Don’t Back Down
If there’s anything more tiresome than listening to conservative complaints that the media hates them and the polls are rigged — amazing how that meme turned around in a hurry after last week’s debate! — it’s listening to Hollywood conservatives complain that they’ve been blackballed by the Industry due to their political views. While this may be true in some cases, particularly in the “below the line” crafts, it’s difficult to reconcile with the larger picture — which is that “conservative” movies do get made. And “liberal” movies. And movies with no political point of view at all. Amazingly, even in Hollywood, not everything is about politics.
Because the movies that do get made are, by Industry standards, “good movies,” which is to say scripts that are well-crafted and well-executed on the page, that somehow will speak to the Zeitgeist two years from the minute the exec picks it up, can be made for a reasonable amount of money (always excepting superhero tentpole films), and won’t get the exec fired the next day.
In fact, based on my perhaps atypical experience, I would say very few things are politically tinged at the working level. ( I know that many of my screenwriter colleagues are going to disagree with me on this one.) I’ve worked with one of the great producers, the late Daniel Melnick — a good old-fashioned red-diaper baby and proud of it — and our relationship was warm both personally and professionally. I count among my friends some of the most famous, and famously liberal, names in the Industry. If a conservative can’t work with progressives in Hollywood, he or she is going to be very lonely and very unemployed. As I wrote in 2009 in Dan’s obituary:
One final point, and it’s important, especially these days: politics never entered into our relationship. It’s not that we didn’t discuss them, but it was after the fashion of Yankee fans versus Mets fans: it never affected our professional and personal love for one another. Dan was a classic NY/LA liberal. I was, well, the multilingual son of a Marine Corps officer who had spent much of my career in eastern Europe and the old Soviet Union, who was there at the Berlin Wall with a sledgehammer when the Wall came down 20 years ago next month. But – and this is a truth I keep pounding home on both sides of the contemporary political divide in our wonderful town – none of that mattered if the story was served. And that’s the way it should be. In the end, in our business, story – and execution – will out. The rest is, or should be, commentary.
Sure, as John Fund notes over at NRO, the critics are hating Won’t Back Down, while audiences are loving it. But so what? That says more about the skewed state of American journalism these days — even sportswriters and food critics now feel free to toss in a Bush or Romney drive-by when the spirit moves them — than it does about filmmaking. And I highly doubt whether Maggie Gyllenhaal or Viola Davis chose to attach to the project because of innate conservative sentiments.
The first lesson any fledgling screenwriter learns, or should learn, is to write a part an actor wants to play. Your script is not primarily about its music cues, its philosophy, its social consciousness, its crackling dialogue, or its politics. It’s about getting made, which means it’s about character.
Especially yours.
By the way: the most “conservative” movie ever made was written by a card-carrying Communist. Enjoy:
(Thumbnail on PJM homepage based on a modified Shutterstock.com image.)
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Dr. Helen responds at PJ Tatler.
movies do get make.
resist we much.
Heh. It goes right along with his idiotic claim that “not everything is about politics”.
Hello? Everything is about politics. Politics touches every, single facet of your life – whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not – it is reality.
Every penny you spend is dictated by politics. Oh, not when you’re buying something on the black market? That market couldn’t exist without politics.
This website wouldn’t exist. The internet wouldn’t exist. When I hear or read “not everything is about politics”, I can immediately disregard the rest of the frothing stupid emmanating from the source. That source lives in a place called Denial. It’s a magical fairy-tale land filled with rainbows, unicorns and Barrack Obamas.
People genuinely interested in making a compelling, successful product should be able to put aside their differences and make that the goal to focus on.
Do you really believe that Liberals read this website?
Or did Big Bird tell you to say that?
Nothing like a Regressive Socialist to explain to me how “people should…”
People don’t need you to tell them how to behave, or how to think, or how your view of the universe is really the moral view. You’re one of those Regressives who think human beings “should want to be better.” How sad is it for you that they don’t?!
I was once in a movie theater with my wife. The movie hadn’t started, but the theater was showing some commercials. At one point, a college-age lady two rows ahead of us said to her father, “Why can’t we just not use money for everything?”
To which her father said, “You’re an idiot.”
Isn’t it funny how even communists enjoyed making films for money. Daggon capitalists!
This proves the point.
Back in the day when Conservatives held the winning hand more often than not, Commies and Lib-terds got to make their movies.
Now that the Lib-terds hold the winning hand more often than not, guess who has to hide in the bushes with Pee Wee Herman?
Yep. Conservatives.
Conservatives are not the problem. People with a political view are not the problem.
Liberals are the problem. And they will remain the problem until we run them out of the MSM, out of Education and out of Hollywood. Only this time, no more Mr Nice Guy. This time, we shame them in the cultural town square so badly they never want to come back.
Why don’t you ask Stacey Dash if there is any political bias in tinsel town?
