative industry as I’ve performed the solo violin tracks for a number of film projects. At the same time, I remain enough of an outsider that I can also claim a to be a dispassionate observer or, better yet, a somewhat savvy consumer of Hollywood’s product.
With that introduction mind, I want to bring up a question that has puzzled me for some time. Why does the Hollywood entertainment industry continually place products into the public domain that are virtually guaranteed to fail?
Of course, you could never get the movers and shakers that inhabit the studios and offices of the “entertainment capital” to admit that that’s what they do. In response, they always unleash a smokescreen of assorted rationalizations having to do with “artistic” rights or the lack of sophistication of the audience. They may simply ignore the issue entirely, since like-minded “artistes” are busy praising them for their unbounded “courage.” The Orwellian self-congratulation hits its frenzied climax each awards season as honors are bestowed on films that are, at best, ignored and at worst, are simply repellent to the general audience. I recently had a conversation with a very well known actor friend who was dumbfounded by my statement that “No one watches the Academy Awards any more.” Since he attends them every year, he couldn’t imagine how I could utter such a blasphemy. Yet, he had to nod his head in resigned agreement when I explained that most people don’t want to see the types of films Hollywood is putting out any longer, so why should they be interested in watching narcissists hand awards to one another.
Today, the purpose of many films is simply to attack every traditional value and often they seem to compete in trying to establish an ever-lower common denominator. For the business of Hollywood, this could be explained if the profits such films generated warranted more of them. But they don’t, and the bottom line doesn’t lie. Numbers are numbers and profit is profit, even in Hollywood. Or so it would seem. Many producers, directors, and actors appear mysteriously oblivious to this. Could it be that foisting their insular beliefs on the public is even more important than business success? Are they so disdainful of Middle America that they would rather lose money than deliver a product that will be received by the sort of audiences that Hollywood used to take for granted?
One answer lies in a change in attitude that first emerged in the 60’s and even earlier in the world of fine art. A film wasn’t considered “artistic” by critics and other filmmakers unless it portrayed the dark underbelly of life. Anything else was just “fluff”. Films and TV had to do more than merely entertain – they had to teach, or worse, preach. I remember as a kid getting sick of watching “Marcus Welby, MD” because the show evolved from entertainment into a dramatized lecture on the illness-of-the week.
It has become much more pernicious than that, though, as Left-wing politics has swallowed up the Hollywood elite. How else to explain the dearth of offerings that showcase the best of our military, organized religion, business (I know – a particularly tough sell right now), and stable families.
There have been five Medal of Honor winners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each is an incredible story of courage, sacrifice, and selfless love shown by these servicemen. Yet, nothing chronicling these heroes has come from our filmmakers. Instead, we are given films like “In The Valley of Elah”, a movie that portrays soldiers as psychopathic murderers of their own comrades. It lost a fortune, but what the heck, it painted the picture that Liberals in Hollywood choose to believe about our military. I remember reading with some amusement an article detailing the dismal failures of (anti) Iraq War movies, positing the excuse that “Americans are just tired of hearing about Iraq.” Yet many more movies about heroism were made during World War II and they have continued to be made ever since. “Saving Private Ryan” made a fortune in 1998. Another World War II movie – “Defiance” – is coming out in a few days. Why aren’t Americans tired of World War II movies? Could it be, 0that Americans are simply tired of seeing heroes depicted as loons and monsters?
How about religion? We have probably forever passed the era where Spenser Tracy, Bing Crosby, and Pat O’Brien were the face of Catholic priests to the masses. But do we have to be subjected to a non-stop parade of crooks, pedophiles, and sociopaths that seem to be the only type of clergy people in Hollywood think exist? And how do those films fare at the box office? Liberal Hollywood can take any five of their anti-religious offerings and their combined net profits won’t compare to the money Mel Gibson’s much-maligned “Passion of the Christ” made at the box-office.
Perhaps the best example of the marketplace success of wholesome movie-making comes from Pixar. Every one of their films is a masterpiece of plot, characterization, script, and overall artistry. Leaving aside that they are brilliantly animated, their tales encompass universal values and tell gripping stories that simply and directly connect with the audience. And they make a fortune in revenue. Little kids are not the source of big bucks. Grownups are equally, if not more, engaged by Pixar movies and it is grownups (with money) that make them so successful.
