This one goes out to New Blacklist-denier Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times….

PopEater:

Known around left-leaning Hollywood for her conservative stances on weighty issues like abortion and stem cells, ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ star Patricia Heaton is happy to explain how important her Christian faith is to her and how it shapes her views and career choices. …

Telling me that she has many gay friends and doesn’t oppose gay marriage, Patricia gets frustrated being automatically lumped together with other conservatives, a characterization she says has cost her possible work.

“We know for a fact there are some people who have said they wouldn’t want to work with us because of our politics,” she said, with her husband David Hunt adding, “We get lumped in with lunatics.”

Who but the worst kind of ideological bigot wouldn’t want to work with Patricia Heaton, one of the most talented actresses to ever star in a sitcom? If an iconic Emmy winner is losing work over her perfectly reasonable right-of-center political positions, what’s life like for those just trying to break in or the 99.7% who live hand-to-mouth in this business of show.

To fully appreciate the absurdity of this, you have to flip the situation on its head. A Hollywood conservative in a position to hire who blacklisted Alec Baldwin would obviously be wrong but also crazy. In the right role, you can’t do any better than Alec Baldwin and you owe it to your project to hire the very best. Same with Patricia Heaton.

And yet….

Our friends at NewsBusters have more.

Hollywood politics are no exception to racial attacks. Recently Chris Lee of the Los Angeles Times wrote a piece about “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and “The Last Airbender,” listing them as recent additions to Hollywood’s “rich history” of casting white actors in ethnic parts, giving the example of John Wayne playing Genghis Khan. 

Quickly, before I delve further into why Lee’s article is ridiculous, let me point out a double standard. In Tom Clancy’s book, “The Sum of All Fears,” his villains are Muslim extremists. In the film, they are neo-Nazis. No one complained about that swap, especially the Times, as their review ignores the change. 

Moving on. Lee writes that “the movie industry can still seem woefully behind the times when it comes to matters of race.” This is such a non-committal accusation that the Los Angeles Times should have lost it on the editing floor. It’s a classic strategy that accuses, while giving the writer a cover. 

He then points to Miss USA Rima Fakih, Will Smith and Sonia Sotomayor as examples of how America has moved past its racial prejudice and is embracing ethnic diversity. Let’s flip that around and see what Lee is saying. He argues that Will Smith, Rima Fakih and others are successful despite their race. This insults their abilities. Race has nothing to do with it. Ms. Fakih is a beautiful, talented young woman. Smith is a great actor, and a cool action star. 

Further calling Hollywood out on some racial bias is utterly ridiculous. Hollywood doesn’t just cast white people in ethnic roles. It casts other ethnicities in traditionally white roles as well. Let’s look at a few recent films: Will Smith recently starred in a remake of “I Am Legend,” a role that was played by white actors Charlton Heston and Vincent Price in prior remakes. Samuel L. Jackson has recently played Nick Fury in the “Iron Man” movies, originally a white comic book character. I’m pretty sure the Los Angeles Times hasn’t commented on Marvel Universe’s racial change, as their blog post on Fury doesn’t mention that Fury was originally a white character. 

Casting is not as simple as selecting an actor based on their race. Author Edward Jay Epstein wrote in his book “The Hollywood Economist” that in order for films to get certain tax breaks they will sometimes cast actors from certain countries, or shoot in countries that give them tax breaks. This can drastically reduce the cost of a film. 

Additionally, attaching a name actor like Jake Gyllenhaal to a film (or Smith in “I Am Legend” or Jackson as Nick Fury) ensures fans will support it. 

Finally, even more important than tax breaks and fan base, Smith in “I Am Legend” and Jackson as Nick Fury are examples of studios casting the best actors to play the part. The fact that the Los Angeles Times doesn’t recognize Gyllenhaal’s acting ability in their article shows they would rather fill racial quotas than reward excellence. See the “30 Rock” episode about fulfilling quotas. Even those that benefit are insulted by the practice.

As bad as the MSM is though, the entertainment media is much, much worse. Just the other day someone asked me where they could find a left-wing film site. Without a hint of irony, I replied, “Any film site that’s not Big Hollywood.” If someone would simply enforce California’s laws against incest we could easily put this disgusting pile of unholy inbred love out of business. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. And maybe that’s good thing. Without them, where would we get our chuckles?

