June 3, 2011 - 4:46 pm
No, not from Poliwood… from the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors. Yes, after the revelations in the publication of Primetime Propaganda by Ben Shapiro, my Poliwood partner-in-crime has ended his longtime association with the prominent entertainment industry group over “liberal bias”.
You can read all about it in… where else… Variety. (The entertainment bible also has a letter of explanation from Lionel – worth a look.)
“Few cancers are more lethal to a civil society than
ideological bigotry. And no one can spread disease better than our industry.”
that was a great resignation letter
+1 L Chetwynd
maybe chetwynd can run for president now
Good for Lionel Chetwynd, but you and Lionel have much work ahead. Along with Robert Downey Jr., John Voight, Rob Lowe, Jerry Bruckheimer and other conservative heavyweights its up to you to start helping bring about the conservative generation. Maybe let the Lefties have Hollywood: why not establish a conservative equivalent in, say, Goodyear, AZ? It can work.
Sad state of affairs.
The left wing bias and discrimination in US academia is unfortunately much, much worse.
It is virtually impossible for a Conservative academic to get tenure at any leading US university department apart from mathematics, physics and engineering.
We must do something about the liberal lemmings. Chetwynd shows he’s a true patriotic American who
believes in equality, even of political thought, even in Hollywood. He’s a hero to me.
What an act of courage and honor. Bravo, Lionel.
A very important train has left the station.
For more than 40 years, we have ceded every major medium to rampant, unchecked, reckless and destructive leftism.
The only way it has been progressive…is that it has gotten progressively worse. The stark and naked, open and notorious acts of distortion, outright lies, attacks on this land of ours, systemic rape of our information stream…has sunk to despicable depths.
No man or woman of honor could simultaneously hold a position within those corrupt and morally bankrupt systems…and…a conscience.
Marxists, small c communists, large C communist front groups, spies, and anarchists have been allowed to float freely among the mere “socialists” in these groups. Quite often, the more rabid were pulling the strings and pushing the buttons.
This has been hidden from the American people and blocked from their view in a conspiracy of epic proportions.
It is time to have this discussion out in the open….not nibbling around the edges like frightened little mice.
Lionel’s statement…the one writ large…and the one penned…were acts of valor, someone willing to stand up and be counted.
Maybe David Mamet is Spartacus. Lionel just rose to his feet to exclaim, “I’m Spartacus”. Bravo, Lionel.
Very sad. His letter is a valuable testament and even a battle-cry. As he says, we seem to have reached a time in our national story that is like “Bleeding Kansas” or even the Civil War. Quite how we got here, I don’t know. My default assumption is that the other fellow is as tolerant and interested in facts and real debate, as I. That assumption gives the cheaters the first move. Which it seems they’ve taken.
Now we have to regain the stolen ground. Slow, hard work.
Chris Bolts: if that happens, I’d be right there to help so fast. Climate change I can get behind!
Amen to the sentiments expressed in his letter. No reason for him to tolerate this nonsense further. Call them out on this crap! We got your back Brother Lionel!
Bravo, sir!
It’s time to take a stand, and to offer a true and solid alternative to the Marxist rot in that industry.
Mr. Chetwynd is mistaken in the quotation he attributed to Dante. Dante did not even allow the moral ciphers entrance into Hell! [Inferno, Canto III]
Please explain what this caucus is.
So let’s make our own films, our own TV shows! The people behind Fox News saw that the majority of this country was being ill-served–when it wasn’t being sneered at–by the networks. It forged its own way and the result is ratings domination.
Why aren’t we doing the same thing? If I can make a well-reviewed indie feature (http://vimeo.com/24578954) for less than a hundred grand, imagine what we can do with real money.
Stop asking permission. Start making movies!
And Lionel Chetwynd, you are a gem.
This subject has particular traction with me as the signs that Mr. Chetwynd speaks to of a 1930s bigotry are in fact there for all to see if they will but stop looking at the facial features of people and just listen to the words; the National Council of the Race sounds a little different in English than Spanish and they get a pass in what is in fact hate speech based on nothing more than ethnicity.
Such groups, and there are many, set up an imagined enemy in order to enable their own bigotry and that enemy is white and conservative and works in a network of good ol’ boy privilege as if the entirety of America is some stereotype of a Southern small town and we’re all gum chewing sheriffs out to keep “the coloreds and gays and wimmens” down.