I thought it would be fun to take a look at the actual numbers, which are easily obtainable at Box Office Mojo.com. I was particularly interested in the figures for 2007 since the winner of the “Best Picture” Oscar that year was “No County For Old Men”, certainly the darkest film ever nominated. It is, in my opinion, a particularly vile, obscenely violent exercise in pointless nihilism. (I know, it was supposedly well made and the acting was great but I’m just a regular guy – not a film critic.) Its worldwide box office take was about 162 million, no doubt bolstered by its having won “Best Picture”. More illuminating are its opening weekend figures where it took in a mere 7.75 million. However, “No Country For Old Men” was the biggest box office grosser of the five films nominated for “Best Picture” that year, with “There Will Be Blood” coming in at the bottom grossing just over 76 million worldwide. By comparison, Pixar’s 2007 release “Ratatouille” made a whopping 621 million, opening to an initial weekend gross of just over 47 million! What about the war movies I mentioned? “In The Valley Of Elah” made just 29 million worldwide and opened to a spectacularly small 1.5 million, while “Saving Private Ryan”, released in 1998 when admission prices were lower, made 481 million worldwide with an opening weekend of 31 million. Finally, Mel Gibson’s “The Passion Of The Christ” opened to the tune of 84 million and took in a worldwide gross of over 612 million.
As I said, the numbers don’t lie.
One would think, then, that the bottom line might make a greater impact. Yet it doesn’t seem to. The public clamors for more wholesome offerings. They beg to limit offensive TV shows to the post 9:00 p.m. time slots. When the re-release of “Old Yeller”, old reruns of “I Love Lucy” and CD’s of 40 or 50 year old music out-draws and out-earns current offerings, a clear message is being sent. That message, so far at least, seems to be falling on deaf wallets. So much of Hollywood insists that their negativity has no impact on youth while at the same time they spend hundreds of millions to advertise products that are doomed to failure. Then, after all is said and done, the studios seem mystified when their profits shrink to dangerously low levels.
The saddest aspect to all this is that Hollywood can rise to deliver an uplifting message that will garner them robust profits, when they so choose. “Saving Private Ryan”, the aforementioned “Passion” and all the Pixar movies prove beyond any doubt that a vast audience exists craving a more positive cinema experience.
Now, no one would argue that deceit, corruption, and rogues should get a pass. Far from it. After all, it is the tension between good and evil that is the foundation of all good storytelling. Yet, were it not for their Left wing agenda-driven mindset, the film and TV industry executives could have far greater financial success simply by making products that celebrate the positive aspects of American values.
If only Hollywood producers and directors would listen more to their own pocketbooks.
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42 Comments
It seems that Hollywood is determined to shove filth down our throats even if it bankrupts them in the process.
By the way, its nice to see another conservative violinist in the world. Are we the only ones? Sometimes it certainly seems like it!
Endre, Hollywood ignores the facts you enumerate at its own peril. Between the sagging numbers and the eventual SAG strike, the New Media paradigm ruled by the Internet will rise like–err–perhaps I shouldn’t use that particular metaphor. I’ll leave the Easter Eggs alone.
Mr Balogh,
I have just one question.Where are the conservatives willing to put up money to make wholesome movies? If there are any they are very few in number from what I can see. They certainly don’t have to have permission from the “hollywood community” to make them.If it’s an infrastructure problem like getting their finished product advertised,distributed and accepted at the theaters for showing,surely there is a way around that. Just a thought.
Hollywood loves to malign other Americans. And, the sagging numbers are the result. If Boeing made planes like the so-called entertainment industry makes movies, we’d all be ducking!
“Flags of Our Fathers” was an inspirational, pro-America war movie released recently. It bombed. DG $33M, one third it’s budget.
In the realm of comedy, the tamer, more “classic comedy-like” it is, the worse it does. Gross seems to have a proportional relationship to, well, grossness.
Your thesis needs work.
Forget The Passion. Look at the Tyler Perry movies (much better and much more profitable)
Well written and enjoyable article.
Hollywood needs to make an Audie Murphy style movie about one of our heroes in Iraq or Afghanistan and I would bet it would make hundreds of millions of dollars.
I know that I have sought out foreign films because Hollywood doesn’t put out anything intrisically good let alone entertaining. ‘The Lives of Others’ is one of the better films I’ve seen in a while and I think it portrays a positive message of redemption, courage, love, and has an added element of recent history. It took a German film maker to produce a film that wasn’t a revisionist look at Communist controlled countries during the Cold War.
Good reading at this site. Even from some of the lefties.
I dunno I really liked No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Those films are not Redacted or Valley of Elah – thank goodness.
Let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. There’s a place in this world for great Pixar family fare and movies about the dark underbelly of society.
