Tue. May 29
Where Are the Conservatives in Hollywood?
Editor’s note: This piece is part of a symposium in which a variety of writers and thinkers weigh in on the relationship between conservatism and pop culture.
http://lashawnbarber.com/
Conservatives and Republicans didn’t always have a challenge getting ahead in Hollywood–they were Hollywood during its golden era, including Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, and Frank Capra. All of these men understood pop culture and connecting with a mass audience intimately. But beginning in the late 1960s, they began to find themselves on the outside looking in.
When the late Andrew Breitbart was interviewed by Peter Robinson on the long-running series Uncommon Knowledge back in 2009, the subject of Hollywood and conservatism quickly came up. Andrew had cowritten Hollywood Interrupted in 2004 before launching full-steam into his role as a new media muckraker. He gave a brief history to Robinson about how easily the legendary Hollywood of the 1930s through the 1950s was absorbed by the New Left of the 1960s.
While George McGovern lost in 1972, Breitbart said to Robinson, “Hollywood was taken over by the left and they have never relinquished it. And in fact I would argue that the right has abrogated its place in Hollywood because they were told that you are not wanted here anymore and they never fought for it. So I don’t know who I have more contempt for, the left for its totalitarian behavior of those that disagree with them or the right the conservative movement just for allowing it to happen and not to fight back.”
But prior to the late 1960s, in order to get their scripts passed by the Hays Office (which, also fell during this period, and arguably not at all coincidentally), Hollywood screenwriters of a hard left or liberal persuasion had to bury their themes deep into the subtext of a movie. In a way, this actually benefitted many productions, by allowing them to viewed on multiple levels. The original Manchurian Candidate is a liberal indictment of the McCarthy era–but it also holds up as a taut, standalone Hitchcock-style thriller. The Hustler is a liberal indictment of blacklisting–but it’s also one of the greatest sports-themed movies ever made. Dr. Strangelove condemns the U.S. Air Force and the entire bipartisan American defense apparatus put in place after World War II to fight the Cold War. It’s also funny as hell.
Today, both sides in the culture war have forgotten those lessons. The anti-Iraq War movies of the late Bush era were notorious bombs at the box office. Why? Their creators were more interested in agitprop than entertainment. And on the other side of the aisle, when David Zucker directed and cowrote An American Carol in 2008, the laugh-a-minute humor that dominated his earlier films such as Airplane and The Naked Gun took second place to overt jingoism.
There were powerful themes that drove the American films of Hollywood’s golden era, whether it was one man fighting against the odds to save his homestead in the American westerns, or the dissipated men and women of the film noir era, fallen because they’ve abandoned God and morality. But these messages were subordinated to hard-hitting action and intense drama.
The best television still seems to understand this concept, whether it’s the pro–War on Terror themes of NCIS, or even the fart jokes that keep the audience laughing on South Park, while its writers sneak in libertarian themes on a regular basis. If conservative film and TV makers want to make headway recapturing the ground that, as Andrew Breitbart told Peter Robinson, their predecessors abandoned without much of a fight in the late ‘60s and early 1970s (or steal a little of Hollywood’s lunch via YouTube, Roku, and other alternative means of distribution), they’ll have to put entertaining ahead of teaching. But the result will be a win-win for their audiences, their careers, and eventually, maybe even the country.
Ed Driscoll is the San Jose editor of PJ Media.com, who blogs at http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/
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I find some of your examples poorly framed. Manchurian Candidate might be in some sense “a liberal indictment of the McCarthy era,” but it’s also a movie where the villains are actual Communists agents attempting to destroy the US. The film’s buffoonish McCarthy figure is actually their tool.
As for Dr. Strangelove, the reason its satire continues to engage modern audiences, in contrast to the more earnest and dour but otherwise nearly identical Failsafe, is that it in fact does NOT put blame on the military. Aside from a few nutjobs the military is portrayed as highly professional, intelligent and motivated. (Indeed, it’s those qualities that make them dangerous). Instead, Dr. Strangelove is a mordant comment on human folly in a larger sense. Note how childish and ineffective the politicians in it are, and contrast how Peter Seller’s liberal but ineffectual President is portrayed vs. Henry Fonda’s in Failsafe. Kubrick’s film might argue that once we developed the level of technology we have, the end of the world is pretty much a given. Despite this, it looks upon even apocalyptic human foolishness with some degree of jaundiced affection, instead of despair.