Today’s hilarity arrives courtesy of this L.A. Times Big Picture blog sporting the following headline and intro:

Jim Cameron eager to mix it up with ‘Avatar’s’ right-wing critics

You can always tell that the Academy has sent out its final Oscar ballots by the sudden reappearance of gaudy full-page Oscar ads in the trades, my paper and the New York Times. It also means that most nominees, fearful of making a horrible gaffe, are especially careful not to say anything that could possibly be viewed as controversial in their interviews with the showbiz press. 

Except, of course, for Jim Cameron.

He’s on the cover of this week’s The Envelope and he’s clearly eager to mix it up with the multitudes of conservatives who’ve been trashing “Avatar,” claiming that it’s dumb, sanctimonious, anti-military, nuttily pro-environment[.] … Cameron isn’t the sort of guy to take those brickbats lying down, even if means alienating a few Oscar voters, either because they agree with the conservative take on the film or prefer to vote for films that are free of any political leanings.

Cameron’s being given all this glowing credit for being ballsy enough to risk alienating a “few” Oscar voters…

In the meantime, how many Leftie Oscar voters is Cameron hoping to impress by “mixing it up” with we right-wingers?

How about the other 5800, give or take. 

When it comes to winning Oscars and impressing the Hollywood Frat Crowd, ripping into conservatives isn’t brave, it’s smart. Real smart. As a matter of fact, we should all bow down to the genius of James Cameron on this one. The director sure knows how to play the entertainment media. First, in the heat of the Oscar race he lands a high-profile puff piece courtesy of a sycophantic, unchallenging reporter … then he receives raves for the guts it took to stick his head into the stuffed lion’s mouth.

Journalistic incest. There’s no other way to describe it.

In other news, the L.A. Times claims there are a “few” Oscar voters who might not like the politics of “Avatar.”

Really? A few? That many? Roger Simon and Lionel Chetwynd are the only two I know of and “two” equals “a couple,” not a few. 

Don’t make me saddle up Retracto.

“Remember, you are bad security types. Very, very bad.”

This interview was done over dinner at a Hollywood Cafe. And it shows. [emphasis is mine throughout]

“I think there’s something amazingly satisfying when the hammerheads come out of the forest and start mowing down all the bad security enforcers,” Cameron says, referring to the movie’s climactic creatures-versus-humans battle sequence. “Nature gets to fight back. It’s ‘Death Wish’ for environmentalists. When did nature ever get to fight back in a movie?“

Notice how Cameron’s now using the term “bad security enforcers.” Next we’ll hear about how they’re on a “overseas contingency operation” to create “man-made disasters.” This new language is baffling. Just a few weeks ago Cameron told Jay Leno that “Avatar” was meant to ”honor” the Marines. What is he doing now? Honoring “bad security enforcers?” 

A little off-track here, but the last part of Cameron’s statement is too bizarre to ignore:

 ”When did nature ever get to fight back in a movie?”

While I admire anyone who was able to avoid “The Happening,” did Cameron not see his own “Piranha 2?” How about “The Birds,” “The Swarm,” “Jurassic Park,” and these other 29 found with a trope-avoiding gizmo called Google?

“Avatar’s” 9/11 imagery:

One of the movie’s key images — the violent destruction of the towering Hometree, the center of the Na’vi world — directly evokes the collapse of the World Trade Center. Cameron says the connection wasn’t purely intentional. He was just looking to deliver an emotional gut-punch and make an explicit link to the damage he believes humans are inflicting on Earth, a planet that has become a “dying world” in “Avatar’s” not-so-distant future.

“Wasn’t purely intentional”? Give me a break. Either own it or don’t, but to say that something in a low-budget indie film ”wasn’t purely intentional” is absurd all on its own. For a perfectionist director who spent years and a quarter-billion dollars bringing his vision to life to say the same… Well, I’ll say it again: Either own it or don’t.

Kinda, maybe, sorta the World Trade Center.