Hate speech is hate speech and bigotry is bigotry: we have to keep a sharp eye out for organizations that advocate against bigotry that can in a few years in turn become the actual purveyors of bigotry. There is no doubt in my mind that this has happened, for example, in the case of the NAACP, which has gone from noble to depraved in just a few decades.
Bigotry itself always claims to defend and sometimes and that should be a clue as to how easy it is to slip into the wrong mode and how “defenders” like the Nazis and KKK were always in the wrong mode.
It is plain to see now that when it comes to the civil rights movements of the 60s going into the 70s that it has been a mitigated disaster of sorts. This is not because of the goals, which were great, but how the people who could most benefit from those goals took the ball and ran with it.
They have taken that ball and run into self-segregation and advocacy by race and gender, running in the exact opposite direction from what everyone hoped and expected in 1965.
We have come to confuse culture and bigotry in ways that are disturbing: there is a difference between a Jewish or Polish organization or even a group of comic book enthusiasts who have common cultural interests and engineering a “culture” out of sexual orientation, gender and race.
Do such things as mathematics, writing skills or journalism really have a dimension of race and gender and sexual orientation? Really? If I am a poet do I need to go to gay or black or Latino or white poetry symposiums?
If a single person in our congress had the balls of Mr. Chetwynd they would resign in the face of such things as the Congressional Black Caucus and similar Latino political groups and NOW and on and on.
It is time to reset the clock and our ethics as well and start acting like adults and talking DOWN to such groups rather than listening in rapt attention while Bill Moyers sits down and interviews such utter racists as James Cone and Jeremiah Wright on PBS.
GLAAD takes exception to Kobe Bryant uttering a gay slur during a basketball game? That’s fine with me. Let them then think about balance and JUSTICE for all rather than for gays and go after men who hold contests in front of children and in public outdoors where the winner is a man who simulates sex with Jesus Christ. “Offensive” is not a word with a “reserved” sign on it.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and we should stop hiding politics among creative arts groups or bigotry amongst anti-bigotry groups.
If someone thinks a screenplay has a racial or political dimension or likes Latinos just because they like Latinos then come out and say it and stop pretending an entire group of faceless people are bigots as an excuse and stop wearing t-shirts that say, “I am not a bigot” when in fact you are the worse bigot and the only one slinging around such nonsense.
In an ironic turn of events, it seems as if the only people who actually wish to carry on a tradition of upholding law with an eye towards the greater good and justice for all are accused of being the biggest racists. To me this is a sure sign that in fact that it is the only tradition that is standing in the way of bigotry rather than indulging in it.
In this larger group of largely neutral European Americans, there is no sign, absolutely none, of a mainstream rhetoric in the way of articles, essays, teaching courses, lecture circuit or books that speaks in any way to such a large and racist presence. This is why such themes as racism 2.0 and white privilege and hate crimes must be dredged up from a deep well of shallow and cheap psychology, bereft of cause and effect.
In my opinion anyone who thinks an association of white, black or Asian journalists is a good idea needs to be taken to the frickin’ cleaners and called out as smug and moralizing bigots.
Maybe we conservatives would pick a week during ratings sweep when we don’t watch TV or cable. Instead we go out and do something instead. Maybe if we did that once or twice we might get the liberals to wake up. Or we politely remind the sponsors that we take exception to what is being shown and we will rethink buying their products.
Lionel, don’t resign. Stay in there and lob hypocrisy grenades at them, one after another.
Mr. Chetwynd’s letter is extremely well-written (of course, we would expect nothing less) and, without rancor, made the reasons for his resignation crystal clear. The question now is whether or not the entertainment industry will do anything about it. In my experience, trying to debate or explain reality to a leftist/liberal/progressive is a waste of breath. These folks are so insulated in their PC bubble world that nothing that Mr. Chetwynd said in his letter will alter their worldview. The only recourse left for those of us who are consumers of their politically skewed products is to ignore them and hope that market forces jerk them back to reality. Having said that, I am not counting on that happening soon.
Thank you Lionel Chetwynd. You are indeed a man of integrity – a quality sorely lacking anymore.
America could use a lot more like Lionel Chetwynd.