Why a Straight Sean Penn can play Harvey Milk
by Jeffrey JenaI do a bit in my nightclub act about how hard it is to make a suspense thriller in Hollywood today because of political correctness. If you make a black man or an Arab the bad guy; that’s racial prejudice. If you make a woman the villain, you’re a sexist. If a gay man or woman is the heavy then you’re a homophobe and in today’s Hollywood there is no more dangerous career move than going up against GLAAD.
So today most filmmakers opt for the politically correct solution of demonizing the only target that doesn’t fight back; corporate America! And who is it that runs all the corporations in America? Rich, fat, middle-aged white men!
In the perfect politically correct world of Hollywood there are no Latino gang members, no Arab terrorists, no black mobsters, no bad gay men or women, or evil straight women. There is only that most diabolic oppressor, the middle-aged white guy. This means that when you go to see a movie like the recent hit “Iron Man,” as soon as fat, bald, middle-aged, white Jeff Bridges walks on the screen its dollars to donuts he’s Mr. Big, the head of all evil doings and the one pulling all the strings.
There’s also been another interesting movement in Hollywood over the last twenty years – the politically correct movement against acting. There’s been a call from inside the acting unions and activist groups to only cast perfect ethnic and physical matches for roles in film and television. For example, if the script calls for a hearing impaired character, you should cast a person who is hearing impaired, no acting required. If you have a role for a Mexican character you should cast an actor who is ethnically Mexican, not cast an Italian guy who’s a better actor and still looks the part because there’s no way that he could “act” Mexican as well as an authentic Mexican. When Tom Hanks and Antonio Banderas were cast as gay men in the movie “Philadelphia” there was some controversy about straight men playing gay. How could they possibly understand the gay experience under the oppressive straight white man?
So why, when Sean Penn was cast to play the iconic gay politician Harvey Milk, was there not even a murmur from the gay activist community? I believe it’s the same reason women’s groups said nothing about the various sexual shenanigans of Bill Clinton; the politics of the offender were so perfectly leftist no foul was called. Bill Clinton was for unfettered abortion and appointed a women to be Surgeon General, Attorney General and Secretary of State. How could he possibly be a sexual harasser? Sean Penn is a leftist’s leftist and leftists do not eat other leftists for breakfast, it just isn’t done.
A final piece of political correctness in Hollywood that drives me up the wall is how the term “actress” is seen as politically incorrect. In the beautiful world of the Screen Actors Guild we are all equal and all known simply as “actors.” Until it comes to handing out the SAG Awards then there is a category for “female actor.” If we are all equal, why not just one award for best actor? I think a lot of “female actors” are afraid that too many fat bald middle aged white guys would win, you know how they are!
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39 Comments
GT, you have a point. Over the last several months, we've pretty much stopped every police/crime/ etc. show that we watch within the first 5 minutes, literally at the introduction of the character, and say "That's the bad guy". I was thinking that the plots were getting too formulaic, but I realize now that there was also a lot of the same racial/economic typing that you are talking about.
Last week's episode of The Closer fooled us too!
Wait… Sean Penn's not gay??? I thought he was bottom to Hugo Chavez's top.
This is why I enjoyed Tropic Thunder. The movie made fun of “actors” and Hollywood bigwigs, had a white man playing a black man (shocked Downey’s up for an Academy Award for that portrayal!) and the film used a political incorrect term for the mentally handicapped.
I’m sure I’m leaving something out but, you get the point.
Growltiger, this is half of the reason why I stopped watching “Law & Order” after being a devoted fan for several years. The other half was that every other episode seemed to be “ripped from the headlines”. It showed the laziness of the writers in coming up with new ideas or new character arcs. When that starts happening, it’s better to hang it up and let something else take its place.
2 minutes of googling would reveal that there was, in fact, a lot of outrage/annoyance over “Milk” in the LGBT community, for this reason, and others (ie the sanitizing of ’70s Castro, waiting until after the election to release the movie, etc).
I mean, do a little bit of research next time. LBGT critiques of “Milk” didn’t get as much mainstream attention as with “Philadelphia” because first the election and then Prop 8 were eating up the news cycles, but just because CNN didn’t cover it this time around doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Agreed. What I believe would be brave and a great stretch for these so called thespians would be to play a person they hate. James Cagney had a way of making you like his character even when he did bad things. So, Sean Penn, play a sincere christian conservative.
