Over and over and over we keep reading about how Hollywood’s holiday box office was some sort of silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. But once again, the context-challenged entertainment media only tells us half the story. Here’s a sampling:

Box Office Mojo:

Based on studio estimates, the four-day weekend will end up at over $201 million, or up around 10 percent from the same four-day period last year.

DHD:

Let’s party hearty with the end-of-holiday box office for end-of-year 2011. Or let’s not (and say we did.)… [S]ources tell me this final weekend will definitely be up over last year.

Los Angeles Times:

Most films sold more tickets over the New Year’s holiday than the Christmas holiday, with family films benefiting from the biggest bumps. Overall, the weekend was up 10% compared with the same period in 2010.

Cinema Blend:

Sales were up considerably from last weekend’s Christmas holiday and the new year is off to a solid start.

Except…

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A woman’s self image is everything in the eyes of the media. Whether you’re short, tall, skinny, or heavy, the media makes us feel like we’re never good enough. The celebrity and model appearances that are flaunted in magazine spreads and on the red carpet present the illusion of perfection when reality speaks a far different truth. Women of all ages are most affected by this facade of the ultimate physique when according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, only five percent of females possess the ideal body type. But what is the ideal body type?

YouTube

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The media is saturated with glorified gaunt glamour that has either been photoshopped or obsessively abused through eating disorders or drug use. This prototype of the supermodel body is painted as the epitome of attraction, and thus promotes an unattainable goal for most young women. When 69 percent of 5th to 12th grade girls say the images in magazines affect their idea of what a perfect body is, and 47 percent admit to wanting to lose weight as a result of these images, society has a problem and the media is responsible for corrupting the minds of our youth by poisoning their self-esteem. Although being healthy is ideal and definitely a goal that should be actively pursued, this dangerous misconception of having to be less than perfectly healthy to be attractive is what has to change.

This past week at the MTV VMA Awards, Disney actress, Demi Lovato, hit the red carpet looking gorgeous and healthy in a silver sequin dress. Some tweeters had posted in response to her body that “her arms were looking chunky.” Lovato, who is currently recovering from a battle with anorexia and bipolar disorder, strongly and proudly retorted, “Get over it… I’m healthy and happy.” This is an advancing step for young women in the media who are taking a stand toward their critics and promoting a healthier lifestyle.

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One of the pitfalls of conservative media is “me too!”-ism, the idea that taking a successful mainstream concept and blatantly injecting conservative proselytizing into it is a winning strategy.  Thankfully, the new cable channel RightNetwork strives to create original content that doesn’t fall into a predictable formula, easily apparent from their new series “Whaddya Know, Joe?” starring Joe Wurzelbacher, the man who single-handedly derailed Obama’s centrist, middle-class-tax-cut image in the 2008 Presidential campaign (note to leftist hair-splitters: yes, his first name is “Samuel”).  Joe’s aim is simple:  find people, hear their stories and opinions, get a better idea about the state of our nation.

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“Whaddya Know” describes itself as “part 60 Minutes, part Oprah, and 100% like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” but there is a crucial difference between Joe and the hosts of those other shows.  Whereas Oprah and others fought tooth-and-nail to get where they want to be and thus try to make their shows all about themselves, Joe is an accidental celebrity.  He’s quietly taken on the role of a household name without adorning any of the ego that normally comes along with it, and that completely flavors the tone of the show.

Instead of taking place in a bright TV studio with a trained-seal audience, the set for the talk show-esque portion of the show looks like it was built inside a barn; the tone is folksy, intimate, humble.  Instead of hogging the spotlight in every conversation and interview, Joe is completely content to give guests his full attention and let them speak at length.  It’s a refreshing respite from the all-but-scripted, pandering-for-applause fake style of conventional talk shows.

However, those worried about Joe not having the chops or charisma to carry an entire show, rest your troubled hearts; he’s got plenty of backup.  Like Ed to his Johnny, like Andy to his Conan, like Garth to his Wayne, co-host Rodney Lee Conover is a quirky, energetic counter to Joe’s laid-back, dry humor. Their interplay with each other and guests such as Nick Searcy from the show Justified finds all parties comfortable and casual yet lively.

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By now, there’s little I can say that would shed light or comfort on the ghastly events that took place last Saturday. As an average joe with a penchant for thinking the obvious, two words came to mind, regarding the shooter: “grudge,” and “crazy.” Nothing good comes from an equation in which those two variables are involved. And while these events are rare, it doesn’t make them any less horrific.

So let me focus instead on the media’s coverage, particularly the nonsense on the web, which seemed a stark contrast from the actual facts, as they unfolded. After all, it’s the facts that matter, not the opinions of an editorialist with an axe to grind. What bothered me most – the drooling opinionating that sprinted from the gate, faster than the facts could keep up.

