Hollywood to Red State America: Drop Dead
That’s been the way the industry has worked for some time. It intensifies during an election year, of course.
This …. is different.
We’re seeing a multi-front attack on Red State America, the likes of which we simply haven’t witnessed before. Blame Donald Trump, our safe space age or how social media turns nearly every aspect of our lives into an ALL CAPS affair.
It really doesn’t matter. The entertainment industry is ready, willing and able to insult roughly half the country. Again and again.
Take the recent Emmy Awards telecast. A night dedicated to excellence in television turned into a Daily Kos convention. The winners lashed out at Trump, the “patriarchy” and repeatedly sang Hillary Clinton’s praises. They pined for transgender actors and Asians to get more gigs. Behind the scenes, one Emmy winner compared Trump to Hitler.
She’s hardly in exclusive company.
Imagine being a rock-ribbed Republican watching the ceremony from the comfort of your home. How can you process it all without being bored, insulted or even angry?
Standard Operating Procedure
It’s simply how every major awards ceremony goes now. The recent BET Hip Hop Awards had stars insisting white police officers were at war with unarmed black men.
Does anyone expect the next Oscars telecast to be much different?
RELATED: Hollywood Declares War on Trump
That’s only one of many ways Hollywood liberals are attacking right-leaning consumers. The late night comedy contingent, save Jimmy Fallon, is so overwhelmingly progressive even left-leaning outfits have taken note.
The comics tee off on Trump, Ted Cruz and other GOP politicians while occasionally tut-tutting Clinton’s serial transgressions. They often rant without a hint of humor. It’s unadulterated rage, not satire. The words chosen are mean, delivered with spittle-flecked rage.
F*** You, Red State America
Need an example? Remember when Samantha Bee christened her “Full Frontal” late night show by calling Cruz a “fish-faced horses*** salesman?”
Now, we get a PSA assault against Red State America. Celebrated director Joss Whedon of “Avengers” fame gathered his A-list pals, including that film’s Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Don Cheadle, to rally Americans around Hillary Clinton.
The clip attempts to be nice, begging citizens to vote in a vaguely nonpartisan way. The PSA’s true intentions, however, are crystal clear.
Cheadle dubs Trump “a racist, abusive coward who can permanently damage the fabric of our society.”
Got that, Red State America?
The spot’s attempts at humor are lukewarm at best, particularly when Downey, Jr. jokes that Ruffalo will “take his dick out” if we vote the proper way. And we’re promised more videos are on the way.
This Is ‘Justice?’
Meanwhile, members of the other superhero squad recently assembled to protest a pipeline project.
“Justice League’’ actors Ben Affleck, Ray Fisher, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, and Ezra Miller have taped a public-service announcement endorsing the Rezpect Our Water campaign opposing the [Dakota Access] pipeline. The Change.org petition, started by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, opposes a private oil company’s plan to build a pipeline that would cross the Missouri River less than a mile from the Standing Rock Reservation and potentially adversely affect the tribe’s land and water supply. “As a gang of earth defenders, we want to send a big shout out to the Oceti Sakowin and those who stand with them in opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline,’’ Miller said.
Do we get to hear the other side of this debate? Not from Affleck and co.
Hollywood is just warming up. The cast from the decidedly left-leaning NBC drama “The West Wing” will soon reunite on Clinton’s behalf. The actors will criss-cross the critical state of Ohio to coax voters that a serial liar like Clinton is the nation’s best hope.
Just imagine the rhetoric to flow from those appearances. It might make Bee Blush.
And then there’s “Idiocracy.” The 2006 comedy keeps getting name-checked during our current presidential campaign. That means it’s a perfect time for a reunion roughly a month before Election Day – Oct. 4.
Sponsored by Alamo Drafthouse, the film reunion and a subsequent Q&A will be screened to the chain’s theaters nationwide. The event is presented, in part, by local League of Women Voters chapters.
That group proclaims its nonpartisan bona fides. A tiny bit of digging reveals something else.
Will that be reflected in the presentation? “Idiocracy” director Mike Judge will be on hand, too. Judge wanted to direct a series of “Idiocracy” themed campaign ads against Trump but couldn’t legally do so.
Think he’ll be fair and balanced during the accompanying Q&A? Or will it be another Hollywood lecture?
October Surprise?
Illegal immigration remains one of the hottest issues in our country. Along comes “Desierto,” a new movie featuring an All-American killer picking off innocent Mexicans trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
The film’s release date? Oct. 14.
All of this comes after eight years of outright celebrity propaganda on behalf of the Obama administration. The most egregious example? Celebrities shilled endlessly for ObamaCare, which has lived up to virtually every conservative criticism lobbied against it. And then some.
What does it all mean?
