Hollywood values
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Two well-known politicians first gained popularity working in Hollywood: [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] and [[Ronald Reagan]]. Perhaps there is a clue in that? | Two well-known politicians first gained popularity working in Hollywood: [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] and [[Ronald Reagan]]. Perhaps there is a clue in that? | ||
| − | Some of the strongest political voices against Hollywood Values are currently pandering to the film, television and music industries with their support of the [[Stop Online Piracy Act]] and the PROTECT IP Act (in the United States House and Senate, respectively).<ref>[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577142893718069820.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories ''Wall Street Journal'' -- "Brake the Internet Pirates"]</ref><ref>[http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57359403-261/who-is-winning-sopa-read-rupe-murdochs-twitter-feed/ Rupert Murdoch supports SOPA]</ref> Apparently, those godless ''nerds'' in Silicon Valley are officially a bigger threat than Hollywood. On the other hand, Breitbart also opposes the bills. Hey, a [[stopped clock]]... | + | Some of the strongest political voices against Hollywood Values are currently pandering to the film, television and music industries with their support of the [[Stop Online Piracy Act]] and the PROTECT IP Act (in the United States House and Senate, respectively).<ref>[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577142893718069820.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories ''Wall Street Journal'' -- "Brake the Internet Pirates"]</ref><ref>[http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57359403-261/who-is-winning-sopa-read-rupe-murdochs-twitter-feed/ Rupert Murdoch supports SOPA]</ref> Apparently, those godless ''nerds'' in Silicon Valley are officially a bigger threat than Hollywood. On the other hand, Breitbart also opposes the bills.<ref>[http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sright/2012/01/18/left-and-right-unite-against-hollywoods-failed-sopa-overreach/ Big Hollywood -- "Left and Right Unite Against Hollywood's Failed SOPA Outreach]</ref> Hey, a [[stopped clock]]... |
==References== | ==References== | ||
Revision as of 05:17, 20 January 2012
Value is at least as much an economic as a cultural concept. So any proper definition of Hollywood values ought to begin with the astonishing costs of producing major films and the "blink to make sure it's real" real estate market. The production values of films movies made in Hollywood cost eight or even nine figures (yes, liberal money!), and the value of real estate in Hollywood shocks the little people who can only imagine having the income to buy a little wedge.
Using the alternate definition of the word, as in "family values", "Hollywood values" are... wait... does Hollywood even have a uniform belief system? Even metaphorical wars need real enemies, or at least imagined enemies with empirical referents. The Culture War needs enemies. Who better than those objects of envy in Tinseltown?
Contents |
Overview
Hollywood, by its very nature, attracts a certain class of people. Much of the American film industry was established by first- and second-generation Jewish, Slavic and Irish Americans who found themselves locked out of much of the WASP-dominated social and cultural life of the early 20th century. Film, as well as similar industries like vaudeville and musical theater, was considered to be vulgar entertainment suited only for the lowest common denominator, and thus, was scorned by the era's cultural elites, who had instead a fondness for literature and more "respectable" forms of theater. Yet there was a demand for such entertainment, and since nature abhors a vacuum, the immigrants rushed in to take the jobs that the Real Americans™ turned their noses towards because it was beneath them.[1][2]
So now you've got a new and rapidly growing (in both wealth and cultural power) field of entertainment that was established by, and is thoroughly dominated by, immigrants, a good number of whom are Jewish[3], and most of whom don't fit in the culture of early 20th century America. In addition, a large number of WASPs who also find themselves alienated from "traditional" cultural life, including some who may have a few skeletons in the, uh, closet, are themselves migrating to Hollywood because it's the only table in the cafeteria where outcasts like them are welcome. Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, money, and new media, all in one place... you can see where this is going.
It wasn't even a decade after the first Hollywood studios had established themselves when the first great moral panic arose from Real America™ regarding the "immorality" of Hollywood. The Fatty Arbuckle scandal[4] and incidents like it led to calls for government censorship of film, which didn't happen only because Hollywood, seeing what it was facing, pre-empted such efforts with censorship of their own. The Motion Picture Production Code[5], or the Hays Code, bound Hollywood's films to a strict set of guidelines for decency and morality until the mid-'60s.
While this placated America's self-appointed moral guardians for a time, after World War II it would prove to be insufficient, as there was now a new threat to America's bodily fluids: communism![6] The 1950s were the age of Joe McCarthy and the second Red Scare, and Americans were concerned that all those Eastern Europeans in Hollywood were a fifth column that would turn American media into a Red propaganda machine. Hundreds of writers, actors and directors lost their careers in the Hollywood blacklist of the '50s. Simultaneously, the notorious tabloid Confidential combined the sleaze of the News of the World with the rabidly right-wing politics of Fox News, going into overdrive reporting on all the misdoings of Hollywood's stars -- which, at the time, included such things as homosexuality and even interracial dating -- and delivering an irreparable blow to the idea that the Hays Code had cleaned up Hollywood in any meaningful way. This being the age of Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best, the usual suspects reacted like they usually did.
