John Hawkins interviews Ben Shapiro on his new book, Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV. Read the whole thing; but here’s the conclusion:
Why couldn’t we see a Hollywood studio or channel do the same thing with entertainment that Fox has done with news? Why couldn’t we see a channel or a studio that has a slight rightward tilt instead of a big leftward tilt? Wouldn’t that capture a lot of audience that’s being lost?
It absolutely would, but here are a couple of problems. One is that when people watch news, they’re watching news because they’re interested in the political slant on the channel. Rightwing news picks up a lot of audience because a lot of people are dissatisfied with CNN. When people watch TV for entertainment value, the last thing they want is to be hit over the head with politics. That annoys them when they’re hit over the head with politics.
AdvertisementSo if you make a conservative television channel, people are not going to tune in because it’s a conservative television channel. What they’re going to do instead is… they’re going to say, “Is it entertaining? Is it good? Is the content something that I would want to watch?” So, what we need is to create programming that’s entertaining first and conservative second. We need to enter the market place not on a self proclaimed conservative channel, but on mainstream television networks by going to places like Proctor and Gamble and places like Johnson and Johnson and getting them to sponsor family friendly programming that’s really good.
This is where conservatives go wrong. Conservatives want to think politically instead of thinking entertainment wise. Liberals always understood that the key here is to make something really entertaining that happens to also be incredibly liberal — whereas conservatives, they take precisely the opposite approach. I mean, David Zucker’s a friend and I don’t want to talk badly about American Carol, but that was a movie that took the opposite approach and it didn’t work.
Right. We need to be more like Avatar.
Right, exactly, exactly. I mean the most conservative movies ever made are things like “Braveheart,” “The Dark Knight.” I mean if you think in terms of TV shows, “24″ is a show that a lot of liberals liked — not because it was conservative, but because it was exciting and it had a good plot.
Perhaps because of the original blacklist, in the era when film was still a mass media, leftwing Hollywood writers became masters by the late 1950s and ’60s at burying the themes of their stories in the subtext of their films, so that their stories could work on multiple levels. They were profitable, entertaining dramas first, agitprop second. (Of course this was back when Hollywood still produced dramas to be watched by grownups, before they concentrated on films where the plot was an excuse to simply blow stuff up, first via miniatures, and then CGI, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.) Leftwing Hollywood forgot those writing skills when it came to release all of their anti-Iraq war movies in the mid-naughts, causing the American public to simply ignore them. Budding conservative filmmakers and TV producers need to learn this lesson as well, and those who cross over to join with those of us already one with the dark side of The Force, such as David Zucker and his surprisingly painful American Carol need to remember it, if they hope to succeed on a mass scale.
There’s a huge difference between subtext, theme and “message” if you will, than outright propaganda. That’s why all the anti-Iraq war movies over the past few years were utter failures. They overtly blamed America not only for that war but the institution of our military in general as a tool of imperialism and brutality. Nobody wants or likes war (least of all the soldiers who have to fight and die in it). But to constantly blame the US for instigating all the violence in the world just turns everyone off – except for the Islamists and radical leftists in the world.
Good point. I amended the post to reflect that all of Hollywood forgot how to layer themes into the subtext of a movie by about 2002.
It’ll be interesting to see what David Mamet does next, should he actually not be blacklisted by those in Hollywood aligned with the party/movement of tolerance and inclusiveness!
I think Mamet is a good example of a (now) conservative writer who succeeds at entertainment first and foremost. I am thinking of The Unit. This is a positive and exciting look at our special forces without being a totally On The Nose lecture.
We need to think of new narratives or to revive the older positive ones, and make them GOOD STORIES. We’ve had 40 years of the anti-hero and the anti-American narrative, and the genre and its politics are worn out. People are sick of the negativity. How many more times can they make American Beauty or Easy Rider and make money?