Celebrities simply don’t recognize the impact of their actions. Or they don’t care. That’s what Jack Black told this reporter earlier this year when quizzed about his support for Obama’s Iran deal. That’s the same deal that apparently is far worse than we were told by Team Obama and the press.
Black and co. should care.
The age of the movie star is long over. YouTube celebrities often rank higher with consumers than traditional TV and film actors. The very best Hollywood has to offer – Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks and Will Smith – can’t guarantee a film’s success.
Brands are Hollywood’s coin of the realm, not A-listers. That’s despite how hard they work promoting their pet projects. And then they gather to cut PSAs in which they alienate a large swath of the American public.
Huh?
Think the public isn’t paying attention? Ratings for the recent Emmys telecast hit an all-time low. The audiences for Oscar night telecasts are on a downward trajectory, too.
The recent summer season produced an ugly number of box office flops. That included “Ghostbusters,” which featured a unique promotional strategy. The stars, director and producer insulted potential movie goers as sexist when they lacked enthusiasm for the reboot.
Celebrities’ success depends on the goodwill of their audiences. Without it, they’re back working regional theater shows for a meager paycheck.
If the industry continues to dismiss Red State America, they may return the favor. If they haven’t started already.
Last film I saw was Benghazi. One of the stars is John Krasinski who is married to Emily Blunt who famously said, after becoming a US citizen, that when she saw the Republican debates she wondered what she had done. So I hated giving the Krasinski family any of my money. My daughter works in Hollywood and the hypocrisy of these people is breathtaking. They want McDonalds to pay $15 an hour but they pay my daughter $12.71 and offer “internships” which are no more that working for free for a weekend.
She is a British born actress, and most of the folks over there don’t understand our politics at all. I have given her the benefit of the doubt. I agree with the rest of your comment though. Good insight.
I’m shocked, just shocked that the niece of Alexander Cockburn is a hypocritical leftist.
Dear Hollywood, you might remember that you need ‘us’ more than we need you.
Dear Red Staters–I realize the temptation here, but you should NOT use things like BitTorrent and other file copy mechanisms in order to still get access to hollywood movies without the elitist progressives (and the governments) getting their cut of the booty. That would be WRONG.
Really, really wrong.
So don’t do it.
Well said. I’d like to add that you not use programs like http://www.utorrent.com/intl/en/, which is a very tiny and efficient torrent service.
Much appreciate the warning. Heaven forbid that these people who so disrespect me, my family and my culture should be cheated out of their third vacation mansion by violating the copyright laws they paid so much for! That would be…is “wrong” the word I’m looking for? That or “justice”, one or the other…
These idiots are so deluded that they can be a climate change warrior while having a carbon foot print the size of a small town. They can ‘see’ that Trump’s a racist but can’t see their own hypocrisy? Clearly they don’t know anything at all.
Given that most of them were never scholastically minded at all, that doesn’t surprise me in the least.
They have China and the world. They don’t care.
I think this is it exactly, the movies they make these days may flop here but anything they put out that shows America in a bad light is going to have lines down the street elsewhere in the world so goodbye Red State America , hello Moscow and Beijing.
They are editing their movies for the Asian markets now, and American movie audiences can go fly a kite in their opinion.
Glenn Reynolds often suggests repealing what he calls the ‘Hollywood tax cuts.’ President Trump would do well to look to the entertainment industry for revenue.
To thank them for their support in 2012, Obama gave them an outlandishly massive corporate tax break. You notice now that when they got their first corporate tax breaks back in approx 2010, they no longer complain about corporate welfare. That would expose the serious hypocrisy.
“Think the public isn’t paying attention? Ratings for the recent Emmys telecast hit an all-time low. The audiences for Oscar night telecasts are on a downward trajectory, too.”
Meh. It won’t matter until they start feeling it in the pocket book. Otherwise, to paraphrase a famous movie line, they will absolutely not stop, ever, until you — Redstaters — are dead.
It IS us or them. I know that you don’t want to give up television — your football, your dramas or your cartoons — or your movies.
But it’s US or THEM. Time to act. Boycott them all.
Hollywood cozened up to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, making sure any hint of criticism of them or of fascism was suppressed. They did this to protect their overseas market.
Now they’re doing the same. The Mission Impossible and Bourne series use traitorous Americans as villains. It’s always the CIA, or elements within the IMF, never the Chinese or Russians.
Follow the money.
They’re doing it more with regard to China. China is now the 2nd or largest movie market in the world, depending on the genre.
Want to know why they are making more Fast and Furious movies, why Star Wars added Donnie Yen to its Rogue One, why Pacific Rim 2 has a Chinese female lead, and why the most recent Transformers movie had a plot-ignoring trip to China? $$$$
Donnie Yen is actually a very good actor. I have watched him several times and enjoy his performances.