Flags of our fathers was not pro war or pro america
“No County For Old Men”, certainly the darkest film ever nominated.
No way. Just in the 1970’s alone these much darker films were nominated for Best Picture:
Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, Exorcist, Cries & Whispers, Chinatown, Godfather Part II, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Taxi Driver, Deer Hunter.
That said movies that get nominated are not necessarily the same that make money. Most big profit movies are kids movies and comedies. But they are made almost strictly to earn money. No Country for Old Men was a project that Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers wanted to make to stay close to the integrity of the book. They didn’t make it with profit as the main motive.
Watching Hollywood make films last year was like watching McCain run for President – expensive, painful and all you got was a sick stomach in the end. (Yes, Endre, I also watched ‘No Country…’.)
Endre – you’ve just asked the most basic question – why is Hollywood refusing to make profitable films and instead making unprofitable ones? Personally, I think that if a business sinks to the level where it literally is incapable of seeing the most basic rule of business – i.e., make a product people want to buy – than it’s beyond hope of salvation. It’s too far gone.
Personally, I feel Hollywood deserves the fate of the New York Times. As the Times, et al, is being replaced by new media, than Hollywood should be replaced by new studios. The old ones are beyond saving. I mean, when a business promotes ‘Valley of Elah’ but kicks “Narnia” to the side of the road – well, you should just save your breath and walk away from them.
“Flags of our fathers was not pro war or pro america.
Barnard, you SAID it! Damn, that film pissed me off.
I will go you one further: Ratatouille WAS the best picture of 2007. The Oscars should never have divided animation into a separate category… though one must admit that at least they were willing to finally say that they would never give Best Picture to “a cartoon”.
Who would ever have thought that the love of taste and smell could be conveyed by light and sound, but that film pulls it off. Watch the pleasure on “Little Chef’s” face when he listens to the sound of bread. Ratatouille can actually change the people who watch it, giving them a finer appreciation for something than they had when it began.
While I believe “No Country…” is a well-made film with some amazing performances, I don’t think I can bring myself to even watch it again. (And I LOVE the Coens’ work when it hits, but it is very hit-and-miss.)
I’ve been saying stuff like this for years. Hollywood, clean up your act!
The public clamors for more wholesome offerings. They beg to limit offensive TV shows to the post 9:00 p.m. time slots.
There is not one television show airing today that I would consider family friendly. Not one. My kids will have to live off of DVD sets from the days of yore because I’m certainly not turning the TV on for them. Just compare highly popular and clean shows of the past like Star Trek and The Twilight Zone to their recent remakes – they’ve thrown in a heck of a lot more sex to cover up for their writing inadequacies, and both remakes were rather unsuccessful, if not downright terrible. In the past, movies and shows were much better because they actually were forced to think and write well instead of relying on sex laden offerings to catch the public’s attention. Just another example of liberals pushing their agenda above all else, no matter what the cost (literally!)
Excellent article. I find minimal movies today that I would consider watching. The “oldies” are so much better.
I believe you and your figures. However, will someone tell me how these losers continue to get financing? It can’t ALL be fanciful book-keeping.
I agree that Hollywood seem oblivious to profit for a great many of the movies they make. OTOH, they had another record year this year in terms of grosses. Yeah yeah, I know, much of this is inflation and ticket sales continue to decrease. But with the overseas market and DVDs, it’s obvious that they aren’t soon going out of business and can continue to turn out lefty agitprop art films to their heart’s content.
This is actually something I found myself thinking about a few weeks ago. Looking at the numbers, and considering modern ticket prices, I realized that Bill Maher’s self-embarrassing bash flick ‘Religulous’ was viewed by maybe a hundred thousand people nationwide on its opening weekend. This is something like one third of one percent of the nation’s population. Or, put another way, about one third the population of Anchorage, Alaska.
I wondered, why do they keep making movies that observational experience would tell them are doomed to bomb big-time?
The only conclusion I can reach is that they aren’t producing what customers want to see, they’re producing what they themselves want to see. It’s little more than intellectual masturbation; self-gratifying, pleasant, and lacking the risks of going out and engaging other minds in exchange of ideas. And since it’s pleasant, the producers of these travesties will of course go to great lengths to justify the production of more such films in the future. They themselves like it, so surely others will, too; and if others fail to appreciate their fabulous work, then (in their world), clearly it’s because they’re not as smart as the likes of Bill Maher.