Actually, there are a number of successful series that center-right TV folks could emulate; The Cosby Show, and Seventh Heaven come immediately to mind. But, part of the problem is that far too many critics see something that doesn’t follow the approved narrative, then that film or TV program is instantly labeled as right-wing nonsense. Case in point, Red Dawn. Not a great movie, but one that was instantly labeled as blatant pro-second amendment (or raving gun nuts in their minds) propaganda, and thus entirely void of any cinematic value.
I prefer the exploding stuff. Adult drama is a personal preference, not an artistic value. And Family Friendly, while important, is limited in scope.
It’s interesting that The Dark Knight is considered so conservative. I agree that it was, but the conservative themes supported the entertainment rather than the other way around. Entertaining first.
So why add the value judgment to the action/adventure sub-genre as if that’s all very nice, but we ought to want this other thing instead?
Ed you write about all the BIG A level films and the big A level conservatives who make them. They have the juice to fight any and all blacklist. Look at the heat Mel Gibson took with the PASSION three years before his DUI in Malibu. The leftist maniacs propelled his fortune into the billionaire status. Now Mel is bullet proof if he wants to make his own films, which he should and forget about ever working for anyone in this town again.
Take guys like me, an unknown filmmaker who is conservative and proud of it. I was blackballed in 1990s with my film FORGOTTEN HEROES and I was dealing with these leftist facist all alone long before all these conservative groups popped up around 2005. I made a pro vietnam film and the left made sure my film would never see the light of day. Since I don’t have the money to fight this onslaught I had to go underground and try to get this film to the public myself.
By the time I joined all these different conservative groups, who all preched “we all stick together and promote conservative filmmakers and their films”. I find that there are two blacklist the one from the left that will destroy your ability to earn a living. The other is on our side that welcome you into the group but won’t do anything what they preach, they just talk and talk how bad things are. There were three conservative film festivals, the first one, that was created only to promote the founders of that festival onto the FOX Network and they have burned all their bridges in the conservative world. The other two i was told I was the “poster boy’ for these festivals and then I was
politely ignore’ after being told I was definetly in them.
Since I am the only real independent conservative filmmaker who funded his own 35mm featured narrative film that has no F bombs in it and I honored and pay tribute to our Vietnam Vets, you would think someone would notice and act upon this. In the two groups that I am a member of, I sold 5 DVDs in one group that had about 100 members and I sold maybe 15 and comp 20 or so to that other group that has 1500 members. One would think I would at least sold maybe 100 plus as a sign of solidarity???
They all talk of fellowship and one for all and all for one. The fact is I am the only conservative filmmaker with the only feature film out there donating 25% of the DVD gross sales. You would think that, that alone would be an incentive to buy the DVD and give it to a vet as a gift.
I have found that conservatives will eat their own and that is why no one wil get ahead in this business and break the lefitist blacklist. I am selling a film that is now 22 years old since I finished it. It is a period piece, it isn’t BEN HUR or A BRIDGE TOO FAR. If it was I would be were Mel is and we all know that Mel doesn’t hang out wth any of us. I just have the only film that is done in an old fashioned war film style like the old studios would make. It isn’t a great
film, it isn’t a bad film… like a local wine it’s not bad!
This may all sound like sour grapes to my fellow conseravatives most of who have never made a feature film. Most of the people in these groups are work for hire. I started this film in 1988 before any of these groups, websites were even thought of. All through the 90s I was attacked by the left, they tried to steal my film, I even sued a distributor and put the bum out of business. I made my bones in this business when most here were in high school.
None of this stops me from going after my goal. I am dealing with the public directly and selling my own film to people that love our vets and want to see films that honor our country. The results are on my website.
I have a letter from President Bush after he saw my film. How many known and unknown indie filmmakers have a letter from President Bush? My site http://www.forgottenheroesthemovie.com has reviews, testimonials from Vietnam Vets, and al those that bought my DVD since 2006.
Even actor Michael Moriarty wrote in his review. “Forgotten Heroes is actually unforgettable”
I even got this review from John Nolte in 2005 who is now the editor of Big Hollywood!