If you look up the educational background of all these actors you’ll find they didn’t do a lot of school. Most of them graduated high school but not all. Why does the media pay attention to uneducated people….never mind.
“If the industry continues to dismiss Red State America, they may return the favor.”
Speaking for myself, I’ve entered movie theaters precisely twice in the last five years. In both cases, the movies were disappointing. I suspect a lot of folks out there have similar stories to tell.
The only movie I paid for in the same time span was Dinesh D’souza’s film. I turned off to these clowns long ago. Their innate hatred of their own customer is astonishing. These people are so shallow that if they were likened to a pool of water a tadpole could not swim in it. Now that’s shallow.
Guardians of the Galaxy was the first time in almost 20 years that I stepped foot into a theater. But then, some movies just have to be experienced on a big screen.
Hollywood is dead to me. I had Netflix a couple years ago, and all the newer stuff really sucked.
I try and stick to the older stuff and the British stuff. Much much better than Hollywood now.
The last movie I saw in a theatre was 300 with my grandmother. It was her choice for our afternoon together…
I think I would enjoy spending an afternoon with your grandmother. You lucked out!
The best part is how she meets me for the first time everytime we hang out now. :p 84 and doing well if you discount the alz.
that was supposed to be a joke?
It’s not funny.
Sorry to hear she is ill. I can totally relate to your experience though, thanks to my late FIL. The early stages are pretty much like what you describe.
I see about two theater-movies per month, and I must say that I enjoy the majority of them. However, speaking of television (Hollywood) programming, over 90% of what I watch is top-notch. I truly believe that tv is better today, than EVER before. #JustSaying #MoviesRule #TVrulez #AvoidingThePoliticalTopicAltogether
Nope. Speaking as one who lived through the era of great television, TV is not better than ever before. It is PC agenda driven and at least 95% is a waste of time.
As we all know, entertainment (of all kinds) is greatly subjective and people can, and do, have wildly differing tastes when it comes to their preferred entertainment. I am nostalgic, as well, for many classic movies and classic tv shows, however… as Billy Joel once sang: “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.” PC, or not, I have a growing list of over fifty great modern-day show favorites from American-TV, as well as BBC, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon-originals. To anyone who says “There’s no good tv today,” I reply: You aren’t watching the right shows. Surely, and obviously, you and I, Susan, do not have the same tastes in television programming so I won’t bother to post my faves-list here, nor will I ask you for your classic-faves list. Neither wouldn’t likely help either of us, even if we were to watch the shows on each other’s lists. So, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
I find I agree with Susan. Some people might be able to get into modern TV series, but I find the writing to be painfully poor. I can’t even think of a TV series that came out in the last 10 years which I enjoyed watching.
And to a point the networks know that the writing has been getting poorer. Part of the reason they went so heavily into reality TV series was the fact that it did not require them to hire writers who’d have to come up with complete storylines and dialogue.
Paraphrasing myself: As we all know, entertainment (of all kinds) is greatly subjective and people can, and do, have wildly differing tastes when it comes to their preferred entertainment. I am nostalgic, as well, for many classic movies and classic tv shows, however… as Billy Joel once sang: “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.” I have a growing list of over fifty great modern-day show favorites from American-TV, as well as BBC, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon-originals. To anyone who says “There’s no good tv today,” I reply: You aren’t watching the right shows. Surely, and obviously, you and I, Mark, do not have the same tastes in television programming so I won’t bother to post my faves-list here, nor will I ask you for your classic-faves list. Neither wouldn’t likely help either of us, even if we were to watch the shows on each other’s lists. So, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Very true that we have to agree to disagree. But that is one of the joys of today’s media market. Everyone can find something they like.
On that, Mark, I totally agree! 🙂
Idiocracy is reality without being realized by Hollywood. They created Obama out of thin air. Trump is the political opposite. Why shouldn’t Hollywood appreciate Trump when they created him? They are hysterical about Trump when he won’t do any harm.
I don’t think they care very much. They’re already richer than God, and they’ll still be rich, albeit slightly less so, if they continue to insult and alienate conservatives. Moreover, I don’t think it has that much effect on their audience numbers or income. Fact is that most Americans today, including most so-called “conservatives,” are tethered to their smartphones, their TV, their NFL football, as everyone else, and really aren’t going to give up their pop culture obsessions for the sake of a “principle.” They will continue to spend their money on pop culture for the most part.
Don’t be too sure about football. I think no Breast Cancer Awareness started the decline.
Yeah, the Save the Day video was particularly condescending: jokingly telling you exactly how they planned to manipulate you and then – slam! – there’s the anti-Trump message.
