7 Compelling Stories Hollywood Won’t Touch

Tell a great story.

Simple. Straightforward.

That’s certainly true … to an extent. Certain stories are far more appealing to Hollywood
screenwriters than others.

Sometimes we get competing projects on the same theme. Remember the “dueling asteroid” films from the 1990s? Or how studios raced to make Janis Joplin biopics … until no actual movie materialized?

There are other reasons why some stories don’t grab screenwriters’ imaginations. Their content is, shall we say, inconvenient to their ideology.

Consider the following seven subjects. Each packs a storytelling wallop. Drama. Tension. Scandal. Intrigue. Pain. Loss. Yet here’s betting we won’t see a feature on these true stories any time soon.

They don’t fit the liberal narrative. Not one bit.

• Venezuela’s Collapse: This is an ongoing story, but the narrative has been tragically clear for some time. A nation flush with oil is reduced to mandating two-day work weeks due to its massive energy crisis. What happened? Socialism is the short answer. The late Hugo Chavez set the populist wheels spinning? Who knows how much despair its population will feel before the economic ship is righted? One thing is clear: Director Oliver Stone wouldn’t go near a screenplay telling what really happened to Venezuela or the fallout from “Mi Amigo Hugo.”
• Cindy Sheehan: This mom turned antiwar activist once might have drawn Hollywood’s attention. Sheehan’s son died while serving his country in Iraq, and her rage became a symbol for those against President George W. Bush’s Iraq war. She hounded Bush, desperate for answers as to why her son had to die. The press lapped it up. Who couldn’t understand a mother’s anguish after losing her son, even if one didn’t agree with her positions? Sheehan’s story didn’t end in a tidy bow by liberal Hollywood’s standards, though. She kept on protesting, even when Bush left office and gave way to President Obama. Suddenly the microphones weren’t there to catch it all. She also entered politics, running against liberal icon Nancy Pelosi. What began as a “fight truth to power” yarn that could draw A-listers became a story Hollywood would rather ignore.
• The Benghazi Mom: It’s a minor miracle we got a movie about the terror attack in Benghazi. When a director like Michael Bay wants to tell a story, it gets told. But what about the tale of Patricia Smith? She lost her son, Sean Smith, when Islamic radicals stormed the U.S. compound in Libya in 2011. Her suffering wasn’t immortalized in the press like Sheehan’s public mourning. Smith did, though, start a campaign to call out former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her Benghazi response. Smith said Clinton told her the U.S. government believed the attack stemmed from a YouTube video, not a premeditated assault. How did the former First Lady answer that charge? She essentially called Smith a liar. That’s conflict at the highest levels of government, a story ladled with grief and anger Just don’t expect to see it unfolding at a theater near you soon.
• Fast & Furious: “Operation Fast and Furious” attempted to help the ATF shatter drug cartels within U.S. borders. How? Let a flood of trackable weapons into our southern neighbors. The results? More weapons in the hands of Mexican criminals and the death of hundreds of Mexicans plus U.S. Border patrol agent Brian Terry. Maybe many more. What followed made the sad story juicy by Hollywood standards. Executive privilege. Partisan bickering. And, till this day, a genuine question as to the real motives behind the operation since no effort was made to track the weapons in question. What more could a screenwriter want?
• IRS Targeting Conservatives: Here’s the scene – a housewife motivated to get politically involved for the first time is caught up in government red tape. That’s only the beginning of her nightmare, a tale that shouldn’t happen in America, particularly during an election year. But it did. The IRS’s behavior under President Obama should have been a massive scandal. Instead, the press downplayed it at every turn. It’s still teeming with personal stories waiting to be told, people fighting a government crushing their liberties. And is there a more hissable villain than Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the heart of the scandal who never paid for her actions?
• The Kate Steinle Story: This beautiful San Francisco resident was walking with her father when a shot fired by an illegal immigrant previously deported five times struck her. “Help me, Dad,” Two hours later she was gone. “Help me, Dad,” were her final words. Jim Steinle didn’t simply grieve her passing. He started a campaign to ensure others like here weren’t hurt by violent illegal immigrants released via pitiful border policies and sanctuary city policies. He cuts a heroic figure, turning his family’s loss into a way to prevent more heartache. What a role for an older actor eager for Oscar’s attention.
• Solyndra: The solar energy company’s collapse involved government pressure, a president’s repeated stamps of approval and deep ties to the same president’s fundraising arm. The results? Roughly 1,100 people lost their jobs and taxpayers on the hook for $535 million in federal loans. The little guy en masse got the shaft, while the government avoided punishment. It’s a David vs. Goliath tale, the kind the industry supposedly loves. Not this one, though.

photo credit: Cindy Sheehan@ Austin City Hall via photopin (license)

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