And this rush to judgment reveals the media’s not-so-secret biases toward certain political personalities and movements. Among a few prominent leftist columnists, celebrities and talking heads, their responses barely concealed a morbid glee in getting their assumptions met – using incendiary rhetoric that they themselves pretend to condemn. The shooting was the best thing that ever happened to their own reservoir of anger. It was a leftwing Lalapalooza.

Actually, it was like watching an opening at Walmart, with sweaty hacks in a tug of war over a table of identical, knee jerk assumptions. All designed to control the narrative. To get there first, to fill a void. It was the world’s worst cocktail party, without the cocktails – featuring Jane Fonda, KooKoo Krugman, Piers Morgan, the puppets at Daily Kos and Media Matters – and even WaPo columnist Courtland Milloy, who wanted “to spit on” the tea party, now blaming the right for the shootings. Capping it off, we have a Democrat who wants to ban symbols that may seem threatening to elected officials. I believe that’s symptom one in the diagnosis, “God, You’re Stupid.” (more…)

Hollywood, hear our plea:  Could you make some mainstream movies that don’t suck?  There’s nothing worse than a Christmas season where going to the movies seems about as appealing as sharing a straw with Lindsay Lohan.

Throw us a bone – how about more than just one or two flicks a year not targeted to the demographic that thinks Lady Gaga is a boundary-pushing icon of limitless creative vision?  Maybe a couple that are not focused on shiny supernatural creatures who chat about their feelings and stare longingly into the eyes of dead-eyed starlets acting as the surrogate for the millions of lonely shut-ins who adore them?  Just a few films not aimed squarely at creepy man-children dwelling in their moms’ Kleenex-strewn basements wishing they too could winch their bloated tushes into tights and fight crime just like their cinematic heroes.

How about more than just a handful of movies for men and women who need more than five hands to count out their age, who breathe through their noses, who have lives?  I have some dough – well, at least until the President and his fellow travelers declare me rich too – and I’d like to take my hot wife out once in a while to see a movie.  I used to go a lot, a few times a month.  But it seemed that five years ago there were always at least a few movies that piqued my interest.  Perhaps it’s me – perhaps I’m too demanding, what with my stubborn insistence on interesting stories told in a coherent manner by competent actors.  Or perhaps it’s just that the recent crop of movies is exceptionally crappy.

Let’s address the curmudgeon question here and now – yes, I have occasionally turned my hose on those damn kids when they messed up my lawn, but hobbies aside, the fact is that Hollywood is both leaving money on the table and sacrificing what little artistic credibility it has left by ignoring the normal adult demographic.  It appears that Hollywood has simply thrown in the towel and decided to focus on feeding formulaic moron fodder to a waiting cohort of slack-jawed ninnies eager for the next story about a magical robot or a superhero with issues. (more…)

So last week I coined a new disorder, called Islamophobia-phobia, or fear of being labeled Islamophobic.

As you already know, Islamophobia is defined as a fear of Muslims. So Islamophobia-phobia is a real fear of a perceived fear.

So, who are the culprits behind the disease?

Jackasses in the media.

To quote a perceptive tweet by a dude whose handle is “politics of fear:”

“How can the media say were Islamophobic, when we all died from avian/swine flu?”

That’s it, nutshell-wise.

The fact is, there is no group more quick to judge, more prone to exaggeration or sensationalism than the media. They are the haymakers of hysteria. The litany of scares propagated by the media is so long, that if I were to list them, you would fall asleep, dropping your bong shaped like the head of Robert Bork. (more…)

–NSFW Video– 

Roseanne’s blog:

Israel: What a vile and hideous country:http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1280589635  I have reached the point, after reading today’s news where I can really no longer support in any way anything having to do with Israel or its apologists.  I know that this means I will most likely never work in US media again.  I have tried to navigate my way through attempting to be a person of moral courage and a performer in the US.  I have come to the realization that there is just no way to  remain mute on the subject of the horrid oppression by Israel of its neighbors and workers and have any conscience at all.

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Oliver Stone can stays stuff like this because he didn’t direct “The Passion of the Christ.”

NewsBusters:

Stone said that his upcoming Showtime documentary series for “Secret History of America,” seeks to put Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

“Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support,” Stone told Sunday Times’ reporter Camilla Long.

Stone said that, “Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30 [million killed].”

The Sunday Times interviewer then asked why there was such a focus on the Holocaust.

