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Conservatives in Hollywood?!
Brian C. Anderson EMAIL
It was hard to parody Hollywoods loony limousine liberalism this summer. Im coming out, trumpeted actress Jane Fonda about her plans for an anti-Iraq-war bus tour (thankfully later canceled). I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnamif stand is the right word for her 1972 lovefest with the enemy. Paramount announced that conspiracy-minded director Oliver Stone, who described the 9/11 terrorists revolt as a legitimate fuck you, fuck your order to culture-controlling American movie corporations (of all things), will helm Tinseltowns first large-scale drama about the attacks. David Koepp, co-writer of Steven Spielbergs remake of War of the Worlds, likened the movies ravaging aliens to the U.S. military in Iraq. And on the Huffington Post website, such celebrity lefties as Rob Reiner and Laurie David huffed daily about President Bushs outrages against civil liberties, Mother Earth, and all thats proper.
But guess what: ever more Americans are shunning Hollywoods waresand disgust with Left Coast politics, both on and off screen, clearly plays a part. In a time of declining moviegoing, what gets people out to the theaters, it turns out, are conservative moviesconservative not so much politically but culturally and morally, focusing on the battle between good and evil, the worth of heroism and self-sacrifice, the indispensability of family values and martial honor, and the existence of Truth. Hollywood used to turn out a steady supply of such movieswatch just about any film from its Golden Age of the thirties and fortiesand it still makes them once in a while (sometimes thanks to off-screen lefties like Steven Spielberg). We may soon see a lot more of them.
Theres no question Hollywood is reeling. Film attendance is down a wrenching 12 percent from last year, and a May USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that nearly half of American adults go to movies less often than they did in 2000. Some pundits have blamed the rising price of tickets, but in constant dollars a ticket costs less than it did 25 years ago. Others believe that its all those DVDs that people are buyingexcept that DVD sales are slumping, too. The most likely explanation is the left-wing politics. You can date the recent box-office decline from the end of the summer last year, with the intensification of the presidential campaign, notes conservative film critic and talk-radio host Michael Medved. It wasnt just Hollywoods hostility toward President Bush; it was the naked, raw partisanship.
If even one in ten Bush voters boycotted Hollywood after hearing the latest Tim Robbins anti-Bush diatribe or seeing yet another big-screen conservative villain (like the Dick Cheney look-alike who nearly destroyed the world in last years The Day After Tomorrow), it would add up to 6 million fewer viewers, Medved points out. This is what many people in the movie industry dont get: when you express hostility to conservatives, many Americans feel that youre expressing hostility to them.
Surveys support Medveds theory. A Hollywood Reporter poll finds that nearly one in two Americans might shun a film starring an actor whose politics repulsed them. The politics is definitely having an impact, observes Govindini Murty, an actress and editor of Libertas, an influential conservative film blog. Do car companies insult Republicans in their ads?
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http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_urbanities-conservatives.html