There are actually many Conservatives in Hollywood. However, many of us have to hide in the shadows for fear of employment issues. Some have the courage to speak up and take a stand. I have a blog that allows many of us in the industry to voice our opinions. It is http://www.hollywoodrepublican.net
I’m sure many of your readers will agree with the issues presented therein.
Thanks Frank. We’ll check it out.
I think it’s mostly the Coke Pepsi thing. America is big. So unAmerican is something because America is big, Contrast.
What is significant at present moment is republican is conservative, and Democratics are “progressive” or Lefties. The lefties have captured the Dems- and driving everyone is vaguely sane out of the party, though many are holding on- not due to loyally, but habit.
It could said the conservatives have been campaigning and advocating their view, but I think they have not done as much selling ideas to people, rather they inherited supporters who have fled or been rejected from the dem body.
It doesn’t seem to me that Breitbart was conservative- he is liberal who was smart enough to recognize the dems ain’t liberal. Unless liberal means statist and/or socialist.
Hollywood or for that matter Wallstreet can have as element backstabing and street fighting or what could called amoral behavior. Both also have element which is ethical, trustworthy, honest- moral behavior. Or the rich and the nouveau-riche [to use ancient term:)]. nouveau-riche: dynamic, rich: static.
Conservatives are going disprove of amoral behavior.
Lefties promote amoral behavior- there is no such thing as evil- it’s all relative.
So you have sorting process.
The Mob is not liberal it’s conservative- because it’s system that survives. Any system
that survives has to have some kind rules [whether amoral or not].
Once you got the Soviet state, it’s ruling members were mostly conservative- because it has be in order to survive.
So it seems pretty obvious that since Hollywood survives as a entity, rather ever changing
“blob” of disorder, it has to be run by conservatives. Run by people who want to make
money: capitalism.
And these follow the conventions and use whatever talking point are acceptable. They not particularly interested in beliefs in regard left or right.
The main thing you got in Hollywood is a lot of incompetence.
The Left doctrine is utter nonsense- dress up to seem somewhat rational.
And some story for a movie is pitched as something dressed up to fit “political correct” view is so it’s acceptable..
And something that actual good or interesting, won’t be understood by most of these clowns. Real controversy is unappealing or too risky.
Of course there is some very talented and smart people in Hollywood. They may or may not “invest” in some good ideas, but they know what they doing and can make a story work. They may or may be in rut, but the make a good and consistent desirable product.
The main problem is the idea of dems being liberals and reps being conservative, it’s more accurate to say reps somewhat rational and sane, and dems have lost and losing their minds.
No doubt when a the wall of reality hits the dems, they regain some sanity.
And possibly reps may come to be seen as mixture of conservative and liberals- as it used to be regarded. And so eventually get back to having two political parties each having both conservatives and liberals with the wackier ones marginalized.
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One of the many qualities that made Andrew Breitbart great was that he really did understand and embrace pop culture without agreeing with its politics. He was comfortable with rollerblading and other such things. How many conservatives of his age are?
kenbegg wrote, ‘I find some of your examples poorly framed. Manchurian Candidate might be in some sense “a liberal indictment of the McCarthy era,” but it’s also a movie where the villains are actual Communists agents attempting to destroy the US. The film’s buffoonish McCarthy figure is actually their tool.’
That’s the point. The movie’s message is that it’s the RIGHT that the Communists are working through, not the innocent liberals (who in real life actually were Communists). The left has always claimed that totalitarian governments are of the right, even if they were actually born from the left.
But the Left also maintains–and pretty much always has–that there was never a real Communist threat to begin with. Hence ‘red scare,’ ‘witch hunts,’ ‘paranoia,’ etc., terms we still hear all the time today. Hollywood continues to make movies about that era that uniformly maintain that there were no *real* Soviet supporters back then, only people whose passion for social justice outweighs their minor foolishness is going to one or two party meetings.
Even if MC makes it’s McCarthy analogue look personally like a chump, it also clearly says that those who dismiss Communism as a threat are chumps too. I’m pretty right-wing, but I don’t see how you can say MC even tilts to the left. It’s a lot more cynical than that, as is Strangelove. Th is why it still hits its mark so well.
Now, the *remake* of Manchurian Candidate…
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