“The Jewish domination of the media,” responded Stone. “”There’s a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years.” (more…)

I once suggested to Big Hollywood editor John Nolte that to draw a tidal wave of comments we needed to somehow figure out a piece where I simultaneously attack birthers, praise Sarah Palin, and raise issues involving Star Trek.  Now, I guess I’d have to somehow work in drug legalization, too. 

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The tsunami hit in the wake of my recent column on Sting, Soros and their pro-drug partnership, which both cast doubt on the sacred truths of the very vocal drug legalization fans and defied George Soros.  Accordingly, I had to be stopped.  What happened next tells us much about the tactics, techniques and procedures we will come up against fighting for our culture – and how we can fight back.

The counter-attack came first came in the form of over 400 angry comments from drug legalizers (oh, sorry – “decrimminalizers”) and bong-fueled Twitter tweets from hemp-focused lay-abouts.  Next came columns by Huffington Post nonentities and other dope-o-centric fellow travelers.  Topping it off came at least one semi-veiled threat.  (more…)

It didn’t take a genius to predict the butt-boy entertainment media would pimp “Fair Game’s” lies or wouldn’t bother to challenge director Doug Liman’s absurd claim that his film wasn’t about the politics. This was scorpion-and-frog easy to predict. What we couldn’t predict however, was whether or not Liman and his Media Palace Guards would get away with it.

If the comments section at one of the top insider film sites is any indicator, the cat has escaped Leftist Hollywood’s big bag of b.s. And not just there. Out of three websites I found where reviews allow comments, all three had commenters challenging the film’s political narrative. See here, here and here. You want to know why the elites hate everyday Americans? This is why. Our saying it like it is always rubs our overlord-wannabes the wrong way. 

Mark Twain was right that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. But the truth has a longer shelf life.

And from what I’ve gathered, there are so many lies in the film you’d need a flow chart to keep track. The film refusing to mention that the State Department’s Richard Armitage was the actual leaker of Plame’s name is only the beginning. And you need not sit through Penn’s over-acting to gather that Liman never mentions that a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report showed that Wilson lied about his trip to Niger. From the Washington Post, of all places: (more…)

[Rosie] O’Donnell said she wanted to “build on what Oprah began and excelled at for 25 years, in my own style and with new adaptations and ideas.”

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So as the anger surrounding the health care bill escalates, many in the media are reporting how the anger surrounding the health care bill is escalating!

Now I’ve been down this road so many times I could navigate it blindfolded and covered in peanut butter.

It goes like this: for the media, anger is only okay if its targets meet their stereotypical, romanticized criteria. Meaning: the corporation, the conservative, the daddy who never loved them.

Here’s a list of people doing angry things the media is okay with:

-People calling Bush a Nazi
-Students and non students rioting on college campuses
-Animal rights freaks dousing rich folks with paint
-Actors wishing average folks would get rectal cancer
-Bureaucrats labeling military vets as potential violent right wing extremists
-Radical environmentalists advocating violence against loggers
-Pranksters throwing pies at conservative commentators (you know, somehow they never pie Michael Moore, which makes him sad; he likes pie) (more…)

The entertainment media’s treatment of Sarah Palin and her family has been abhorrent.  Like their biased and unjust hard news media brethren, entertainment outlets have gone out of their way to tarnish Palin’s image.  While tabloids, semi-legitimate entertainment programs and celebrities issue incessant praise for President Obama and his leftist policies, Palin is showered with insults and inappropriate slurs. And let’s not forget the ongoing insensitive questioning about the birth of her special needs son, Trig.

Levi Johnston and reality star Kathy Griffin

Since the end of the 2008 campaign, some of the most glaring examples of the entertainment media’s obsession with anti-Palin coverage have centered on Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol Palin’s baby.  Levi, a guy who would be better suited to appear on Tool Academy than he would on any legitimate hard or entertainment news program, has been reaping the benefits from his connection to Palin.  In addition to his highly-publicized Playgirl shoot, Levi has been circulating entertainment shows in an attempt to pass off his melba-esque persona as something less than bland. (more…)

Wise, wise words from Michael Yon: 

Now is not a time to psychoanalyze the attacker by using a media-supplied telescope that already said he was dead, and that there were multiple attackers.  Media: STOP, please.  There will be time to pursue answers and justice after Christmas.  We must remember that family members lost loved ones just before the holidays.  Justice and answers will come with time.

When stories of this kind break, the weatherman becomes the most accurate part of the newscast. We know nothing right now. We know less than nothing because too much of what we’re told is wrong.

All we know is that people are dead and wounded, and families and loved ones are suffering. That’s all that matters right now. The rest is noise.