I would love to see a statistic. How many A and B list actors have played roles of homosexuals versus how many have played roles sympathetic to Christianity or conservative principals in the last 30 years. Yet they feel brave playing an “oppressed” minority. I am a non Catholic and I dare Hollywood to make a movie sympathetic to Mother Theresa.
There seems to be a belief that Hollywood should not support Christianity in any way. Why? They made movies sympathetic to Hinduism in Gandhi, to Islam in the Four Feathers, to American Indians in Dances with Wolves to name a few. Mel Gibson’s the Passion was a private passion on his part. I believe he was punished for straying off the reservation as has Caviezel who played Christ. I know Gibson said detestable thins about the Jews. Hollywood actors say stupid things all the time and suffer little consequences.
Your article completely ignores the fact that, up until the past decade or so there wwee NO women or minorities who were able to command top box-office drawer salaries. It also ignores the fact that all trend ebb and flow, and that there is no monolithic “Them” making up some sort of PC playbook. Furthermore Penn’s casting as a gay character and the lack of “outcry” probably has far to do with his politics than it does with the fac that he was championing and pushing this project for a long time, it is a juicy role, and he knew it would be a contender for an Oscar.
After decades of, and continued inequality, to bemoan the positioning of powerful white men as villians is disingenuous. Our “monsters” are culled from that which we fear. And unless your head is in the sand on. ALL issues, urely you’ve noticed the floundering economy and disatrous foreign policy foisted on the US by these selfsame “villains”. Our monsters change with the times.
Alex Ivy – Totally agree about Lie to Me. I watched both episodes back to back and couldn’t believe how totally out in the open they were with their leftist agenda. Not only were there Bush pictures but also Palin and Nixon pictures. Good grief. Give it a rest Hollywood.
There are a few folks writing in Hollywood who reverse the cliches. Notable was Rob Thomas in Veronica Mars, who in the third season in particular often had the usual liberal saints revealed to be villains: the feminist room-mate who dosed her religious roomie with an abortion drug (her televangelist father is portrayed as the best guy in the episode), the crusading Leftist Lesbian journalist (an unsympathetic hack and the sorority nice girls growing weed for their cancer stricken den mother). The anti Abu Graihb lecturing professor is a murderer, and so on.
For a few years, NUMB3Rs (not now, sadly) had switches that also fooled people, the saintly illegal alien activist the drug smuggling bad guy and the anti-immigraton watchdog a good guy).
It’s an effective tool in the age of PC. To make the liberal figures the bad guys, most people are conditioned to not see it coming.
In fairness to Iron Man, his major villain is not Obadiah Stone, but the Mandarin (a magic guy who has five magic rings up against Iron Man’s technology). Stone is an Iron Man villain as much as Rais Al Ghul is a Batman villain, but likely the studio did not want to use up the classic villain at first. The movie was set up to have the Mandarin re-appear, with magic instead of technology facing Iron Man.
Good to see you here, Jeff.
In keeping with the subject at hand and help make your point, two excellent examples of great actors giving wonderful performances:
Marlon Brando as Sakini ‘The Teahouse of the August Moon’ (1956)
Peter Sellers as Hrundi V. Bakshi ‘The Party’ (1968)
I’m sure there are more. These happen to be two of my favorites which by today’s PC standards would most likely be labeled as ‘racist’.
Sad but true.
Political Correctness = Death
I agree with most of the comments, but as far as the home security folks are concerned, what are they going to do? If they used a black or Hispanic person in their commercials there would be howling and protests from the left and Jesse Jackson would show up on their doorstep looking for cash payments to demonstrate their new found sensitivity. Easier for these companies to just have white burglars.
As much as the movie and TV writers are lefties, there is still probably some of the desire to just avoid the grief that goes into their writing. Even if some of these writers were willing to include minority members in their roster of bad guys, they know there might be protests and such. Better to just go with the flow.
Then again, avoiding minority members as the bad guys doesn’t mean you have to go after Christians, the military, or GWB.
Even more humorous when numbers were recently release by DOJ or FBI indicating that 80% of all crime was committed by gangs (i.e. blacks and latino gangs). By the way, while on the discussion of “white crime” … I read recent rape statistics indicating the following; On average, 100 white women are raped by black men daily, averaging about 36,500 per year. Guess how many white men rape black men every year??? Keep guessing. Keep guessing. Okay, statistically “0″ or “nil”. How’s that for race oriented / hate crime???
I used to maintain a website at my old job, and we made a point that whenever we used pictures of people, there had to be a certain number of black/minority ones. Quality of picture was of secondary importance to the quota. It pissed everyone off but they felt we had to do it to prevent charges of racism. Things like that probably do more to create real racism than they do to prevent it. But then you don’t do that to actually stop racism, you do it to keep the grievance going.