Of course the terrorist attack on Hometree is meant to evoke 9/11. And Cameron’s first choice is to have American Marines (note to leftist hair-splitters: “former” Marines) commit this atrocity. And Cameron’s second choice is to have American Marines doing so on behalf of a genocide-happy commander (a “bad security enforcer” referred to as “Colonel”) who evokes an American President and American foreign policy with the following phrases: “daisy cutter,” “shock and awe” and “pre-emptive war.”

Cameron regrets “shock and awe”:

“I probably shouldn’t have put in the direct references to the language used with the Iraq war, the ’shock and awe’ line, because it takes you too much there,” Cameron reflects. “But what I really was saying was, ‘Listen to what your leaders are saying. Open your eyes. And understand what the run-up to war is like, so the next time it happens, you can question it.’”

You’ll see later that Cameron complains about his critics being too literal. After all, in a million years who would’ve ever guessed that using key phrases from the Iraq War might make people think the storyteller was referring to the Iraq War?

Cameron respects the Marines:

And now to the part of the interview that should’ve been set to music:

[D]uring dinner, [Cameron] circles back several times to the idea that he’s somehow anti-military because of the way he depicts the corporate military contractors — “Blackwater types,” he calls them — in “Avatar.” The director repeatedly expresses his support for the armed forces, noting his Marine brother’s service in Kuwait and professing deep respect for the sense of teamwork, duty and service that he believes form the heart of the Marine Corps.

Cameron’s dancing as fast as he can and already we’ve fox-trotted from ”bad security enforcers” to “Blackwater types.” Naturally, our gallant reporter doesn’t challenge any of this. After all, what matters is what Cameron says over dinner at a Hollywood Cafe, not what the actual movie says.

A cozy Cafe.

So let’s leave this cozy little Cafe and do the work the reporter wouldn’t and look at — oh, I don’t know — the script? According to the “Avatar” screenplay posted on the 20th Century-Fox website, the word “Marine” is used in the  film’s dialogue a total of seven times. There are four “Marine” references in the all-important first act where you do the critical work of setting up what your story is about and who your characters are. For instance, on page 27:

JAKE
Just Marines comparin’ tattoos.

GRACE
Yeah. Well, listen to me, Marine–

The lead insane Blackwater-type, Quaritch, is referred to as “Colonel” a total of five times and “sir” thrice.

And here’s something even more interesting. Cameron not only named one of his characters “Trooper” (and Trooper is not one of those cuddly Na’Vi), but to describe his own “bad security enforcers,” Cameron uses the word “troops,” or some variance of it, over 50 times in his scene descriptions.

There’s also a Colonel Lyle Wainfleet, a Private Fike and a General Dynamics (last one’s a joke).

And let’s not forget that all those “bad security enforcers” sound American, are dressed in military uniform, observe military protocols, and use military-style equipment to commit their evils. 

I also did a search to see if any of the characters referred to each other as “contractors” — nothing found. Same with “enforcers,” “mercenary,” “mercenaries,” or “security personnel.” Maybe my mistake was not searching for the phrase ”Blackwater types.” Buried in all this is a single reference to a private security force, but not a spoken one!

Check the script out for yourself. It’s not hard to do. Unless of course you’re a writer for the L.A. Times too busy trying on different outfits in front of a mirror before jaunting off to an interview. 

 
Do as I say, not as I do.

What Cameron wants is to convince us that what he says in some cafe means more than what’s in the actual movie. After all…

People are too literal:

Cameron has no patience for anyone attempting to make direct parallels between “Avatar” and Iraq, like the German journalist who told Cameron during a recent media conference that the film seemed like the story of the Taliban told from the movement’s point of view. He finds that kind of literalism “egregious” and “willfully ignorant of the power of allegorical storytelling.”

Translation:

9/11 imagery? I was as surpised as you were.

American Military? So they look, act, and talk like the American military. That doesn’t mean that’s some kind of allegory, Mr. Willfully Ignorant.

“Shock and awe” and ”pre-emptive war” equals Iraq? Next you’re going to tell me ”Remember the Alamo” is some kind of  Alamo reference.

The bottom line, Academy voters: Don’t listen to those right-wingers. “Avatar” is only about its oh-so important environmental message.

Americans must live with less:

“And it will be a dying world if we don’t make some fundamental changes about how we view ourselves and how we view wealth,” Cameron says. “I consider the wealth of this nation its natural resources, not the things that we’re brought up to think of as wealth. We’re going to have to live with less.”