Somewhat fresh off the trail from despicable attempts to distort the events and facts surrounding Columbine, 9/11 and the American health care system, filmmaker Michael Moore is back to perpetuate new mis-truths and to face off with a new “villain” – capitalism. In case of shear irony, in his new film entitled, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” Moore sets out to unravel the very system that gives him notoriety, fame and, no doubt, opulence.

Fortunately for Moore, we live in a free society. Despite the fact that his films are comprised of antics and obnoxious absurdities that only small-minded Americans would believe in their totality, he has every right to continue his idiocy. It is the coverage of Moore and his half-witted films that cause one to question the media’s promotional motives.

Mainstream outlets can’t seem to get enough of Moore, as they offer him positive coverage galore and provide him with valuable air time to push his insidious projects. Meanwhile, conservative film projects receive little to no praise – or even attention, for that matter. (more…)

From The Washington Independent:

On September 10, Andrew Breitbart launched his new site, BigGovernment, with hidden-video camera footage of two young conservative activists who’d gotten Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) employees to advise them on hiding prostitution profits from the IRS. Within hours, Breitbart was doing interviews with reporters who wanted to know how, exactly, the story had come about, and why Big Government was releasing the videos and the identity of the muckrackers — 25-year-old James O’Keefe III and 20-year-old Hannah Giles — so slowly.

“It was strategized,” Breitbart told TWI this week, so “that they would be deprived of the type of information that a defense attorney would try to gather in order to create a defense.”

Who were “these people?” They were not just the leaders or members of ACORN itself. “They” were the Democratic Party, the White House, the progressive Center for American Progress and its president John Podesta. The “Democrat-media complex” is Breitbart’s name for the whole apparatus. “We deprived them of information,” Breitbart explained, “so that they couldn’t come up with a vile, kill-the-messenger attack with the media doing the groundwork for them.”

The success of Breitbart’s strategy was immediate, stunning, and is still ricocheting around the political world. Five days after the story broke, the U.S. Senate voted 83-7 to prevent ACORN from receiving any federal funding. Two days later, the House of Representatives did the same. Meanwhile, Breitbart was talking to more reporters, amused at how the “kill-the-messenger attack” was playing out. When one report from The Washington Post called him for a story about O’Keefe and Giles, Breitbart compared their tape to the photos of Abu Ghraib prison released in April 2004. (more…)

Recently, I had a very odd experience.  No, I didn’t wake up 30 years younger and with a full head of hair.  That would have been odd but nice, whereas the experience I actually had was merely bizarre.

Like most bloggers, I write for more than one website.  It’s rather like being a syndicated columnist, except that little or no money changes hands.  But, as a writer who hopes to influence public opinion, you want to have as many readers as possible.

The strange event took place on a Tuesday.  It came in the form of an e-mail from Jonathan Garthwaite, who runs Townhall, a website I’ve contributed to for nearly four years.

The message read: “Dear Burt: As everyone is painfully aware, the economy is forcing companies to make difficult decisions.  Townhall.com is no different.  We take our commitment to our readers and our bottom line very seriously.  Similarly, we are constantly reassessing our editorial lineup.  We end up making tough decisions that aren’t always fun. (more…)

So if there was one thing I learned from the coverage of those big protests last weekend, it’s that signs matter.

See, when the media covers an event they don’t really want to understand, they will focus on the protester’s placards. But as a regular, long-term consumer of all things media (and fiber), I cannot recall this ever happening with the media coverage of the WTO protests, the NOW marches, the no-nuke concerts, the anti-war demonstrations. If I remember correctly (and regular use of Ambien has made it a challenge), the media instead chose to focus on the heroic faces of the protesters. Often, these folks would be huddled together, holding a candle, singing “Give Peace A Chance,” or something equally annoying. Fact is, they were young, heroic, speaking truth to power – so who cares if the signs were offensive: that reality would only undermine the ideal. That’s why you never saw them. (more…)

A couple of weeks ago I was in New York, meeting with network television producers about a series they wanted to run about a story my production team and I have been reporting for more than five years: the narco-insurgency currently wreaking havoc on the U.S. and Mexico.

Just as we all sat down around the conference table, my cell phone rang. Given the importance of the meeting, I normally would have let the call go to voice mail, but when I looked at the number I knew I had to pick it up. This person would not be calling unless it was an absolute emergency. I opened the phone and didn’t even get the “Hello” out of my mouth before a shaken and somewhat scared voice said, “Rusty when can you be here?”

The caller was my most trusted source in Mexico. Slightly stunned by the abrupt nature of the call, I responded inquisitively, “Pretty soon, I should wrap up here in New York in a couple of days, why?”

“We have to talk right away, we have a huge problem down here and you’re in the middle of it,” he exclaimed. (more…)