Adam@Home by Rob Harrell for March 04, 2010
March 03, 2010
March 05, 2010
Transcript:
Adam: Wow. Ten movies nominated for best picture. Laura: It's sort of a disgrace, right? Adam: Why would they do that? Laura: Marketing ploy. More movies can call themselves "oscar nominated" now. Adam: It's a bunch of baloney. Laura: I know. So shocking. Adam: It's almost like Hollywood has suddenly lost its integrity.
Furienna, individuals within Hollywood fall mostly on the left side of the spectrum, but that’s hardly surprising because for 400 years show business has been condemned as inherently immoral by the Conservatives. It has long provided a haven for homosexuals, atheists, vagabonds, Jews, dreamers (and dream-sellers), and all sorts of other misfits that have been considered “less than respectable” (and often “threats to public morality”) by Church and State. If actors, writers, and directors give an imbalanced proportion of money and support to Liberal causes and candidates, it’s partly because the Liberals have never tried to run them out of Dodge.
But as a collective, “Hollywood” is about as “left wing” as a beer commercial. “Find out what the audience wants, and give it to ‘em.”
The United States, for better or worse, is one of the few developed countries that doesn’t subsidize its national film industry. The Swedish government, for instance, supports Svenska Filminstitutet, to finance and promote Swedish film. In the same sense that American television has to convince advertizers that people are going to watch their shows, Hollywood doesn’t put money into movies that it thinks people aren’t going to go see. If they thought there was a market for Conservative-friendly entertainment, no studio would let anything as ethereal as a principle get in the way of making a buck off it.
FYI, “An American Carol” opened on over 1,600 screens nationwide on 10/5/08. Its weekend gross was less than $4,000,000. By 10/26 it was down to 109 screens, and that weekend’s gross was $60,000. Its total box office take was just over $7 million, on a $12 million estimated budget. And yet Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, and Jon Voight are still working, while still complaining.
And again, attending Communist Party meetings, or even being a MEMBER of the Communist Party, has never been illegal. It was quite fashionable, in the 1930’s. The House Un-American Activities Committee didn’t limit their witch-hunt to current, or active, or dues-paying members, much less anyone who was ever accused of engaging in actual subversion. It was a guilt-by-association Ponzi scheme, where, once suspected of disloyalty, the only way to keep your job was to give the HUAC other names to chase down.