The second bottom line is that it’s okay for the uber-wealthy Cameron to be astonishly hypocritical about this. Why? Because he confesses to his hypocrisy (who knew it worked that way?):

“And I know people will look at me and say, ‘Oh, he’s a rich guy. What does he know about living with less?’ I admit it’s difficult once you’ve reached a certain level in your life. But I think there’s a way to live and raise your kids with a set of values that teaches them the importance of hard work, the importance of respecting other people and the importance of respecting nature. And that it’s not this consumer society where you buy something and then throw it away when you get the next new thing, filling up huge landfills with plastic and electronics.”

I’m sure he means, other than the electronics created to handle all the technology he’s advancing, and other than the ”plastic” cases holding all those “Avatar” DVDs.  

Reader poll: Which is least surprising?

1. The guy who made the merchandise-crazy “Avatar” wagging his finger at the rest of us for consuming?

2. That the L.A. Times reporter doesn’t challenge him on this?

3. That the sun came up this morning?

The answer is all three. Rich, hypocritical leftist filmmakers telling the less fortunate to live with less and the water-carrying entertainment journalists who let them get away with it are as predicatable as the sunrise.

Money quote:

Cameron takes no small delight in the way conservative commentators have attacked the movie. ”Let me put it this way,” Cameron says during a recent dinner conversation at a Hollywood cafe. “I’m happy to piss those guys off. I don’t agree with their world view.”

A real reporter would’ve asked him how much delight he takes in this. And this. And this.

Unfortunately, you could flood the L.A. Times and not get a real reporter damp.

“We’ll stipulate,” the Editorial Board of the Times wrote, “that ‘Avatar’ promotes a liberal worldview. The question is, why does anyone care?”

The editorial goes on to say, “People are smart enough to separate fictional morality tales from reality.”

If it doesn’t matter what people communicate, then the L.A. Times should stop writing editorials and endorsing candidates, every student should be allowed to read the Bible aloud in class, Christian business men and women should be able to use Bible references in their product serial numbers, and “Triumph of the Will” by Adolf Hitler’s favorite filmmaker should be lauded along with “Birth of a Nation.”

Ironically, on the same day as the editorial in the Times, it was reported by the Associated Press that a Korean man had died after seeing “Avatar.”

Of course, the physical consequences of watching Hollywood movies like “Avatar,” although sometimes acute like the shootings after “Natural Born Killers,” are not nearly as influential as the social and psychological consequences of watching them.

Hundreds of thousands of studies have shown that the mass media of entertainment has an influence. If it didn’t, advertisers would not pay millions of dollars to advertise or place their products into movies.

That said, not everybody will be influenced in the same way. Different people are susceptible to different influences. Studies show that one part of the audience for a TV program or movie will adopt and act on the message (whether violence or sex or consumerism), one part will ignore the message, and one part will abhor the message. The blog postings on “Avatar” show that this research is completely accurate.

Hitler used the mass media to galvanize a nation to buy into the Holocaust. Lenin used the media to psychologically conquer Russia.

Obviously, the L.A. Times is merely dissembling because they like the message of “Avatar.” If it was Mel Gibson with a sequel to “The Passion of the Christ,” they would be screaming foul and calling for the movie to be banned before it could be watched by susceptible youths.

In the interest of honesty, perhaps the best thing that could happen would be for the L.A. Times to take the values expressed in this editorial at face value, and stop publishing altogether.

The problem with “Avatar” is not just that it has a “liberal,” if not radical leftist, worldview. The problem is that it promotes an Anti-American, Neo-Marxist worldview that is anti-capitalist and that romanticizes primitive pagan societies at the expense of Western Civilization, the Christian civilization that gave Hollywood folk like Mr. Cameron the liberty to bite the hand that feeds them.

For years, European-style leftists have been trashing America’s history and American values, including the American Dream and American Exceptionalism, in the mass media, the government schools, and the public universities.

Movies like “Avatar” are more than just “escapist fantasy,” as the Times Editorial Board puts it so disdainfully – and falsely. They are public myths that can galvanize a generation, in the same way that Hitler’s propaganda machine galvanized intellectuals and young people among what was, at the time, perhaps the most educated populace in the world, the German people.