But something different happened. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1952[7] that film was protected speech under the First Amendment, and with the '60s rolling in, nobody cared about indecency anymore. Besides, Hollywood in the '60s had much bigger problems than their public image -- namely, competition from television and foreign films, the latter of which was not bound by the Hays Code and which, thanks to the Miracle Decision, could not be legally censored. Under increasing pressure from foreign (especially British) film studios and looking for an angle from which to compete with TV, Hollywood chucked the Hays Code straight out the window in the mid-'60s and replaced it with the MPAA's film rating system, allowing for far greater leeway in content. The result of this was... well, try this. Ask any film student or critic what the greatest decade for American cinema was. The answer you will get is probably "the 1970s", a.k.a. the decade after the Hays Code was buried. 'Nuff said.
In other words, Hollywood didn't suddenly become "immoral" because the liberals running the show wanted to foist decadent values onto American society, they became "immoral" because it was the only way that they could hope to stay in business against foreign competitors. In other words, it was pure capitalism. And don't conservatives always tell us to "Buy American" and not support those evil foreigners, and that capitalism is the greatest economic system the world has ever seen?[8]
Today
The perception that Hollywood is a subversive force in American culture, spreading liberalism and secularism and undermining Real American Values™, is still widespread within a certain section of the populace. Andrew Breitbart, for example, has built a cottage industry promoting the idea that conservative actors and filmmakers are actively persecuted by Hollywood's "liberal elite" and prevented from getting work in the film industry.[9]
Let us ignore the fact that the "liberal" Hollywood machine cranked out three gung-ho Transformers movies that got progressively more militaristic as the franchise went on[10], as well as the two-hour Marine recruitment ad known as Battle: Los Angeles and the pro-PATRIOT Act, pro-War on Terror blockbuster The Dark Knight.[11] Or the fact that they have shown themselves, over and over again, to be decades behind the times when it comes to what's acceptable regarding race, gender, and indeed just about any cultural issue.[12] Or the fact that Adam Sandler, a registered Republican who recently made a hit comedy built almost entirely on a homophobic premise[13], is still one of the biggest comedic stars in Hollywood. Or that it's nearly impossible for a mainstream Hollywood movie to portray an atheist character who isn't a jerk (or, if female, a slut), didn't get dealt a bad hand by life (thus explaining why they don't believe in God), and/or doesn't convert to Christianity by the end of the movie.[14]
Yes. Hollywood is clearly a very liberal place.
Something to think about
Two well-known politicians first gained popularity working in Hollywood: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Reagan. Perhaps there is a clue in that?
Some of the strongest political voices against Hollywood Values are currently pandering to the film, television and music industries with their support of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act (in the United States House and Senate, respectively).[15][16] Apparently, those godless nerds in Silicon Valley are officially a bigger threat than Hollywood. On the other hand, Breitbart also opposes the bills.[17] Hey, a stopped clock...
References
- ↑ Cinema of the United States -- Rise of Hollywood
- ↑ Some things never change.
- ↑ Before certain events made such views unacceptable in polite company, many early rantings against "liberal Hollywood" frequently mentioned "Jewish Hollywood" in the exact same breath. This is not a coincidence -- to this day, anti-Semites still use the trope of "Hollywood values" to claim that the entertainment industry is being controlled by the Jews to subvert the white race.
- ↑ Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
- ↑ Motion Picture Production Code
- ↑ Say it in your best '50s instructional video voice. Feels good, right?
- ↑ Joseph Burstyn, Inc v. Wilson, also known as the "Miracle Decision" after the film involved.
- ↑ Actually, this may go a long way towards explaining why the original fascists were opposed to capitalism.
- ↑ About that...
- ↑ For the love of God, Michael Bay, people go to see Transformers movies to watch Autobots beating the snot out of Decepticons, not to see the US Army hog all the glory! </nerd rage>
- ↑ Not that The Dark Knight is a bad film. Hell, even the most pacifistic bleeding-heart will tell you that it was awesome. It's just something to think about for anybody who claims that you can't get a big conservative film made in Hollywood.
- ↑ Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the first Hollywood movie about an interracial couple that didn't demonize the idea, came out in 1967, by which time most of America outside the South was fine with the idea of interracial marriage.
- ↑ I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007)
- ↑ TV Tropes: Hollywood Atheist
- ↑ Wall Street Journal -- "Brake the Internet Pirates"
- ↑ Rupert Murdoch supports SOPA
- ↑ Big Hollywood -- "Left and Right Unite Against Hollywood's Failed SOPA Outreach