It’s *never* because the producers are doing anything wrong. And it’s never that the film critics are out of touch with the average moviegoer, who turns to entertainment to be entertained; to escape from the drudgery of everyday life and the worries of the news, not to be faced with something even worse, but artistically presented.
Incidentally, I have to thank you for answering another question I’ve had for a while, which was; when did entertainers decide that entertainment shouldn’t be entertaining? The ’60s seems about right.
Applause for an excellent take, from an unexpected source (a Hollywood musician? Wow!)
I think what you so aptly point out extends also to the news media, and for the same reason: that to isolate and focus on the aberrations in our armed forces, and (falsely) extrapolate that to imply that it’s far larger than it is, Hollywood leftists (and the news media) think they’re being “courageous.” Worse, they claim they’re the ‘real’ patriots, because they’re willing to focus a critical lens on the instruments of a (supposedly) inherently corrupt presidential administration, and an ‘unjust’ war.
To the contrary, to profile and celebrate the genuine heroes you mention would be, to Hollywood leftists, and their news media compadres, “propaganda.” Oh, the irony. And they wonder why their recent slew of films, depicting the worst possible aspects of America’s armed forces, failed so miserably.
Parallel to this is – where are the films that accurately depict the mission, strategy and tactics of our enemies? Of the jihadist murderers, and those who finance and support them, who collectively declared war on us? (crickets) Hollywood leftists won’t come near it – because to them, it’d be “unfair” to taint so many by depicting the actions of a minority of them. Oh, the irony.
A quote from Ayn Rand concerning this phenomenon:
“A country at war often resorts to smearing its enemy by spreading atrocity stories – a practice which a free, civilized country need not and should not resort to. A civilized country, with a free press, can let the facts speak for themselves. But what is the moral-intellectual state of a country that spreads smears about itself and ignores or suppresses the facts known about the enemy’s atrocities?”
- “The Wreckage Of The Consensus,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p.223.
Thanks again for a great article, Endre.
I agree with everything you said, except for your analysis of No Country. That film contains many conservative themes. The moral center of the film, a small town sheriff (could you be any more 50′c cliche-ic?), is openly conservative (as an earlier article on this site noted, one Al-Gore’s-college-roomate’s lines is “once you stop saying sir and ma’am it’s all downhill from there”). Bardem’s character is so evil that the audience has no problem separating the good guys from the bad guys. Brolin’s character is willing to fight, and take on someone he knows is deadly and evil, to protect his wife (it became about more than money not after Chigurh shot Moss, but after Chigurh threatened Moss’s wife). And the entire plot of the film is set-off by Brolin’s “stupid” decision to do the right thing – bring a dying man some water. If he just lets that man die out there in the desert, he might have gotten away with it.
Yes, the movie is very dark, as it presents in vivid detail a character who is disturbingly evil. But that doesn’t mean it can’t also embrace conservative themes.
I don’t know about everyone but I am sick and tired of Hollywood Bashing those of us in the military. Military life was our choice as a job for 4 to 30 years Nobody twisted our arms to sign up and serve our country.
We follow our orders and do our job.
Why does Hollywood have to make us out to be the bad people of the world?
Countries that hate us love to see the movies that make America look bad. They use them to promote and recruit Terrorist.
If I was a actor or film maker I would never want to be in a military type movie that promotes the other side winning.
You guys don’t seem to understand something.
These are the only kinds of movies these people CAN make.
Oliver Stone could NEVER make a pro-American movie because he’s NOT pro-American. He just doesn’t see America that way.
If you sat down with him and discussed making a pro-American movie, he’d just say, “It’ll never sell.”
That’s the mind-set of most Hollywood players.
“Chasm – January 8th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
“Flags of Our Fathers” was an inspirational, pro-America war movie released recently. It bombed. DG $33M, one third it’s budget.
In the realm of comedy, the tamer, more “classic comedy-like” it is, the worse it does. Gross seems to have a proportional relationship to, well, grossness.
Your thesis needs work.”
Chasm,
First, I didn’t see Flags of our Fathers at first precisely BECAUSE it WASN’T pro American at all, according to what I had read from critics! I then saw it on DVD, and that was proven right. First, itportrayed the Japanese as being basically equivalent to the Americans. The Japanese were brutal. They would take soldiers into the caves in Iwo Jima and torture them for days. Cutting out tongue’s and eyeballs, mutilating them etc. The book covers this, but the movie instead portrays them as honorable, when they were anything but. Their twisted version of Bushido made them savages. It is precisely this moral relevatism that I and many others can’t stand to see in the movies, and it is what is at the root of this problem.