That’s why people should care. That’s why people should be alarmed.

“A Warhol Christmas at the White House”
By Christopher Knight, L.A. Times

When it comes to art, the right-wing anti-Obama crowd hasn’t had a very good year. Repeated efforts to gin up outrage in a manufactured culture war have either fallen flat or proved downright embarrassing. (You can see some of them here, here and here.)

The latest fiasco is the Great Christmas Ornament Scandal.

On Tuesday, Andrew Breitbart’sBig Government blog got its knickers in a twist over one of the Obama White House’s myriad Christmas trees. (Big Government is a sibling to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood blog, which cranked up a paranoid fantasy about the National Endowment for the Arts a few months back.) The blaring “EXCLUSIVE” led with a blurry photo of a decoupage Christmas ornament adorned with the face of Chinese Communist dictator, Mao Zedong.

“Of course, Mao has his place in the White House,” Big Government wailed about the GCOS, taking the Obama-as-socialist meme out for a yuletide spin.

Except, it wasn’t exactly Mao. It was Andy Warhol’s “Mao.”

(more…)

“Even World War II is cast as a false model for American military domination.”

Los Angeles Times:

“Class division is a drumbeat throughout “The People Speak,” which is a primer of liberal ideology with a decided bent toward socialism; no one’s reading a few rousing passages of Ayn Rand’s, for instance. The letters and journals and speeches selected cover the American timeline, from the abolitionists through AIDS activists, but the theme of personal and political enfranchisement, tolerance, peace and American humility is the consistent theme. Equal rights, protection of workers, protection of children, even rent control are celebrated while concepts such as patriotism — the last refuge of scoundrels, according to pacifist and anarchist Emma Goldman — and national security are portrayed as the whip and cattle prod used by the power elite. Even World War II is cast as a false model for American military domination.”

At the UCLA event, producer Chris Moore said something about “The People Speak” being “two hours of anti-WWII programming.”

The bottom of yesterday’s New York Times’ review confirms the most troubling news:

The filmmakers are developing school curriculum materials for the film and releasing an extended version on DVD.

Just remember, the happiest leftist you’ll ever see is one planted firmly between parent and child. They consider it their God-given Mother Earth-given right to move every mountain in their pop culture and education kingdoms to brainwash.

Bygones Patrick, and Happy Thanksgiving.

Not to steal any of Big Government’s thunder, but in that massive ACORN dumpster dump a Leftist Decoder Ring was found that translates Left-speak into what the rest of us call The Truth. Mike Flynn was kind enough to let me use it in order to translate Goldstein’s write up…

Goldstein: It used to be the liberals who loved to play the victim. But now it’s conservatives who just can’t enough of that warm and cuddly feeling of being an oppressed minority.

Decoder Ring: Uh,oh, they’re starting to fight back.

–

Goldstein: Nolte proposes the wildly paranoid theory that even if you are a conservative working in Hollywood, you have to placate the Bush-hating liberals by taking shots at conservatives in your movies.

Decoder Ring: Wildly Paranoid = Does George Soros know he’s on to us? 

–

Goldstein asked “Blind Side” director John Lee Hancock about the Bush joke. Here’s his full answer:

“This wasn’t in the book. It was something I witnessed several years ago in a post office. It was not intended to represent Leigh Anne Tuohy’s feelings about Bush (she’s a conservative Republican) but rather the civil servant’s. Given Leigh Anne’s dress and demeanor I figured the civil servant would be knocking down Leigh Anne a notch by taking a slap at Bush. I always thought of it as a smile, not a laugh. After completing the movie and playing it for an audience I realized it was, for some, more of a laugh, and a cheap one to boot. I do regret not coming up with something more clever. But it wouldn’t be a movie of mine if I didn’t somehow figure out a way to piss off both conservatives and liberals.”

“After completing the movie and playing it for an audience…”? 

Wait … What?

…To the Decoder Ring!

Decoder Ring: See bull shit detector.

Bull Shit Detector:   A major studio film with an A-list star had no test screenings  prior to picture being locked?