Amazing how this presidential race has gotten so many in the media and entertainment industries to drop the mask. It’s not pretty.
Not surprisingly, Joss Whedon’s site doesn’t state it’s anti-Trump or pro-Hillary, just a get-out-the-vote drive. It’s not until you see the vids that you realize you’ve been had.
Joss Whedon tried so hard to stay apolitical and he took some serious slamming from others in Hollywood for doing so. I have enjoyed most of his movies.
Judd Apatow OTH can take a long walk off a short pier.
Ditch Hollywood ASAP. Vile scum.
Odd, because I thought Idiocracy reflected the gradual weakening of standards of society, the sort of thing much loved by postmodernists and encouraged by progressive education. I’d say it can’t be interpreted any other way. Of course, it probably originally had no message (no problem!) and that’s why the fit is so clumsy now.
Good commentary. Ultimately, though, if people really care they need to vote with their purse: Don’t like the political stance of an actor or actress? Stop seeing their films. And as for awards shows, I don’t understand why people watch anything other than “people’s awards” programs anyway…
We are already seeing quite a few people doing this. That’s why there were so many flops this summer and why award shows keep seeing their viewer numbers drop. Sadly, the message has been slow to penetrate the bubble that most of Hollywood lives in.
I have said elsewhere that we need some conservatives with funds to hunt for and back some good writers and presenters and start building a counterweight to the liberal bastion that is Hollywood. Sadly, unless I win the lottery, I’m not in a position to do it myself.
I agree that is necessary in order to effectively push back, and I’ve read it elsewhere. I doubt it will happen, however, because so-called “creative types” are almost uniformly leftists. Most conservative people look for a solid, reliable line of work, and don’t go into art-like fields. So I think there’s a self-selection process that will limit any substantial move in that direction.
Thanks for the stereotyping!
@disqus_jsZpleP5rU:disqus – how *dare* you stereotype @mrdoug1:disqus by suggesting that he was stereotyping ! You are just being a judgmental h8er !!!111!!!
As a conservative/libertarian with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from a well known (in that world) school, He’s right.
You will find more conservative sociologists than conservative painters (fine art, not house). More libertarian Teachers than libertarian rock stars.
It doesn’t mean that *none* exist, it’s just that we’re more likely to go find something with benefits like a steady paycheck and health insurance for the family than self-fulfillment and dream chasing.
It’s not stereotyping. Have you any understanding of what was once called the Romantic Revolution? It occurred around the same time as the age of enlightenment and it clearly presents the notion of artists and writers, etc as romantics and often considered rebels or revolutionaries what we would call alt-life today. And you call yourself professor?
There are plenty of creative types who are conservative. I can think of several writers who publish tales that are staunchly conservative in tone.
Now it is true that many conservatives who can be creative don’t go into the art fields, but that is where we need to make changes. We need to offer an alternative to Hollywood for employment. The fact that Youtube currently allows anyone to step up on a soap box or create content provides a new avenue to get conservative art out there. Also some authors have gone the self-publishing route rather than try to get a conservative story past the gatekeepers at many of the publishing houses. That is what we need to encourage.
Sadly, not everyone can take the risk to create and most conservatives I know aren’t the type to just jump into a risky profession like writing or acting. That’s what we need to provide somehow. a way for creative conservatives to test the industry before they take the final step off a cliff.
Mark – I’ve tried & keep trying but the problem is right-of-center ppl don’t want to be involved with the film biz @ all; all I ever hear when I pitch projects to them is “Hollywood’s liberal/leftist” to which I respond “why do you think that is? – BC you are ceding the floor to them by not getting involved/producing/backing projects.”
Really – conservatives have NO ONE but themselves to blame for this.
So if you are trying to pitch a film project, take it out of Hollywood before you pitch it. With the technology available today you can literally film an entire movie with a cell phone. (It’s been done and the finished product in at least one case has ended up in theaters.) A $1200 computer can do the editing, so all you need are people willing to take the time to write and act.
Don’t pitch a $100 million blockbuster. Try for something simple and demonstrate that a good conservative tale can make money. Then use that proof to attract more people.
One of my ideas (which I don’t have the space or money to work on.) would be to set up some variant on a cable TV channel using one of the many streaming services available. Come up with a few good show ideas and use an old barn as your soundstage/set. If you could start with 1 hour of new material every night and slowly build up, you’d eventually have something worth quite a bit I expect. You just need to find writers willing to volunteer time at first.
Wrong. You could not be more so.
Tell me why. I’m open to edification. ;<)
Of course a person can choose to apply a litmus test to anything they want but I’d rather ignore everything an actor says off camera and enjoy their work on it’s own merit.
Those award shows are much too long anyway. I can see if they won an award in IMDB and avoid the nonsense in their speeches.