This theory makes perfect sense. Just look at every single anti war movie last year, all of them bombed. Then look at the one Pro American movie vantage point. Vantage point wasn’t even that great of a movie but it made a ton more than any of the Elahs, redacteds, lambs, etc. That right there, is proof positive.
“I don’t know about everyone but I am sick and tired of Hollywood Bashing those of us in the military.”
I’m not in the military and I am just as sick and tired of Hollywood Bashing those in the military; so much so, I have turned off and tuned out today’s Hollywood.
Rather than spending any of my money or time on Hollywood I spend it all on sending goodies to the troops and if I send entertainment I only select items worthy of the troop’s time, which eliminates 99.5% of current product available. Mostly I select entertainment from the past which means that actors-directors-writers are no longer living or are passed over by the steroidal youth-juice crowd, this way I am sure the product won’t be a current Hollywood propagandized lecture about the evils of America, or Christians, or Republicans, or George Bush, or Sarah Palin etc ad nauseum.
Bingo William….’they (Hollywood) aren’t producing what customers want to see, they’re producing what they themselves want to see. It’s little more than intellectual masturbation; self-gratifying, pleasant, and lacking the risks of going out and engaging other minds in exchange of ideas’.
This describes how many ‘businesses’ such as Big 3, Investmant Banks, Mortgage Cos., etc have become corrupted by central gov control and regulation of the markets. These ‘businesses’ are betting that the ROI from becoming tools of Gov will be greater than responding to the uncontrollable whims of the consumer….
The producers of anti-American, anti-Militiary, nihilistic, morally reprehensible movies are, in my opinion, simply doing everything that they possibly can to justify and mainstream their own twisted–and sometimes evil–worldview. Unfortunately, they have succeeded all to well all too often. We’re playing pick-up now and against pretty bad odds.
Hollywood has pretty well lost me as a customer. One interesting source of alternative entertainment is Anime (japanese animation). Its funny how foreign films are more friendly to American values than Hollywood’s! The heroes are heroes and the villains are villains. You’ll find some good uplifting positive messages… Stressing family and friendship over base hedonism and avoidance of responsibility. Be prepared it might shock you! I’m trying to experiment more with Bollywood too, but I have limited experience with Indian movies. European ones seem even worse than Hollywood.
You forgot to mention Little Miss Sunshine. America wants more of this type of film.
It’s often said (by conservative pols) that leftists live in a kind-of parallel universe–an “alternative reality” that’s, well, not real at all. To be a liberal, you have to remain willfully ignorant, or at least extemely selective, about real realities, you know, like “economics,” “molecular biology,” “climate science,” and, increasingly, even “sociology.”
Modern storytelling is about make-believe (the fictional “novel” wasn’t invented until the 18th century), but it has always been true, and remains true today that successful literature reflects real experience. A film or any story that’s premised on someone’s ideologically fabricated version of “reality” is, by necessity, doomed to commercial failure and academic footnote status.
There have, of course, been great films that reflect reality and comport with a “liberal” agenda, but not recently. With Hollywood choosing to seal itself inside its alternative reality “bubble” its product has become as vapid and detached as it was in the ’50s.
A few of the commenters have touched on this idea already. There is room for films with a darker view or that explore darker themes. Film noir did that in numerous films, and many were excellent. But darker films need still to clearly show that evil is evil, good is good. It’s the moral grayness that viewers find so repellent, and Hollywood today is filled with it, even in lighter fare.
Great point. I had assumed that what was on the big and small screen was what people wanted. Perhaps the viewing audience is not as depraved as I thought. That may be why my attention wavers when watching some of the over-produced network blockbusters and I end up focused on an under-produced cooking show in the same time slot.
While I liked “No Country..” and DO enjoy well-made dark films, I agree that Hollywood NEEDS to make more emotionally uplifting films.
Forrest Gump comes to mind. That movie out-performed all predictions and quickly became an all time classic. And, it did so by not being overtly political, giving us a loveable main character, and leaving us feeling inspired (at least it did for me).
Any more, dark or “thought-provoking” politically charged movies do nothing to stimulate my mind or feelings. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Rudy” “The Right Stuff” and “Life is Beautiful” (to name a few) ALL still leave me introspective and wanting to be a better person. Every time I see them.
I’ve seen where articles like this take up the point about all the negative movies about the American military and government and anti-war — and why Hollywood can’t make movies that are more favorable to our government, soldiers, and the Christian religion.