Mel Gibson, anyone. Did the unspeakable. Made a reverential movie about Jesus Christ. Then it became open season for character assassination. Any good lib actor/director would have been forgiven for his drunken anti-sematic rants. But not Mel. He had to be ostracized and tarred and feathered for proving that Jesus could sell.
I never heard boo negatively about Gibson before Passion of the Christ. Then it was pile it on. The un-PC Apocalypto pretty much was the nail in the coffin for his Hollywood career. Another progressive blasphemy. Blaming his career implosion on the drunken rants was just an excuse. Hollywood only disects your personal life when you need a comeuppance. And thumbing your nose at the liberal Hollywood establishment is certainly grounds enough.
Sean Penn’s or Russell Crowe’s or Alec Baldwin’s ridiculous rants make the news for one or two days. How many WEEKS did we hear about Gibson’s meltdown? Again. Punishment for not being on the right team.
THIS!
It’s not us who have a problem with the live and let live motto. It’s them.
No Drama Obama was in Hollywood for a fundraiser on the day of the filming and gives a brilliant Cameo appearance in the video @ 1:47. It is rumored he will be nominated to receive an Oscar award for this performance–a worthy companion to his Nobel Peace Prize.
I don’t know much about Hollywood process but I see your point – as a screenwriter or producer.
However, if your project gets picked up or goes into production you get your money, correct? And then go on to sell another project. But if the actors that are openly conservative and involved in your movie get a severe backlash and fewer future opportunities it doesn’t seem like the same dynamic to me.
I’m a stage actor and I’m right wing. (VERY right wing.) When I’m in the dressing room, the chatter is all about raping, torturing and murdering Bush, Cheney, Romney, etc. (There’s always a sadistic sexual aspect to their assassination fantasies. Hmmm…)
I never get into it. There’s just no point. I stay out of it. I do not want to talk politics when doing theatre. I just want to get along with the lefties and have a smooth run of the show. …But they won’t let that happen. I was outed and they decided what my viewpoints were without ever asking me. They decided I was a racist, etc.
Some people have shunned me, but I can still get work. (I’m just so damned awesome that they need me! Ha!)
Even so, I bristle at your remark that it’s tiresome to listen to conservative complaints. A conservative can be jolly, congenial and willing to get along and they still won’t let him join in any reindeer games.
Conservatives have a right to complain.
You’re in a tough spot. Good luck.
I read the article and couldn’t understand why the conservatives were being blamed for not getting along. Most people just want to work for a living. The intolerance seems to be coming from the left, not the right.
From what I see, conservatives are perfectly willing to work with ‘progressives’. Too bad the reverse isn’t always true.
High Noon was the most conservative movie ever made? Strange. In the real world that movie actually sort of happened, only when the Dalton gang rode into a town to rob a bank the citizens, surviving civil war veterans, got some guns from the hardware store and proceeded to shoot the shit out of the gang for having the temerity to rob their bank. No one was standing around waiting for the heroic sheriff, apparently the last representative of the state in High Noon, to save the day.
The movie you are referring to is “The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid”, not High Noon.
No, I was referring to High Noon and questioning its conservative premises when compared to an actual incident in history, the Minnesota Raid, during the same time and culture as portrayed in the movie High Noon. I suppose one could argue it’s a classical conservative position to cast the town’s folks as naturally weak, cowardly, and fragile humans more interested in meeting their needs and desires; and thus when danger threatens the arsenal of democracy and the rule of law it requires a heroic progressive sheriff to save the day for the future free world from the parochial natures of those provincial, silly, and greedy town folks.
You have a point there. The “cowardly townsfolk” theme is more popular than ever. Think, “Appaloosa” and “Open Range” for some very recent examples. Although in real life, towns preferred when possible to hire hardcases like Wyatt Earp or Bill Hickock to administer controlled violence as needed.
You’re thinking of the Dalton Gang raid in Coffeyville, Kansas.
http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/99condon/99condon.htm
Make that “nearly totally pacifist sheriff with the totally pacifist wife…” Right down the leftist line at the time it was made.
I favor “The Day the Earth Stood Still” 1951 with Rennie & Neal, where evil people initiate force and fraud, and good and generuos people effectively defend against them… with a bonus Bernard Herrmann theramin theme with orchestral back-up.
Even the Cooper & Neal “Fountainhead” softened the message to the point many who watched the film first didn’t get until they read the novel.
But there are good economic messages buried deeply even in “Blade”, and “Jerry Maguire”.
“Dr. Syn”/”The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” is a bit more complex; made in the VietNam era, with draft dodgers and avoiders of government extortions. It came out certainly not “conservative” or “capitalist”, but not totally within the bounds of leftist orthodoxy, either.
But then maybe that was the intention. Sometimes, to get something accepted that normally would not be, it is buried in other material or attached to a character otherwise “generally recognized as good”. So, if he does this and this and those are clearly accepted in the story and by the other characters and by the audience as good, but he also does this other thing which the other characters accept as “good”, the audience will be more likely to accept it uncritically or at least less critically. And the critics will tend to say “Oh, how nice to see a richer, more complex character.”