“Apocalypse Now has the big movie stars. Platoon has the budget. Full Metal Jacket has Kubrick. But Forgotten Heroes has the truth. And when history does what history always does best and shakes itself loose of the blistering lies told of and about America’s involvement in Vietnam, it will be Jack Marino’s Forgotten Heroes that’s first acquitted.
Watching the history of Vietnam through the eyes of mainstream Hollywood you’d never know our goal was to help a people retain their self-determination. You’d never know that what the critics wrist-flicked as a civil war was in fact a national act of fratricide; one brother trying to oppress and butcher another. You’d never know the consequence of our leaving — our breaking our promise to our allies — our caving to the anti-war left — was a holocaust of millions. And you’d never know that our men and women over there were honorable, self-sacrificing, heroes. You’d never know this because in order to present its twisted view of the war mainstream Hollywood must demonize our troops. It must lie.
In Forgotten Heroes we finally see an honest portrayal of these good and decent men who left their homes and risked their lives for something bigger than themselves. Marino’s film reminds us how that once meant something. Marino’s film also reminds us that when those men are forgotten by a government unwilling to finish what it started, the price they pay doesn’t end with the war.
Using relatively unknown actors and a meager budget, Marino expertly mixes themes larger than politics with a briskly paced emotional story and action scenes that defy that meager budget. And watching Forgotten Heroes is a reminder of just how far Hollywood has fallen.
There was a time Hollywood believed in spreading liberty and stopping tyranny. There was a time it marshaled every force at its disposal because it believed everyone, regardless of skin color or religion, deserved freedom. That belief died sometime in the late 1960′s. And from it sprang an ideology of anti-Americanism and pro-Communism that has infested our films for forty years and lives on today in the form of Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, and all the others who find the tyrants Castro and Saddam more tolerable than our own President.
But that’s just politics. We can disagree on politics. But what about the men? Why must the heroes of Vietnam be slandered in film after film to support the misguided political agendas of the Hollywood left? Can’t we draw a line of decency somewhere?
Well, Marino has drawn a line. He put his money and talent and reputation on the line to tell the truth about these men. And for over fifteen years he’s shown this film to anyone willing to listen. Anyone with enough of an open mind to consider that there are still stories left untold in Vietnam. Stories of heroism and sacrifice. In other words: The Truth.
Every viewing of Forgotten Heroes makes these heroes less forgotten. Every viewing jabs a finger in the eye of a Hollywood that lies about them. The forgotten heroes of Vietnam have a friend in Jack Marino. And so do maverick filmmakers everywhere with a dream. With a love of country. With a love of freedom. With a love of truth.”
Now, with a review like this one would think that the conservative world would back this film as one big army to use FORGOTTEN HEROES as a batterring ram to break this blacklist that each of you are all going to face. I just have a 25 year jump on everyone. Having dealt with and negociated with Studio executives, I know what a few phone calls in this town can do to your employment prospects.
I defied everyone to get this film made and I refuse to quit and abondon my companies only piece of equity. I am dumbfounded that my own conservatives continue to treat me as the drunk in the crowed elevator. This attitude is self defeating for all of us in the end. We will surely all die on the vine alone with this attitude that conservatives had in this business.
The left will band together and win battles ans the wars. We should all learn to fight like the leftist and take back this town that was once ours.
Hell, what do I know, I just made a feature film that never had a 50 million dollar gross opening weekend. Instead of all of us fighting each other because of petty jealously and since that system hasn’t really worked out for the whole conservative movement. You would think that between the lot of us we would come up with an idea to band together on one finished project and shove it down or up whatever the opportunity presents itself to our lefist pals in Hollywood.
In the meantime I continue to I sell one DVD at a time on radio shows across the country and my on my own radio show Jack Marino Warriorfilmmaker Show on LA TALK RADIO.
The potential to take this town back is looking at all of us in the face and I would hate to think that I am the only one that sees this???
I’ve never heard of “Forgotten Heroes”. As of now, it is on my shopping list.