The director all but admits the joke’s falling flat with audiences, so what was different about his test audience?  And you would think the studio would’ve made sure to hold early screenings for their target audience, conservative Christians. But it was only after the film couldn’t be edited that the joke fell flat? Every test audience hears the same speech, “This is a work in progress.” The whole idea of test screenings is to remove “cheap” laughs in order to avoid “pissing off” your audience.

I stand by my ”wildly paranoid” speculation, which boils down to … way too many Hollywoodists saw an early cut of the film and told the director:  “Dude, you gotta leave that in!”

“New Muhammad biopic drives the anti-Hollywood crowd nuts” 

You know, sometimes you just have to put politics aside and take a moment to admire the tactics of your opponents, because no matter how you slice it, that is one gorgeous humdinger of a headline.

At a glance, the headline intentionally furthers the whole “conservatives are intolerant” narrative with the inference that I somehow have a problem with a big-budget biopic about the prophet Muhammad. Later in his piece, Goldstein doubles down on that smear with this:

But as usual, the news has aroused a storm of derision from conservative bloggers, who always find a way to be offended by any high-minded Hollywood project.

Odd… Especially when the very first sentence – the opening line — of my piece says the exact opposite:

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a respectful, big-budget biopic of the prophet Muhammad[.]

Nowhere in Goldstein’s 650-plus worder does he quote that. But you have to remember that Goldstein’s not a journalist. He’s an ideological warrior who writes about movies (so am I … but I admit it), and so I tip my hat in admiration to his headline — a well-executed opening salvo.

The headline, however, is not just about smearing me. He’s after the whole “anti-Hollywood crowd” (i.e., conservatives). If you read Goldstein’s entire piece you’ll see that only yours truly is referenced or quoted. But that’s inconvenient, so one guy magically becomes a “crowd” and a “storm of derision from conservative bloggers.”

Don’t get mad, it’s the L.A. Times… I’m lucky every reference doesn’t read, “Small-Child-Hater John Nolte.”

The rest of Goldstein’s post just tries to make the same lame point that I (i.e., a “crowd” of “bloggers”) have some kind of issue with the Muhammad movie — blah, blah, blah — mentions a film that portrays Christians in a positive light (“a” film — as in “one” – as in I wouldn’t have bothered) — but here’s my second favorite quote:

Nolte conveniently forgets that the prime reason why Hollywood studios kept their distance from “Passion of the Christ” was because the film was viewed by many as offering an anti-Semitic portrayal of Jews, not because anyone had a lack of regard for Christians.

Good grief, where to begin? I know … let’s take Goldstein at his word:

First off, every single Hollywood studio interpreting a faithful retelling of the Gospels as “anti-Semitic” is its own form of ignorance and anti-Christian bigotry. Secondly, if those same studios were just as eager to “keep their distance” from films “many view” as bigoted portrayals of Christians, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

To hear Goldstein tell it, Hollywood studios wouldn’t go near a film “many view” as anti-Semitic, but as we now know throwing a little urine on Christ and stereotyping Christians as falling for a drop of piss as a divine sign is perfectly okay.

To hear Goldstein tell it, Hollywood studios won’t go near a film “many view” as anti-Semitic, but this was okay. And so was this. And this. And this. And a confession. And this. And this. And…

Look what I did. I listed a whole bunch of  high-profile studio films that “many view” as anti-Christian released by the very same studios who refused to release a film “many view” as anti-Semitic.

I’d list the independent films and television episodes “many view” as anti-Christian but the Internet only holds so much data.

I admire Nolte’s passion, but I can’t say that he’s made much of a case.

Then I thank you for making it for me.

Yeah, sure, every once in a while something that treats Christians fairly pops out of an industry that considers the very foundation of the Christian faith — the Gospels — anti-Semitic. And while these films are appreciated, they’re also notable exceptions. But when it comes to the serial offense of denigrating, ridiculing, stereotyping and marginalizing — anyone with one good eye and a shred of intellectual honesty knows full well that Christians stand alone.

So please don’t piss on my God and tell me it’s raining.

The man behind the “Rally ‘Round the Child Rapist” movement spoke this howler out loud for the L.A. Times:

“In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He’s not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. “Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion,” Weinstein said. “We were the people who did the fundraising telethon for the victims of 9/11. We were there for the victims of Katrina and any world catastrophe.”"

Read the full article here…. Patterico has much more here.