Acually Karl Freund thought he was describing the appeasers in Europe after Russia was invaded. He was shocked to discover that the Party turned on him.
Boycott Hollywood. Simple remedy.
“the media hates them and the polls are rigged — amazing how that meme turned around in a hurry after last week’s debate”
That meme did not turn around at all. The media has been been in meltdown mode ever since the debate. Also the polls mey still be skewed in favor of Dems. What is now showing a slight to moderate Romney lead may be much bigger
Let me know when Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins return their Oscars to protest having worked under Clint Eastwood’s direction.
Or, when Beyonce ditches Eastwood’s remake of “A Star is Born”, except I would rather see Ann Hathaway.
Or, when Tatler gets David Mamet to write this post. I would rather read what Mamet has to say, based on his actual experience.
You got your wish. Beyonce dropped from Eastwood movie. Wonderful! I hope her replacement goes through the sky as a new star. Beyonce won’t get the time of day from me, ever.
I don’t folow racists.
Conservative movies tend to get made, and reach the audience without any pre-publicity bias, when they fly under the radar as to their beliefs. If there had been any overt trumpeting of the analogies of Christopher Nolan’s second Batman movie, pre-release, to the War on Terror and George W. Bush, the film would have been savaged by the usual suspects — by the time the connection became part of the public discourse, the movie had debuted to rave reviews, and it was too late to knock it down, and it’s popularity made it impossible to demonize this year’s Nolan-Batman effort, even though the negative connections to the Occupy Wall Street types were out in the open and did come in for their share of critical attacks by the left.
Liberal movies, in contrast, can proclaim their political beliefs even before shooting starts and receive fawning press coverage, up until the point it hits the theaters and (in most recent cases) bombs. Then the movie vanishes into non-person status, since the people who fund and make these films really don’t want the public to know that their ideological takes on current events aren’t connecting with the public.
But people do see through what’s going on, and actors, writers or directors who overtly push beliefs counter to what the majority of the country believes may find themselves still welcome in certain Hollywood and New York circles, but have marginalized themselves as big money-makers (and as a corollary, it is interesting that if you go back over the past 35 or so years of action heroes at the box office who’ve had any staying power, virtually none of them are hard core liberals — they vary from the squishy moderates like Arnold to the strong conservative like Chuck Norris. You can’t play the role and be accepted in it long term by the audience if your real life personality is like Matt Damon’s, which is why Matt Damon never quite makes it as this generation’s new action hero star).
I’d like you to expand on the case that High Noon is the most conservative movie ever made. I don’t get it.
I just might do that.
I wish you would. I can’t imagine anyone making a plausible case that a movie without John Wayne in it could be the “most conservative movie ever made”.
Interesting you mention John Wayne, Rob. In Wayne’s own words at the time he described his film “Rio Bravo” as the conservative answer to the message put forth by “High Noon”. I’ve never seen “High Noon” so I can’t say whether John Wayne’s opinion is true. My understanding is in “High Noon” no one in the town will help the sheriff. They leave him to fight off the bad guys all alone. In “Rio Bravo” the sheriff (John Wayne) won’t accept any help even though many offer it. In the words of Wayne’s character, “all I’d be doing is giving them (the enemy) more targets to shoot at.” Eventually he accepts the help of Ricky Nelson’s character after he sticks his neck out for the sheriff. My guess is Wayne’s opinion compared the townspeople in “High Noon” who refused to help the sheriff, a man in need, to liberalism & Wayne’s own sheriff character in “Rio Bravo” who put others before himself to conservatism. Just a guess.
THANK YOU!
I was just on my way down here to ask that same question. I suppose it’s the same reasoning used by Claire McCaskill to tell Missourians she’s got a ranking of 50 in terms of her political bias in the Senate.
Well sure! If Stalin is your benchmark, then Hitler seems “Conservative” by comparison. I think this article says a lot more about the political leanings of Michael “Not Everything Is About Politics” Walsh than it tells us anything useful about his topic of choice. Deep as his examination of Hollywood might be….
You can bet the guy who made that movie was pink. Check out the Obama cameo at 1:51 and 0 wasn’t even born.
0′s cameo actually starts around 1:47 and ends at 1:51, but you’re point is well-taken.
Dude,
Dr Helen just ate your lunch.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/10/09/no-mr-walsh-conservatives-should-complain-and-complain-loudly/
Mike, I have to disagree with you. The most conservative movie ever made was Red Dawn.
CLEARLY more Conservative than “High Noon”. I’m not 100% sure it’s the the most Conservative movie ever made. It’s definitately nationalistic, and it speaks to some core Conservative axioms…eh, nah. You’re right.
Good call.
“High Noon” the most conservative movie ever made? Please. Not in a world with “Serenity” and “Purgatory” in it.