HollywoodCons?
Because the way for conservatives to improve their lot in Hollywood is to make Epic Movie: Michael Moore Edition, complete with a Bill O’Reilly cameo!
I won’t argue with the notion that liberal political ideas dominate Hollywood — they do. But obvious, obnoxious fare that openly targets — or let’s be honest, panders to — an aggrieved political niche is hardly the right response, and it certainly won’t help conservatives make inroads in the culture industry. At best, with some luck and financial success, this approach might help the right carve out a small, separate space in which a few films a year are targeted toward their interests but are largely ignored or even ridiculed by the mainstream — call it the Tyler Perry strategy. That might satisfy a small band of activists and partisans who’re mainly concerned with liberal bashing and promoting a particular political agenda, but it won’t substitute for the sort of large-scale cultural influence the right’s been chasing for decades. Over the years, conservatives have proven remarkably adept at confining themselves to cultural ghettos; it’s almost as if the right courts ridicule and marginalization. Yes! That’s it! Let’s make a film making fun of Michael Moore! Fine, he’s a blowhard — that’s not in question. But for Hollywood conservatism to work, it’s going to need a unifying idea a lot more powerful — and a lot more positive — than a tired hatred of some dumb schlub documentarian.
This movie sounds lame. I thought the “The Incredibles” was a very effective, fun, and humorous fusion of libertarian and socially-traditionalist themes. If it could make a progressive like me find its values narrative compelling, it’s pretty likely a median voter would also find it persuasive. Or maybe the film is just a liberal’s fantasy of what a conservative story should be like since it’s not so conservative after all…sort of like Alan Alda’s Arnold Vinnick character in the West Wing.
— Julio Gonzalez Altamirano · Aug 15, 10:07 PM · #
Peter, I think you’re absolutely right. This sort of thing (not confined to this particular medium, there has been a proliferation of books that seem to be trying to be “counter-Michael Moore” type thingies) tends to be cripplingly unfunny and likely to strike a chord only with those who go into the cinema with their critical faculties turned off at the mains.
As you say, one wouldn’t care to deny the liberal tilt that exists in Hollywood (made the more irritating by its combination of a thin veneer overt piety atop a business environment that is known for its profound cynicism), but as far as I’m concerned the cure is worse than the disease when it comes to this sort of stuff.
— Anthony · Aug 16, 12:44 AM · #
I think conservatives think about and care about Michael Moore a lot more than liberals do.
— Mark in Houston · Aug 16, 01:02 AM · #
To counter Mark: I think there is a parallel between Michael Moore and, say, Ann Coulter. On the one hand, side B likes to hold them as examples of why side A is nuts or evil or icky. On the other, no one of any intellectual seriousness on side A has any respect for them. On the third, they are both really, really popular.
Michael Moore, Ann Coulter, Al Franken, Michael Savage, and their ilk are important, not because they shape liberal or conservative thought, but because they shape the thoughts of liberals and conservatives. To the proper sort of elitist, these are not the same thing.
— Blar · Aug 16, 11:49 PM · #