I always laugh at the concept of a “hate crime,” which seems to only apply to so-called race motivated violent crimes.
If a white guy walks up and shoot me (I am white)personally, I consider that a “hate” crime in a very direct way.
Why is this crime somehow less deserving of punishment than the official hate crime, ie a white guy shoots a black because in part, he is black?
Why can’t crime just be, well illegal and color blind.
Jeff Bridges wasn’t fat in “Iron Man”, but why let a fact get in the way of anything?
ironman would have worked a little better for me if bridges had had that hippy, dippy look from the big lebowski going on.
The Law and Order shows have all become particularly ridiculous in this regard. Every rich white person is a corrupt predator on society, every religious person is a molester or a fanatic; blacks, latinos and Asians are almost always portrayed as victims; usually of white corporate America, which is actually just another expression of liberal condescension toward minorities, which is itself liberal bigotry. Way to go moving us into the unbigoted 21st century Law and Order.
i’ve always admired conservatives because they didn’t consider themselves part of some vast grievance class, the way many on the left do; sadly, the last few years have become a national crybaby-thon for many on the right; in fact, it’s become a profitable exercise; think about it: would rush, savage, and a few others have the audiences they have without the pity party? i doubt it; as michael corleone said it so well, “senator, we’re all part of the same hypocrisy;” let’s face it, victimhood is good for business, whether you’re a litigant or radio host, or stand-up; just so you know, denzel washington was excellent in “american gangster;” nina was a superb villain in “24,” as was francie, black and a woman, in “alias;” the current crop of bad guys in “24″ are black, as well as white, and did you watch “tropic thunder,” which makes fun of everyone? i don’t disagree with some of what you say, but next time please don’t paint with such a wide brush; thanks, bob t, colorado
Just wanted to say thanks to all you all for your comments on my first “Big Hollywood” blog. Love me or hate me I hope you enjoyed the read and will contnue reading me here!
I just wanted to reply to two small things.
1)I did do some research on Gay and Lesbian reaction to Penn being cast in Milk and found none, maybe I that’s my bad and if you would like to post a link I would be glad to read it
2) Jeff Bridges not Fat in “Iron Man” I put him at least at 250, look at him in “Starman” or “Baker Bros” and tell me he’s not beefed up. I am not being critical as I am hardly the svelte lad I was in my twenties but I don’t claim to not be a bit beefy.
JJ
I wonder if writers haven’t already started correcting these types of cliches. While watching The Closer the other day I assumed that the bad guy would be the Christian pastor. There were even hints that he was Chief Johnson’s prime suspect. But surprise, surprise it the wasn’t him. I think most writers are probably first of all writers and then political and no writer wants to be thought of as a cliché hack.
Greg Marquez
goyomarquez@earthlink.net
Bob Terrill, the very small list of exceptions you make to this anti-corporate/rich white bad guy trend in film and TV really just proves the point.
In nearly every film portraying corporate America, the corporation is the evil entity and is always run by a bunch of corrupt rich white guys. Watching Hollywood films you could be lead to believe the no corporation anywhere has ever done anything good for anyone. From Syriana, to A Civil Action, to the Insider, to Erin Brockovitch, to Michael Clayton, to Philadelphia, to the current storyline of the TV series Damages, and on and on and on, same theme, same story, same evil corporate white guys making victims of everyone.
Of course then we have the mile long list of films about the evil white guys in Government conspiracy films. Or the evil white guys in the many anti-military films spewed out of Hollywood every year. Or the evil white guys in spy and intelligence films.
My complaint is not just political either. It also has to do with the total predictability of films. The most blatant example of this was THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, based on a novel about Islamic terrorists that politically correct Hollywood felt compelled to change into white Germanic Nazis.
There are some current exceptions. 24 and Taken come quickly to mind, but the overall preponderance in modern movies is simple; evil = white, rich, corporate/military and/or Government fatcats. How predictable and boring is that?
Here’s what Nina Burleigh famously had to say about Slick.
(http://www.rightgrrl.com/sexforacause.html)
“Her full quote: “I would be happy to give him a blowjob just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.”"
The liberal agenda is even working it’s way into sci-fi shows. No matter what is going on in the “real” world I could always fall back into science fiction, comics or videogames. Not any more.