But, I don’t remember seeing articles about an even more glaring absence in movies over the last few years: Radical Islam – or – movies that depict the threat of contemporary global terrorism and the ideology that the terrorists use to justify their actions…???…
Why is Hollywood so much less concerned about demonizing American soliders, the US government, and Christians or conservative Christians involved in socio-politics than it is peaceful followers of Islam?
After 9/11, how many movies has Hollywood cranked out to depict the global network of terrorism and the twisted version of Islam they use to recruit and motivate their soldiers and backers? Can anybody think of one? Any big budget, big stared productions featuring courageous CIA operatives fighting against the Bin Ladens of the world? or the like?
It is clear: Hollywood has gone out of its way to AVOID being Islamophobic or anti-Other — but it can’t seem to help but take shots at the “Us”.
Take Charlie Wilson’s War: I was interested when I first heard about this movie. It had already been several years after 9/11 and Hollywood had steadfastly refused to use that event as a spring-board for all kinds of films it could have easily produced concerning terrorism and the threat of global jihad. So, I thought it would be interesting to see what they did with the subjects involved in the film: Afghanistan. Soviet Union/communist imperialism. CIA funding a guerrilla war. A Reagan Era proxy war. Interesting choice of subject matter…for Hollywood….
And what did I get —- a movie in which I’m informed – a lone(democrat) member of Congress and a handful of intelligence community outcast misfits single-handedly won the Afghan War DESPITE the Reagan government’s ineptitude and unwillingness to take on the occupying Soviet military!!
What a great way to chip away at the Reagan legacy!! On the one hand, populate movies and TV shows with abounding references that he caused the AIDS epidemic, and then on the other make a Tom Hanks’ led movie about how Reagan had little to do with the Soviet failure in Afghanistan and thus the subsequent demise of the USSR. Brilliant!!
But, I specifically wanted to mention one throw-away scene in the movie: the one where the Texas big shot meets with Charlie Wilson in his office at the start of the film — to discuss Wilson using his power and influence back in his congressional district to get — a nativity scene put back on – what was it? – the court house or city hall grounds.
Wilson, being an enlightened democrat, pointed out that the nativity scene would be just as visible and more properly located down the street and off government property. Such a simple solution — as well as a much needed one – to protect our society from our own home-grown fanaticism, don’t ya know….
The scene was totally gratuitous. It had no relation to the rest of the movie. So, it was clearly just one of those quick socio-political commentaries you get in pop culture these days. The message being: its good to have people stand up to the religio-fascists who want to destroy the separation of church-n-state that is a bed-rock of our democracy (and one that has NEVER existed to the extent the left currently wants to push it….It was this generation that invented the idea that a Christian nativity scene on public ground was some over-bearing imposition on the masses of a state-sponsored religion).
Hollywood can’t bring itself to make a movie about very real radical Islamic fascists hell bent on destroying Western civilization – one suicide bomber at a time — but it loves to take repeated pot shots at the Christian community that makes up a large segment of our population. — Like how the Julia Roberts character in Charlie Wilson’s War is shown to be both a right-wing Christian conservative fanatic AND a (hypocritical) slut.
I think Charlie Wilson’s War is a perfect post-9/11 movie to summarize what Hollywood has become: It would destroy all they hold dear to give credit to the American government or the likes of the CIA for doing something “good” in the world, but a womanzing, alcoholic liberal democrat can stumble his way to something magnificent – because he’s basically got a good heart – and “cares”.
They also can’t seem to help but let seep out their disdain for (organized) Christianity and conservatives. But they’d rather be tarred and feathered than attempt to portray the very real threat posed by well-funded and organized jihadists for fear of demonizing Muslims as a whole.
…It is rather sick, as well as pathetic, when you get right down to it.
9/11 has really exposed Hollywood for what it has become.
But, I don’t read many people talking about it like this….
you guys are all hate and ignorance. get some love in your life. enough of the hate. it’s 2009.
“enough of the hate. it’s 2009.”
Translation: “The witch is dead!! The witch is dead!! Obama’s in the White House now – so spread the love!! Bury the corpse of hate with Bush’s demise!!”
Present day Hollywood is really pathetic. Full of liberals who blackball anyone who dares to be a conservative. Sorry, but I haven’t been to a movie in years, and do not miss the filth, cussing, nudity, sex, etc. Most of them would sell their souls for the almighty dollar.
Keep this guy, he writes like music.
[...] Thinker editor Thomas Lifson and classical musician Endre Balogh both took big stabs at figuring out how to fix the broken entertainment industry. I think [...]
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