Battlestar Galactica was always one of my favorite shows but unfortunately the writing has gone way too left for me. Also, they have fallen into the same “formulaic” patterns in storytelling that every other show on tv and cable has done. Not only do I hate the agenda driven drivel but it makes the shows very predictable and boring.
Hey Guys, don’t despair; there’s always ‘The Shield’; sure the cops are self interested & want to make a buck but the criminals in that show are some of the greatest Ethnic Dirtbags to walk the earth-black, mexican, central american, white, russian, armenian…they are some of the greatest scum I have EVER seen. AND even the Cops are petty darned good at busting them while some try to find a way to line their pockets;
nm
There are a couple of non-PC shows that deal with criminals accurately.
Unfortunately, they are not Hollywood dramas with writers, actors and plots that can distort the truth to meet the official agenda. They are reality shows: “The First 48″ and “Animal Cops.” I’m amazed either show is on TV.
Watching “The First 48″ is quite discouraging: I don’t think I’ve ever seen an episode that had a white perp, regardless of city. It’s pretty clear who’s doing the crime and who they are doing it to. Not pretty.
I was watching what turned out unfortunately to be the very poor show “Lie to Me” on FOX. One story involved a military commander serving in Afghanistan who was accused of raping a female soldier. When it was found that his accuser was lying the “truth” team discovered that while the rape hadn’t happened to her, she was telling the story of a soldier to afraid to speak up about the crime. The moral…even when you think someone’s lying about an atrocity they say the military committed, they’re probably really telling the truth.
The show’s interesting premise which grows thin is that people who lie show micro-expressions on their faces that show their true feelings. Well as I watch more and more network TV I get micro-clues that the producers are not as interested in making good tv as they are in making propaganda that bashes the military, the religious and conservatives.
BTW – I know Jeff Jena, he’s a great comic and person.
White guys are evil. Look at Cheney.
Also, Milk wasn’t depicting a gay guy as a villain so I’m not sure why you are connecting “black guys can’t be bad guys” to “Sean Penn is playing a gay guy.” Those are very different ideas.
PS. the Iron Man bad guy is a white corporate bad guy because A) most corporate guys are white, and B) that’s the way it was in the dang comic book.
That’s the reason Lifetime Network TV movies make me vomit. Emasculate and hate the white man channel.
Does anyone else find it amusing that in the ADT commercials, the guys breaking into houses are ALL white guys in sweatsuits? I’m now terrified of white athletes breaking into my house.
As far as Burn Notice…I know Matt Nix the creator and he is not a conservative, in fact at least in college he was a politically active liberal…but what is he, other than being a really cool person, he’s someone who respects his characters and allows for nuance in his writing. It’s cool to make political work…there’s even some liberal stuff I’ve liked…Apocalypse Now was a mind blowing anti-Willy Wonka…but what sucks in this cheesy current pop version of liberalism is how story is ignored and how other points are not allowed in the pieces’ internal debate.
I couldn’t believe Jeff Bridges was the heavy. I kept waiting for him to break character by protesting “Hey, there’s a BEVERAGE here, man!”…
“Shtoss – February 2nd, 2009 at 8:09 am
That’s the reason Lifetime Network TV movies make me vomit. Emasculate and hate the white man channel.”
I’ve always called Lifetime the ‘White man bad/woman good’ channel;
[...] Jeffrey Jena posts over at Big Hollywood on the lack of controversy over straight male Sean Penn playing gay politician Harvey Milk: So why, when Sean Penn was cast to play the iconic gay politician Harvey Milk, was there not even a murmur from the gay activist community? I believe it’s the same reason women’s groups said nothing about the various sexual shenanigans of Bill Clinton; the politics of the offender were so perfectly leftist no foul was called. [...]
I would like to know the true stats, as the true percentage of gays in the US; as well as the black population? I think the old adages as the squeeky wheel gets the grease, or the the inmates are running the asylmun.
“Why a Straight Sean Penn can play Harvey Milk”
I just assumed it was because he’s a member of the Film Actors Guild…
Totally agree Bugs. I love Stargate and Stargate Atlantis, they do a pretty good job of doing the left vs. right 2 step. The fact that they use the “evil shadow government agency” doesn’t bother me because I feel I could go either left or right on the politics.
Rusty James. Watching old episodes of Battlestar Galactica (got the boxed set) and comparing them to the new battlestar series is like night and day too me. Social stances in comics and scifi has always been a part of the genre’s but current sci-fi shows and comic books not only use current events as a back drop but comment on them as well. In other words, they are trying to make a statement as opposed to letting the viewer or reader draw their own conclusion.
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